The Last Of The Warm Bohemians
Refined Fool Brewing Co.

750 mL bottle from the brewery; served well-chilled.

Pours a translucent golden colour, sporting roughly one finger of soapy, bubbly white foam on top. It fades away steadily over the next couple of minutes, leaving behind a frothy collar and thin cap, in addition to a few patches of lacing. This Czech pilsener certainly looks authentic, and the aroma backs that up - clean, grainy pale barley malts, a bit of breadiness, and some grassy, lightly floral hops with a touch of lemon zest. A hint of butterscotch sweetness also pokes through as the beer warms up.

The taste follows the nose pretty closely. Clean pilsener malt flavour; grainy, doughy and a little bready, with subtle diacetyl. The default selection would be Saaz, but I can't really say for sure if that's the hop that was used here - whatever strain it was, it has an appropriate grassy, lemony, mildly floral character. At 40 IBUs, the bitterness is significant (and exceeds that of a lot of other examples of this style), but not enough to be a distraction. Light-bodied, with moderate carbonation levels that lightly prickle the palate. Feels fairly crisp in the mouth, and highly refreshing.

Final Grade: 3.68, a B grade. I'll admit; I can be pretty picky when it comes to pilseners, especially those of the Czech persuasion. But The Last of the Warm Bohemians is one of those rare domestic lagers that actually manages to match up to the imports. This is not a style of beer that tends to garner much fanfare from the sort of beer drinkers that frequent this site - but for what it's worth, I think this is a decent example and I'm certainly enjoying my bottle. Like their Troll Toll, this is a beer that is familiar enough to be enjoyed by the unadventurous, but is also well-made enough that fans of the style should have little trouble appreciating it.