Pils
Private Landbrauerei Schönram

 

A well balanced Pilsner; subtle sweet & hoppy flavors. Crushable & would drink again.

 

 

 

 

Pours a crystal clear yellow with fine, soapy head.

Smell is clean, crisp and bready, with some herbal hints. Notes of knäckebröd, citrus peel and some rye.

Taste is clean, crisp and snappy. Notes of white bread, rye, knäckebröd and citrus, with some floral and herbal hints. Solid bitterness and a clean, dry finish.

Mouthfeel is medium, a bit creamy and well carbonated.

Overall, a terrific German pilsner, clean, crisp and drinkable.

This beer is all over the place. Odd flavors showing up in this one, the flavors seem to change from sip to sip. Goes from being not too bad to chewing on aluminum foil. One of the strangest beers I’ve had recently. I really wanted to like this one since it’s available locally. I guess I’ll try it again, not sure if I’m looking forward to it

Firstly, the labelling has not changed at all since the 2006 photo above!
Blind-tasted except for the beer's name and brewery/country, zero reviews below read (yet!)...
L- Pale straw, pours clear with a 1Cm head of larger off-white bubbles. Lots of fast rising CO2 too. [email protected]+10mins head holds well and rising CO2 continues.
S- Mild, just some... possibly dry hops.
T- Ooph yes, it seems so, this is strikingly hoppy-dry, really, and it leaves a fat dry brush-stroke across the roof of my mouth and tongue. The hops are prominent and bright, I briefly wondered if I was getting a small sub-facet of citrus but no more, and waaaay unlikely from any beer labelled as 'Since 1780'!
F- It's notably hoppy-dry and yet it has decent body to it too. In that respect it's different from say Pilsener Urquell which (IMHO) is highly hopped and relatively lacking in malts/body. It's still net-net a notably hoppy beer but not austere.
O- Pleasant enough and good for people who enjoy a higher-hop level than I favour as routine.
Review2011/scoring all done, now the reveal, I get to read the lables to see what I missed! ==> Brewed with Tettnang and Hallertau hops.
500ml bottle BB: 03/09/2021 £2.40 Bought from TremblingMadness, York/UK as part of a large pick-your own consignment to London.

pale straw; firm head of foam; honey and citrus on the nose; slightly sweet, light, refreshing hoppy finish over some yeasty malt

 

 

 

Fair warning: this bottle is about 5 days past its best by date. But, that's about the freshness I can expect to find it at so this is what others probably can expect to find on their shelves

I would love to find this thing fresh. Its incredibly crisp and bright and while.the nose is dull and there is a bit of a dudly edge on the end of the taste it is still a wonderfully enjoyable brew

Lovely pale straw liquid donning a dense cap of snow white foam
Nose is mildly cracker y and slightly yeasty. Probably hasn't benefitted from age.
Taste is very pleasantly bright and crackery. The finish shows it's age with some faded flavors but really still a very very pleasant bright earthy beer
Mouth feel is excellent, light and crisp, very drinkable

 

 

 

 

super delicious pilsner!!! Perfect balance of bitter and sweet and great body, fantastic beer! It's light yet full body at the same time and great mouthfeel and carbonation.
Highly recommended, you won't find a better pilsner.
Anyone who doesn't give this beer excellent marks either got a bad bottle or doesn't know what a pilsner is supposed to taste like.

 

 

16.9 oz. Bottle
Best By: 21.09.19

Poured into a Squatters true pint glass a pretty nice clean/clear dark golden yellow color, pretty nice carbonation, with a nice thick/creamy two-finger white head, which leaves some sticky lacing behind. The nose is malty, hoppy, with a nice touch of lemon, bready, kinda wheaty. The taste is nice, malty, hoppy, with some lemon, bready, wheaty, nice little sweetness. Medium body, ABV is hidden pretty nicely, with a nice little dry/bitter finish. Overall, a pretty tasty beer, a nice thirst quencher.

 

Taste: Snappy cracker crisp lemon citrus dry hop finish. Same with the nose. Straw color hue, mostly clear, big foam head with ringed lattice. Medium to med/light body. Had some 2 years ago.

Golden haze look. Smells hoppy. Well balanced flavor between hops and malt. Medium body, properly carbonated. Good aftertaste (bitter vanilla). I preferred this to the weihenstephaner due to the better balance of flavors (weihenstephan's Pils was a bit too hoppy) and this one smells better (no skunk smell).

 

Pours a beautiful golden clear color with a big, froth white head.

Smells of fresh cut hay, which got a faint honey note to it, creating a gentle flowery, crackery interplay. Offers just a note of toffee atop this foundation with a light herb appearance.

