Pilsner Urquell - Marketing Strategy

P.U. is one of my "heavy rotation" pilsners. Excellent beer. I usually buy at least a single 12oz pilsner every 2 weeks to have, and 6er every few months. Sure pilsners are a tad boring, but the flavor is great when you need a break from hoppy and don't want something heavy but need something cold and refreshing.

 

Thank you. Brewing is a craft. The term "craft beer" is little more than marketing B.S. anyway.
And despite the rather significant changes in processes and equipment used to brew Urquell, it is still a damned good brew and a classic.
If anything, it actually defines the true meaning of 'craft' better than most beers on the shelves by breweries of any size.

 

But your market is unique in that regard. Should they send unpasteurized beer solely to your area but non-pasteurized beer to the other areas of North America?

Cheers!

 

Could you actually taste the difference though? Pasteurized vs not?

 

95% of the beer from Europe, if it's not bottle conditioned, is pasteurized to survive the trip.

 

By "big tanker" do you mean a unit similar to those used for Pilsner Urquell's "Tankovna"? What brewer/importer currently does that? Anheuser Busch and Wurzburger were doing it in the late 1970s, shipping the beer in bulk in 5,000 bbl. "insulated [tanks]...safe from the heat and oxidation" - according to ads, but they did not specify whether it was flash pasteurized - and then bottling it in the US at their Newark, NJ brewery.

B. United also does it on a small scale for their "Zymatore Project".

They serve the "Tankovna" Pilsner Urquell in the UK as well as Berlin and Vienna, and they've also shipped oak kegs of the "unfiltered and unpasteurized" PU to the UK and the US.

 

I had the chance to meet Vaclav Berka, the brewmaster, a few years back when they were doing a tour across America. He brought a 5 day old keg of unpasteurized Urquell to do a blind test alongside a regular pasteurized keg, and while there was a difference, it wasn't huge. I also guessed wrong on which one was the fresh keg, as did over half the people there, which Berka said was because of the way they pasteurize the beer, and was kind of the whole point of the tour - to show that the standard exported stuff is every bit as good as the fresh one.

They also had a keg of the unfiltered Urquell available, which was an absolutely different animal. An awesome experience, all in all.[/QUOTE]

 

Kellyst

In the US when the craft movement started there was a a strong correlation among A. Existing breweries B. Large corporate breweries C. Light lager style beers D. Arguably low "quality" or at least less tasty beers. The rebellion against one was a rebellion against all. (In recent years as craft has grown, and as Big Beer has responded, there have been grounds for argument about those correlatins)

In Europe those factors were either weaker, or did not exist at all. Therefore the craft vs macro distinction, whatever you think of it in the US, makes less nse there.

On the other hand, there are certainly imports that are more sImilar to the US macro business model. And others that are not. That is true without regard to whether those beers are "good " which is subjective.

 

Very interesting post. Thanks for writing this, I always find blind taste tests "eye-opening".

Would you mind expanding upon what "an absolutely different animal" means?

 

The unfiltered unpasteurized PU has a yeast bite from yeast still in suspension, and no Diacetyl. I had some that was flown in last year and it was wonderful.

 

Add to this a creamy texture.

 

Sounds like cask beer.

 

More like a Czech version of Kellerbier.

 

Interesting. I hope I get to try it someday.

 

I always considered Kellerbier akin to Cask-conditioned ale, if not for the "finishing" by the cellar-man, but more for the (usually) natural carbonation.

 

I mean the ship

 

When I got into craft beer in the late 90s my experience was very different. Beer classifications were domestic, imports, and microbrews. People into "better" beer drank a higher percentage of imports compared to microbrews than the average "craft" drinker these days, including a lot of German lagers, and there was no prejudice against the commonly available pale European lagers like Pilsner Urquell, Spaten, Hofbrau, etc. This distinction to me is actually the biggest difference of today versus 15 to 20 years ago. i.e. the diminished popularity of European imports compared to U.S. "crafts".