Purity Pilsener
Walkerville Brewery

On tap and chilled, in a pint glass at The Lumberjack on Tecumseh Rd. East in nearby Windsor. Leading an outing of my Monthly Dinner Group. My third beer from the Windsor, ON brewery.

 

Pours a beautiful clear gold colour with visible bubbles floating to the top. A short-lived whispy white head sat on top. Corny and grainy on the nose. Yeasty and bready on the taste with a bit of a metallic note. Bubbly mouthfeel
Aug 8 2022

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. An LCBO purchase for $3.20 CDN.

Appearance - a small half finger of white head rests on top of a brilliantly clear golden beer. Not a ton of visible carbonation and the head fizzles off quick.

Smell - clean and grainy with a subtle soapy aroma. Not a lot else, other than a generic clean pilsner smell.

Taste - clean, plenty of great with subtle malt sweetness. Hops are reigned in. Somewhat floral and a little grassy to close.

Mouthfeel - medium light bodied, crisp with middling to light carbonation. Very easy drinking an enjoyable.

Overall - a pretty solid above average pilsner, with no discernible flaws. A fine easy drinking craft brew. Matches up well with better German pilsners.

473 mL can from the LCBO; coded 8173, which (if it's an ordinal date) should translate to a canning date of Jun 22 2018. Served barely chilled. I should give this beer bonus marks for actually spelling 'pilsener' correctly on the label.

Pours with a crystal clear complexion; it's pale golden-yellow body is initially capped off with one centimetre of fizzy white foam that is in a hurry to be someplace else. It has vanished completely by the 90 second mark - a sickly-thin collar remains, in lieu of any sort of cap or lacing. Looks a bit flat to me, but the aroma is on point - grainy pilsener malts and a touch of doughy sweetness are evident, with minor hints of grassy hay and lemon peel. It's the type of nose that I've come to expect from a true pils - nothing exciting, but clean and crisp to a fault.

This is a respectable, properly brewed pils that doesn't appear to have had any corners cut. It tastes purely of barley malt and continental hops - cereal grains dominate throughout the sip, augmented first by a mild bready/doughy sweetness, and then finally by a grassy, floral, mildly spicy hop bitterness that ties the flavour profile up rather nicely. Light-ish in body, with moderately low carbonation levels that gently prickle the palate; that's really the only aspect of this brew that I feel is in real need of improvement, as the texture is lacking that crisp bite I've come to expect from a pilsener. Still, this minor drawback has little impact on its (extraordinarily high) drinkability.

Final Grade: 3.79, a B+. Walkerville's Purity Pilsener does justice to one of my favourite styles, while also adhering to the letter and spirit of the Reinheitsgebot. While the German exports are still a fair bit cheaper, I will say that this lager is priced more competitively than the majority of domestic pilseners (which are rarely less than $3 per tallboy). Possibly my favourite Walkerville product to date - any BA with a predilection for European lagers will want to give this one a spin, and as for myself? I'm certain I'll return to it in the future.