River Horse Brewing likes to think of itself as "New Jersey's brewery". If you've been passed by one of their delivery trucks on the Jersey Turnpike as I have, then you already know this. The Garden state, long overshadowed by its neighbors in Pennsylvania (at least in a beer sense), is finally coming out in its own right however. With excellent beers brewed by such micros as Heavy Hitters, High Point, Flying Fish, and River Horse, that's no surprise. A river horse is a hippo, and it's no secret that River Horse Brewing would like to be the 800-pound hippo of the New Jersey brewing scene. In business since 1994, the company has recently increased it's distribution area into New England.

The bottle I'm sampling tonight has a white space on the bottom back label that displays the words "BEST BEFORE" in small print, but curiously no date has been entered. River Horse Lager is deep gold in color with a lasting creamy head formation and a clean, unremarkable nose. Carbonation is high; tiny bubbles sparkle from the bottom of the glass to the head for quite some time. The palate is light bodied and lager-clean, crisp but with a good mouthfeel and firm body. The finish is balanced and has a slightly grassy hop character. This is a lager that an experienced beer lover can enjoy, but it won't scare away the newcomer to craft beer. The brewery calls it "a traditional German-style golden lager". It isn't hoppy enough to be a pilsner or Export, but the soft malt character would put it lightly in the Munich helles category in my opinion.

I like this with pasta. I hadn't decided on what to make for dinner tonight , but the light hoppiness and crisp malt body inspired me to try it with angel hair pasta tossed with fresh grated parmesan, chunks of garden tomato and a touch of light cream. The pairing worked extremely well.