Review: Drewry's Lager

A few weeks ago I had someone donate some beer money so this is a special beer review just for them! I've been wanting to try this for many years ago - a beer that has its history linking back directly to Manitoba! Drewry's Brewing started up in Winnipeg (at Main & Redwood) back in 1877, they were quite a successful brewery that ended up expanding to Indiana and Detroit. The Canadian plant in Winnipeg ended up being bought up by Canadian Breweries (Carling O'Keefe - eventually acquired by Molson) and the Winnipeg plant ended up ceasing to exist in the 1990s.. which my aunt states was because my mom wasn't drinking enough beer to keep it open!

Out of all of Drewry's beers, their Standard Lager was still being produced by Molson until this past autumn (2022) when it was announced that it would be discontinued. Standard Lager had a big cult following in Winnipeg with it being the hipster beer of choice and the go-to beer at concerts in Winnipeg at venues like Times Change(d). 

Fast forward to now, Standard Lager no longer exists except in our memory (or old stock) but Drewry's Brewing reopened around a decade ago and it's now available in Manitoba. Drewry's is now based out of Black River Falls, Wisconsin and sent their Lager to Manitoba. Drewry's Lager, at $2.75/355mL bottle, it's not a bad deal at all.

Appearance: The first thing my dad said by just looking at the label was "that's a Canadian beer!", I guess the label looked familiar to him somehow. The beer pours a mostly opaque orange body with a light amount of carbonation in the body as well as a light amount of head on top of the beer - bubbles here and there but not everywhere.

Aroma: Quite a crisp, sweet, malt-forward lager, floral hop, notes of straw and honey. Pretty self explanatory.

Taste: Very sweet for a lager with a lot of honey-like presence with it, a good deal of straw, a bit of a hop bitterness poking in, hint of caramel and a slight woodiness to it. Stronger than most lagers I've had in recent memory.

Overall Thoughts: The very first thing it reminded me of was Big Rock's beer, it definitely had a Western Canadian 90s-mid 2000s beer kind of vibe to it. Solid lager but a bit hoppier and sweeter than I expected. Will definitely drink again though and I hope to see Drewry's somehow get the recipe for Standard Lager back, there's many Manitobans who would love to drink that again!