Guild Wars 2 Metal Legion Lager

Here at The Gamers’ Temple we don’t usually do beer reviews, but then again you don’t often see beer-game cross promotions. Brewery Ommegang out of Cooperstown, New York has teamed with Guild Wars 2 to produce Metal Legion Lager. The story behind the beer is that it is a favorite of the Charr to enjoy after battle, but there’s more than this fanciful connection. The brewery is giving away codes for an in-game brewery chair. Or rather gave away codes, they went fast and were all gone by the time I sat down to write this. You can still get the beer, though. Last I checked it was still in stock at my local Total Wine & More store here in Los Angeles. The can features some really cool artwork, so if you collect cans or objets de’ gaming art it will look good on a shelf in your gaming room next to your Funko Pops.

As for the beer, it’s a dark lager in the Belgium style. Normally lagers aren’t my style, I’d take one over the over-hopped and way too ubiquitous IPA, but they’re generally too bland and uninteresting for my palate. I was pleasantly surprised by this dark lager, though. It drank more like an ale, with really nice malt notes and even some hints of coffee and chocolate that you’d not expect from a lager style beer. The linger went from the cocoa notes to a taste of baking spices that gave it a really nice mouth feel that lingered after each sip. You got to hand it to the Charr, they really know a good beer to raise after coming back from battle. For us humans, it’s a perfectly enjoyable beer to appreciate while slaying virtual enemies.