PC Pilsener
Big Rock Brewery

Had issues lately where the beer tastes skunky. Been buying PC Pilsener for over 5 years now and don't know if it's manufacturing or lack of rotation of product by the store as there are no longer expiry dates on the cases. Enjoy the beer when it's good but if it persists might have to switch to another brand!

Against a proper Pils or Bohemian Pilsner this would score poorly, but comparing it to other industrial larger beers it's not half bad and it is half the price. I poured one from a can in to a proper Pilsner glass. The lack of head retention was alarming, but the colour was good and a pleasing amount of carbonation. Aroma was barely present, hint of corn, no hop aroma. Taste was pretty neutral, well balanced, slight hop bitterness, I wash there was a bit more hop. Mouthfeel is thin with fairly effervescent carbonation. If I could only have one beer, this wouldn't be it, but it is at least as good as any BMC brand, a fraction of the cost and not to bad to guzzle a few at the lake or after mowing the lawn.

Look 3.25 smell 3.25 taste 3.25 feel overall 3.25

a not bad pilsner for what you buy and what you get in a pack of 12.

355ml can, made for the Real Canadian Liquorstore chain in Western Canada, a single from that little stand near the checkout.

This beer pours a clear, bright pale golden straw colour, with three fingers of puffy, very weakly foamy, and mostly fizzy dirty white head, which leaves a few sparse islets of sudsy lace around the glass as it quickly abates.

It smells of sharp, phenolic yeast, dry corn husks, bland pale grainy malt, a bit of black pepper, and weedy, dead leafy, and moderately skunky hops. The taste is mostly underwhelming corn/rice sweetness, tempered barely by a hint of pale malt, ailing yeast (it's Big Rock, all right!), faint drupe fruit notes, and strangely (ok, not so much) faded earthy, musty, and at least not particularly skunky now, hops.

The bubbles are fairly wan in their attempt at some sort of supportive ideal, the body medium-light in weight, and smooth, I guess, but equally pithy and clammy if you really want to open that can of worms. It finishes on the sweet side, all corn, rice, and beleaguered grain, all the the time.

There are hints of an actual old-school Pilsener here, beyond the store's insistence on naming it as such - the cheap malt-bill aside, it's the hops that resonate, like a suppressed bad memory for me, with suggestions of gasohol, and muddled farmer's field vegetation, that aren't off the mark by as much as I would have thought. Classify this with AGD and that lot - better bang for your buck than Minhas, etc.