Amarillo Pilsner
Persephone Brewing

 

Poured from a 473ml can. 25 IBU.
A: Pours a pretty clear golden amber with a good thick white head.
S: A mild nose for a pilsner.
T: A nice hop bite for a pilsner.
F: Light body with a very clean finish.
O: Not to bad a pilsner i like it is in cans now.

Poured into a Seattle Beer Week pint glass. Pours a medium golden amber with a finger plus white head with great retention and thick lacing. Aroma of lightly grainy pilsner malt, citrus hops, orange and grapefruit citrus. Flavor is grainy, lightly husky malt, citrus and lightly piney hops, grapefruit, light orange and lemon, hints of mixed fruit. Finishes with robust citrus bitterness and grainy malt, a little breadiness in the aftertaste. Medium bodied with light creaminess. A very nice local take on the Czech pilsner style, with a bit more robust hopping than traditional, but the Amarillo shines here in good balance with the malt. With IPAs now trending towards low bitterness, I'm not going to argue with some great herbal hop flavor and forward bitterness in a pilsner. I don't buy pils as often as I should; they are sometimes somewhat lackluster, but better ones like this are a fine way to spend the evening. This kept my taste buds happy throughout the bottle. Nice flavor at a moderate ABV. I'll try this brewery again. I'm probably rating the flavor a bit too high as to style, but I really liked this, so I'm not budging.

 

 

 

650ml bottle - now we've come to single-hopped pilsners, good to know.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, pale golden yellow colour, with a teeming tower of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly bubbly bone-white head, which leaves some sudsy archipelago lace around the glass as it slowly and lazily subsides.

It smells of grainy and crackery pale malt, tame resinous pine notes, a muddled tropical fruitiness, and further leafy, weedy, and musky green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy pale malt, white saltine crackers, acrid pine needles, a thin hard water flintiness, still hard to discern exotic fruit, and more testy leafy, herbal, and estery floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite active in its palate-challenging frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and generally smooth, just a touch of complex bitterness maybe taking things down a minor notch or so. It finishes trending dry, the crackery malt and zingy hops definitely leaning in that direction.

Overall, this is a cracking-good version of the style, with the overabundance of Amarillo hop essences not causing a problem in the least. Crisp, and very easy to put back, as yes, the end days of summer pass before us (if they already haven't in my neck of the woods).