Let's talk Pilsners

Patrik, there is no doubt that some marketing is part of having various pours but there is indeed ‘science’ to how a pour can impact beer flavor.

Below is something that jesskidden posted in a past thread:

 

Well I've heard about this for quite some time now and at first I figured that it made sense. Then I started to wonder. What if the down the middle pour is simply a way of showing the customer that the beer isn't flat, and what if a huge head has been sold, via advertising, as a marketing tool, so that when the brewers start to reduce the amount of barley malt used, which provides proteins that build up the foam, and they reduce the hops, which also gives the foam some additional stability, they have to instruct the consumer to pour the beer straight down the glass to get an initial burst of bubbles and foam, in order to live up to the idea of a "quality beer", the same idea of a quality beer which they have been selling for decades with ads that depict glasses of beer with a huge foam on top.

Then I came across this video:

 

Anyone have a chance to try FFF Czech Booty Camp on draft at DLD last year? It was seriously amazing even though not accurate, typical FFF abnormal ales though lager in this , but outstanding as per norm.

 

I am uncertain of what your point is wrt this video.

The aspect of having a pour that has some head has the benefit of properly providing flavor/aroma of the beer to be evident. I personally want the beer flavor/aroma to be evident in the beers that I drink.

Cheers!

 

My point with the video is that the big hullabaloo about foam is a marketing scheme, which continues to find new uses with macro breweries, such as not making you as full and thus increasing the tab. A beer brewed with all malt, and a good deal of hops will have a decent foam, a modern adjunct lager beer wont. But since the idea of a quality beer is a serious amount of foam, then the adjunct brewers instructs its users to pour the beer down the middle, which indeed creates a thick foam, but it dissapates just as quickly as it emerged. Just look at the different pilsner urquell pours, ignoring the supposed flavor differences, and consider the propensity for UK beer drinkers to ask for a top up, and I ask you whether you think a thick collar of foam truly makes a difference to the taste. I certainly don't. I think it's a marketing tool.

When lager beer started to be brewed in Sweden it was noted that it was more carbonated than the original article, the Bavarian lager beer, because the Swedes prefered a more carbonated beverage. It was a selling point, and a marketing tool. And it has been ever since I reckon.

 

I.e you don't see SABMiller/Pilsner Urquell obssessing over how to pour the beer, pour it with a thin collar, or a thick collar, it doesn't matter, because it will still be a tasty beer. The taste doesn't disappear because you pour it gently into a stein rather than a flute, which I have done, several times each, and enjoyed them all.

 

I just thought of another one, "Rumplepilsnen" By Full Pint Brewing Co.

 

Miller actually has good long lasting foam due to the use of tetra hop extract.

 

Well obviously, how else would the flavor of the beer carry over to the consumer?

Edit: I'm sorry if I seem less than congenial on this issue, but I truly believe that this stuff about foam and taste is a bunch of marketing baloney.

 

“But since the idea of a quality beer is a serious amount of foam, then the adjunct brewers instructs its users to pour the beer down the middle, which indeed creates a thick foam, but it dissapates just as quickly as it emerged. Just look at the different pilsner urquell pours, ignoring the supposed flavor differences, and consider the propensity for UK beer drinkers to ask for a top up, and I ask you whether you think a thick collar of foam truly makes a difference to the taste.”

Well, I have a difficult time “ignoring the supposed flavor differences”. I really can’t comment to the numerous pours mentioned specifically by Pilsner Urquell but I can state that a ‘proper pour’ whereby some head is produced does indeed increase the enjoyment of beer flavor/aroma. That just happens to be my perspective on that matter. I trust that you have a differing opinion on that specific matter.

Cheers!

 

I reckon we do, because I've made a concious effort in the last 7 years to try different pours, and come to the conclusion that I don't believe it one bit.

 

Let's talk cask-conditioned ale on hand pump. Or not...

 

Somebody responded to jesskidden’s post where he provided the Budweiser proper pour which may be of interest to you (or not):

“Bud definitely tastes better poured this way IMO.”

Cheers!

 

Also of potential interest to you:

“Have we all been pouring bottled beer wrong? How to pour beer…

Randy Mosher, one of America’s leading experts on the topic, thinks so. Randy’s new book, Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Best Drink, was recently published by Storey, which shares a publishing umbrella (Workman) with my own Fearless Critic Media. It’s an excellent book, totally accessible yet technical enough to take readers into some of the basic neuroscience of taste and perception and the chemistry of beer.

At a recent beer-tasting event held at the Workman headquarters, Randy told me that, generally speaking, bottled beer should be poured straight into the dead center of the glass, not into a glass tilted at a 45-degree angle, as is popularly believed. When beer is poured into a tilted glass, Randy argues, the head never fully forms, and you miss out on the beer’s creamy introduction.

True to his word, in Tasting Beer, Randy describes how beer should be poured for judging at a competition: “Pour the beer right down the middle of the glass, wait for the foam to settle, and if needed, pour a little more.”

Cheers!

 

So he enjoys a less carbonated beer, similar to myself? Pour a beer down the middle and you release more carbonation, as is exemplified by the youtube video. But in what way is the taste improved? How does a thick collar of foam improve the taste or smell. And I'm not one who dislikes the taste of Budweiser or is being cute about it, it's mild, but it still has a taste, but how is the taste improved?

I'm reminded of drinking a glass of soda, pouring it out and letting the fierce carbonation jump around on the surface of the liquid, if you put your nose down into the jumping bubbles of carbonation you get a much stronger smell of the beverage than if you let it settle a bit. I've not had that same experience with beer, except for when I've smelled a beer too close to where I start to inhale some of the (inert) foam, which gives me a stronger impression of the beer.

Maybe if beer was carbonated similar to a soda I would expect differences in smell.

 

“A beer tastes much better when poured into proper glassware because you can actually allow a proper head to form on the beer, letting you to access the aromas that would otherwise be locked into the beer.”

Patrik, I have mentioned in my other posts that the benefit of a proper pour (and a proper head of beer) is to enhance beer flavor/aroma.

Cheers!

 

The hoppy lagers from Jack's Abby aren't pilsners. I think people are mislead because their DIPLs are listed on BA under the "Imperial Pilsner" category, only because there's no other American imperial lager category on here. To help avoid giving people the wrong impression, I think it would be better if their DIPLs were listed under the American Pale Lager category.

The only true pilsner Jack's Abby has made in my recollection was a one-off special release sold in single 500ml bottles at $5 each. It's a little funny that when a lager brewery brews a classic bohemian pilsner, it's a "specialty release".

 

I am in no way a science guy or even a beer science guy, but from what I understand the point of the foam in Pilsner Urquell's case is to protect the beer from oxidation, i.e. to keep it fresh while you are drinking it. Oxygen starts changing the taste and aroma of beer almost immediately.

If you watch the video I posted, they pour the foam first and then open the tap and thanks to the custom fount the beer is poured through the foam. That means nothing after the foam pour touches air at all.

So, when you take a sip, the fresh beer goes through the foam and into your mouth. Instead of pouring it into a glass and letting it air out, you are getting as close as you can get to the experience of jamming a straw into a keg and drinking it straight from the source.

 

Even in the Milk Pour? No one has answered whether or not that settles out to beer with a nice head… or do they offer a spoon?

 

I was thinking one of those combo straw/spoons they used to supply with 7-Eleven Slurpees would be nice.