The design of this beer had to start with using great malt. This beer is built using a base of golden promise and a mix of medium crystal and chocolate malt for color and flavor. With this we used some Japan grown raw barley and raw rye malt. This blend of malts lends to a soft malt body with notes chocolate, toffee, and caramel. The raw malts add a bit of spice and body to the overall mouthfeel. Hops were kept simple and meant to give a soft bitterness to balance out the malt sweetness and add a touch of herbal character to add depth of flavor. The beer was then fermented with a hybrid Lager strain designed to give the beer is crisp dry finish and soft aromatics. Some light fruity esters blend with the slight booziness from the alcohol to give semi sweet fruit character on the finish. This style has always been a favorite of mine as it blends some of the beautiful flavor character with darker roasted and caramel malts but does it in a soft drinkable format.