Online Tasting - Pilsner July 14-16 - Planning Thread

JK, was that before 2012 and due to the peculiarities of Texas laws/regulations:

“The labeling quirks were the result of a law that required all malt beverages (read: beer) containing more than 4 percent alcohol by weight to be labeled as either “ale” or “malt liquor” to be sold in Texas. The same law also prevented any drink with an alcohol content of more than 4 percent from being advertised in Texas as a “beer.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2012/08/09/tabc-changes-what-it-means-to-be-a-beer/

Cheers!

 

Well, it wasn't just Texas in that period of the 1940s-1980s, other states, even California (another major Mexican beer market at the time) had a similar labeling law, into the 1990s:

...but, yeah, I assume that's the story behind the labeling of Bohemia Ale. By the mid-1980s, M. Jackson in the early ed's of his Pocket Guides, called it only "Bohemia", "pleasantly hoppy, Pilsener-type..." while noting its "higher than normal gravity... 5.4 ABV" - thus confirming it being over the 4abw/5abv limit for "beer" at the time.

Have never come across how it was labeled in its home market but in the 30's there were ads in Texas for Bohemia Beer.

 

Thanks for that confirmation.

Cheers!

 

Oregon also had a 4% wt. rule similar to California's (but CA was the big dog in west coast Mexican imports). I saw some German lagers labeled (ink stamp on the original label) as malt liquors. I doubt that the Mexican labels were anything but cerveza. French doesn't have a separate word for ale (Canadian labels interpret ale in French as biere. I don't think Spanish has a separate word either. Google Translate interprets "ale" as "cerveza inglesa".

 

Another comment on Bohemia. I don't think it qualifies as a Bohemian or German Lager -- and it's not because it used to be labeled "ale". I enjoyed several Bohemia "Pilsner" (clara) in Mexico. In my opinion it is an excellent American Lager similar to some of the best adjunct lagers I drank in the 70. It may be all malt (I don't know) but doesn't have the body or assertive hop character needed to be rated with European Pilsners.

 

I think Bohemia could be classified as an American Pilsner?

 

So when is this tasting gonna be? I have a long list of tasty Oregon/Washington pils

 

Mexican ad for the beer from the 1910s, in which it is describes as "the Queen of Pale Beers" and a late 1940s US "Ale" ad, both with an earlier label featuring the namesake of then-brewer, Aztec Cuauhtémoc.

All those sorts of laws were (thanks to the way the 21st Amendment was written) were individual state regulations, in particular for the "Malt Liquor" designation, that was the term allowed in some states for beers that were over the 4% ABW limit for "Beer". One example was Texas (maybe the longest lived one, which also levies a higher state excise tax on higher alcohol beers) in which many imports over 4% ABW were labeled "Malt Liquor" (Lowenbrau below) while many US lager beers, infamously, stamped their labels "Ale in Texas" (a BBC lager - below), likely due to the eventual negative connotation that the "Malt Liquor" term took on. Yet, a beer labeled "Malt Liquor" did not have to be over a certain alcohol (Schlitz). (Molson Coors was still making low abv malt liquors for 3.2 states only a few years ago).

Yeah, no different, except when the Feds require a label to read "_____ - type" or "____ - style":


... than US beers with a brand name including terms like "Bavarian" or "Bohemian" * (there have been numerous) or German, like Old German branding used by many US brewers.

My favorite "Bohemian Beer" story... Falstaff was still making this Bohemian branded beer in New England when I was living in MA in the 1970s.

Beer shopping next to two, possibly drunk, guys, with thick NE accents, one says to the other:
"Hey, look, a beer named after Yogi Bear's partner, Boo-boo!"

 

It's only in the thread's title.

 

I do enjoy Pilsners. I'll have to drop in and see what everyone is drinking. Right now, the original pilsner is in my fridge, Pilsner Urquell. And when I can find it, I do enjoy the previously mentioned in prior posts, Bohemia Pilsner. I'll have to search out a local Pilsner to post. Never used to see much Pilsner love from the local brewer's, but that is changing. Cheers!

 

Rules on alcohol varied state to state. You are now in WA. In the 70s, your fathers opinion about ales and lagers would have been pretty accurate. The federal law did not (and still does not) differentiate ale and lager by fermentation or aging methods. And products labeled "ale" were usually brewed with lager yeast. I believe WA restricted supermarket sales to <4%wt. Liquor stores were allowed higher alcohol contents. So Rainier Ale in supermarkets would have been 4%wt, and a pretty good drink. WA liquor stores carried the 6%wt (and virtually undrinkable) Rainier Ale version that was probably the only one sold in OR and CA. I'm not sure of labeling requirements in WA, but OR and CA restricted "beer" to less than 4%wt. OR also restricted all malt beverages to <8%wt (a ceiling met by Olde English 800). For a while OR required >4%wt products to be labeled with alcohol content, and I recall both OE800 and Rainier Ale contents mentioned above. Most other malt liquors I looked at then didn't list a content so were actually <4%wt.

 

Gunna be tough to hold onto these, if they show up on NBW I'll have to find something else. Cheers.

 

Well, in some ways folks are buying into it big-time. You don’t have to go to Canada to track down a Mexican Pilsner (Is something backwards? Is Mexico to the north or south?) … you can just grab a Pacifico. I know some are rolling their eyes. People tend to either think of Pilsner as primarily only one beer (Urquell), or as the most popular beer type in the world, or more specifically as an American/German/Czech/Italian(!) beer type (the BA crowd). Personally, I’m sympathetic to all three of those incompatible viewpoints. Spoiler alert - I bought a Pacifico for this tasting thread coincidentally before any of this conversation even happened. I might not end up including it, but it just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t look at these threads as an opportunity to gently push against the borders people hold dear.

 

Modelo Especial is a Mexican pilsner-style lager also. If I'm at a taqueria that serves beer, Pacifico (pilsner), Victoria (vienna lager), or Negra Modelo (dark lager) are my go to's.

To add: I've yet to find a Taqueria that has Bohemia Pilsner. If I did, the other 3 would be off the board. But since that's what's available, I'm happy with any of those 3. (I ramble)

 

I have never had a Pacifico but I have seen it at beer stores:



No mention of "Pilsner" on the beer label.

Cheers!

 

Nope. You won’t see it on Budvar either.
It’s on the website though:

 

Chris, have you tasted Pacifico? If so, what are your thoughts?

From my readings I am under the impression that Pacifico is a contemporary AAL beer. One extract from a BA review:

"Overall, bland and inoffensive, but also clean and easy to drink."

I have had many draft pints of Budvar in the Czech Republic:



Budvar is most definitely a Bohemian Pilsner (Czech Pale Lager) beer.

Na Zdravi

P.S. Within the Czech Republic the term "Pilsner" is reserved for beers brewed in the city of Pilsen. An appellation so to speak.

 

This is true. Modelo does, but it says pilsner-style, like Pacifico says at their website. Now begs the question, are they pilsners or lagers brewed in the pilsner-style? Does pilsner-style make them pilsners?