When it comes to beer, it’s always nice to consider your local options. Support your local brewer I always say, although it’s fine to support non-local brewers as well (they’re local to somebody after all). Beer enthusiasts are a fickle lot, and we do tend to bounce around frequently between beers. Some beer geeks these days call themselves “tickers”, and their goal in life is to try a beer once and then never drink it again. I think that’s one of the most ridiculous things that I’ve ever heard of personally. I drink different beers to experience them, and I go back to the ones I’ve truly enjoyed. Often local ones (they’re the easiest to get after all).

Local Option Bierwerker Voku Hila is not a local beer for me, though that didn’t stop me from drinking it. As I said, it’s local for somebody. I think. That’s because the brewery (Local Option Bierwerker) isn’t really a brewery at all, it seems to be more of a Chicago beer bar that contracts out a few brews of its own. They may have an onsite brewing system, but if they do, they don’t mention it on their website.

Instead, they list about 28 taps and a number of bottled beers plus a food menu. Several of their draft beers are of the Local Option brand. My bottle of Voku Hila, which I bought at Greene’s in Atlanta, was brewed and bottled under contract by Pub Dog in Westminster, Maryland.

The brewery says this about the beer on their website:

Vokuhila is a strong pale lager. This helles bock is golden in color with a large, creamy, persistent white head; aromatically driven by robust toast and bread notes derived from continental European pale malts with moderate spice from noble German hops.  Vokulhila will be appreciated by lager and mullet enthusiasts alike.

The label has a very Germanic theme, and I can appreciate the sentiment Feiern in Dem Bock! (Celebrate the bock) on the label. Voku Hila doesn’t really translate but sound slike Hill People to me. Their website offers the slogan Scheiss Bier kann todlich sein (shit beer can be fatal). I’ll drink to that.

Local Option Bierwerker Voku Hila has an alcohol content of 6.5% by volume. I paid $6.99 for a half liter bottle, a bit high I think, and they don’t give it away at the Local Option bar either. The website says it will run you $6.00 for a 12-ounce draft. Can’t they give you a pint at that price?

Local Option Bierwerker Voku Hila pours to a pale orange yellow color with a thick rocky head and a simply amazing nose bursting with fresh bready biscuit malt notes and a hint of cooked corn. Taking a sip, the beer has those same wonderfully fresh and slightly nutty notes in the palate. I get a bit more bready notes up front combined with a rich sweet rock candy maltiness and a hint of the cooked corn notes the nose promises, which I’ve always found in the best examples of the style. At the last it’s nicely balanced with a very Teutonic herbal grassy and quite lingering dry hop bitter bite.

Though pricey(a half star demerit for that), this is an excellent Maibock/Pale Bock/Helles Bock. It’s a beer that certainly makes me glad I’m not a ticker-because now that I’ve had it, I would surely buy it again.



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