Pilsner Showdown – a blind tasting

Was that a quote in brewer's digest? I pored through back issues at the nearby library in the mid 70s. Too bad I didn't have a handy camera for interesting articles. Or a photographic memory.

 

They still compare everything for export from the brewery to batches they brew the original way in wooden barrels. This is for quality control. You can sample this beer in the cellars below the brewery on the tour.

 

Great video! Thanks! Thought he was going to get them all right for a minute there.

 

This is just a really neat bit of information and just really really cool; never knew any of this. I mean I'd assume they wouldn't want their beer to change at all but to literally make sure it doesn't, just neat.

 

Haha, Really!

 

Agreed, Urquell does seem to have changed, and getting the first three right was pretty good. Albeit Urquell itself is pretty easy to ID, the rest are tough.

 

Same, same!

 

If this is how a 4-month-old Pilsner Urquell tastes like now, then my journey of 25 years of finding a good-tasting beer in New York is complete... with the winner being the same one I was trying to replace.

 

Prompted by a tasting video posted by the owner of the world’s most famous (?) hazy IPA factory. The world works in mysterious ways…

 

I thought they still did open fermentation, in which case it would be expected. I'd hoped for some of that flavor/aroma but was disappointed.

 

Warsteiner would have been nice to see in place of bitburger. I like it better than the 3 I've had on the list.

 

I did the brewery tour in 2001 and didn't notice any difference in the production brew and the wooden barrel batches from the cellar. It's all absolutely delicious as far as I'm concerned.

 

Well, not so much prompted by the video, but rather by the BA community disagreeing with that owner and me disregarding Pilsner Urquell, and my habit of double-checking my data.

 

It was from a mainstream/general interest publication but was cited in other works later. (I've had it in my computer files for so long, I can't recall the original source and my "hard copy" paper files are a mess... more of a mess. Last time I went looking I got distracted by finding something else I had been looking for...)

 

I just did the tour this past summer. If I'm being honest, the cellar beer is much different than what you get in cans/bottles/draft outside of the brewery.

It's hazy, much hoppier, and just a phenomenal beer all around. One of the best I've ever had.

This makes sense though. It's absurdly fresh, unfiltered and unpasteurized. Don't get me wrong either, when fresh, the beer for export in cans/bottles/draft is excellent as well.

My assumption is that these quality experts are looking for aspects such as brewing flaws, rather than the look and bitterness levels.

 

Open fermentation doesn't result in Diacetyl.

Many German breweries open ferment thier lagers and don't have perceptible Diacetyl.

 

And a few more citations.


Martin Levin was the book reviewer for the New York Times, and his column was carried in a number of papers in the US & Canada (though not noted, presumably via the NYT wire service?)

 

Kinda cool Playboy was concerned about Pilsner Urquell's taste changing over the years.

 

Well, the US importer of Pilsner Urquell, All Brands Importers, was probably one of their advertisers, too. But Playboy of that era did have a lot of articles and interviews of the non-pin-up/girlie mag type.

As a nightwatchman in high school and 1st year of college, the old wooden desk I sat at between rounds had stacks of old Playboys which I read (just for the articles, doncha know ) when I wasn't napping and I'm pretty sure, in that Advisor column they had - in which every other question was non-sexual in nature - was one of the first times I read about beer freshness, when some guy wrote in that his favorite local brewery was closing and he was going to buy many cases of the beer and Playboy consulted some pro brewers who advised him not to buy more than he might consume in a couple of months, after which the beer would become stale...

I think I used to check those $1@ stacks of dogeared Playboys at flea markets for whatever 1972 issue that article was in but never found it and, as noted, eventually even forgot where that quote originated. Unlike many things at flea markets (where I still routinely buy old brewery openers for 25¢-$1) I think Playboy back issues have increased in price. Plus some dealers make it uncomfortable to stand and flip through looking for a particular article (and not the Playmate of the Month).