I was skeptical of this recipe, but ordered it anyway. The amount of Northern Brewer hops didn't seem very Germanic to me. It brewed up easily and has come out very tasty, but it is, as I suspected, way too hoppy and not very German-tasting. The double addition of Northern Brewer just overpowers all the other subtle flavors (malt, yeast etc) with a strong West Coast pinecone, hop bitterness. Honestly, its color and taste reminds me of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Not that that's bad, but definitely not the style I was hoping to brew. If I made this again, I'd put in just 1oz of Hallertau for 60mins and again at flameout and call it a day. Again, not a bad tasting brew, but if you're after a crisp continental lager, this ain't it.

Gotta hand it to those Germans. There's more to Bavaria than BMW.

I can't rate the beer yet. It's still in the fermenter, but delivery was fast and the packaging was outstanding.

I was torn between giving this 4 or 5 stars, mainly because I love how this beer turned out so much, but after researching Munich Helles this is not a 100% accurate representation of the style. Taste = 5/5 stars (which is most important) but I understand from 80 classic styles (Jamil Z.) there is to be 0% crystal malt in this style. Also the O.G. is outside of style guideline (too high beer smith 2). I'm also 100% sure I could not tell the difference in a blind test, and will drink every drop out of my keg.My numbers: O.G. 1.052 (I had low eff. 65% due to my grinder settings, I think more beer is assumes 70%)F.G.: 1.013Yeast: 2 packs Wyeast 2124 into 2L starter, fermented at 52F for about 6 days then raised 2F per day to 70F, moved to keg and put on gas at 36F for 2 months

This is a great lager! Very good malt flavor with bitter hops in the after taste. I made it with Saflager 23 and it has just a hint of banana in the aroma.

My first lager and it was very good. I tried to speed things up for a competition and it showed on my scores for this beer. However the beer just got better and better with time and I know it would have won an award if I would have let it lager properly. Everyone that had this beer loved the flavor and kept going back. I am not that much of a lager fan (read Budweiser, Coors, Miller, etc.) but I too loved the flavor. Yes it is true, the yeast is not included with the kit. It never has been! The options are at the bottom of the page when you pick the beer. I thought this recipe deserved better than 3 stars just because someone can't read that yeast is not included.