Drinks incredibly soft and smooth for a Pils, while the beer manages to create a late, sparkling effervescence. This results in a great drinking experience, which appears perfectly balanced and refreshing.

Tastes of an astonishing initial aqueous softness, which slowly develops a soft sparkliness, inviting toffee malts and a well dosed amount of hay to the palate. The beer turns drier then, with a crackery quality toning down the malts in favor of a slowly unfolding herb bitterness. Finishes doughy, with an utmost refreshing hop punch, which lasts incredibly long and highlights a fantastic herbal complexity.

This is truly great throughout with an exeptional mouthfeel to it, featuring a hop driven refreshment which is mind blowingly good. Every Pils should be at least a little bit like this one.

 

 

 

 

 

I was at Hunger & Thirst yesterday for a hoppy beer event & when I made a tour through the bottle shop, I saw this 500-ml bottle at a VERY attractive price point. I had drank one on draft over there once before, but since I seldom do field reviews any more, this seemed like a good one to bring home.

From the bottle: "Brewed According to the Reinheitsgebot of 1516"; "The Big Beer From the Little Brewery"; "Since 1780"; "Brewed exclusively with the finest Spalter and Hallertauer aroma hops by the Private Landbrauerei Schönram".

Having Pop!ped the cap & with a Pilsener glass at the ready, I gave it a heavy-handed pour. This raised two-plus fingers of dense, puffy, bone-white head with excellent retention. Color was a Pale-Straw (SRM = 1 - 2) with NE-quality clarity. Nose was an interesting combination of cattiness & grassiness, but as a self-avowed, self-described hophead, my mouth was watering in anticipation. Mouthfeel was medium, actually kind of big for the style. The taste was less catty than on the nose, very grassy, but with a lemony biscuitiness, undoubtedly from the malt. This was really close to being a Czech Pils, IMHO, but I was fine with it. Finish was semi-dry and very refreshing. I would be elated to find out that they also CAN this one. It would be great on a hot summer's day.

 

 

BOTTLE: Purchased at Ambrosetti in Berlin. Best before: 26.05.16. 500ml. Brown glass. Traditional German label (with cliche Bavarian font). Branded pry-off crown cap.

Served chilled into a pilsner glass. Expectations are high given this brewery's reputation, though this is my first Schonramer beer. Reviewed live as a German pilsner for obvious reasons.

5.0% ABV.

HEAD: ~10+ cm wide. White colour. Quite frothy (to style). Average thickness. Has a decent consistency and complexion. Leaves cobwebby lacing on the sides of the glass as it recedes, which take a good ~4 minutes (not great retention for a pilsner, but certainly above average).

BODY: To style, it's a clear straw yellow. Vibrance is merely average. Clean, with no visible yeast or other particulate.

Appears well-carbonated. It's a classic conventional pilsner appearance, but certainly more vibrance, better retention, and a softer looking head would improve its liveliness.

AROMA: Soft. Straw, pilsner malts, naunced Noble hop grassiness, a kiss of herb (also from Noble hops), and even a hint of kellerbier-esque must.

Suggests a crisp, clean pilsner with a surprisingly varied and subtle hop presence. Aromatic intensity is average.

The absence of esters indicates cleanly attenuating lager yeast, though no overt yeast notes are present (to style). I find no off-notes or any of the usual pilsner pitfalls (e.g. metallic character).

TASTE & TEXTURE: The promises of the aroma go unfulfilled; this offers only a generic grassy hop profile in addition to somewhat stale pilsner malts. The texture is quite poor however, bordering on buttery and certainly artificial. Not the crisp, clean presence on the palate you'd want in a great pilsner. And coupled with the cheap malt sweetness at the heart of the beer, the effect is off-putting. It comes off more as a Euro pale lager than a proper pilsner. Too sweet to be balanced, though I can't tell if the problem is the malt bill or the yeast attenuation. Maybe they fermented too cold?

Simplistic and cheap-tasting. It's a shame...the aroma suggested a vastly superior brew.

OVERALL: A big disappointment, especially as my first Schonramer beer. I love a great pilsner, but unfortunately one of those this be not. I'd caution others against purchasing it, and given Schonramer's high reputation (and this beer's current 87 rating - which is high for a pilsner amongst BeerAdvocate's American-centric member base) I have to wonder if I even got a bad bottle - but then I remember I bought this at Ambrosetti, a store pretty well regarded here in Berlin. I'll finish the bottle, but it's largely unpleasant.

High D+ (2.50) / NOT RECOMMENDED