Pilsner Urquell rant

Just a minor point, but Golden Pheasant or Zlaty Bazant is actually Slovak, not Czech.

 

Great video!

I remember back to degenerate high school keg parties where we would put the cheap little black spout that the distributor gave us into the cup of beer as far as possible so we could reduce the ever present foam. Now I would probably MacGyver a piece of rubber tubing onto the thing to solve the problem.

Today I watch bartenders waste inordinate amounts of BMC and others by letting the foam just run out of the glass until they get the beer going and I always think back to those days. An extension like the tap in that video would help the spoilage %'s for so many bars. Oh well.

 

Surely he complains about Belgian bottles with the same, as well as German, etc.

 

Yes but do you complain the same with Belgian beers and others that are the same? Just curious to me how this is coming up in this thread yet it feels like I never hear the same complaint when someone is drinking other European beers that do the same thing.

Plus, price is incredibly good. Full retail here at Total Wine is $6.99 and I frequently get $1 coupons for up to a case, so I pay $5.99/sixpack of new brown bottle PU. Love it.

 

I actually prefer PU in the USA over drinking it in Europe... Seems to be less diacetyl after pasteurization, although there is still quite a bit.

 

Ja, I complain about any beer that comes in a 11.2 ounce bottle, not necessarily about the beer but the serving size. Have you ordered a pint at a bar and received 1/3 foam? Have you sent it back to be filled? I have.

 

Yes.

These things piss me off so much that I started an entire thread on faux pint pours.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/your-response-to-being-served-a-faux-pint-glass.19948/

 

3.5% is just the lite/small version. easily separated out of the discussion.

what is still confusing is properly correlating the different entries between beeradvocate, ratebeer, and what others say, including travelers and the brewers at PU itself, and also what @ChrisLohring wrote, concerning czech beer categorization and standards. (see my previous posts in this thread.)

 

I believe pilsner is out of fashion. Where I work Pilsner Urquell has completely stopped selling. We've brought in craft versions of pilsner and they too have become shelf turds. We have the same problem with Mexican beers. I believe the increased interest in Amer. Craft has drawn many drinkers away from lighter flavored beer in general.

 

Very sad thread as it illustrates how far Pilsner Urquell has fallen from its once uncontestable greatness.
1993 will go down in beer infamy.

 

Are people really dickering over .8 ounces of beer? Man, I guess physical and mental illness, unemployment, and domestic violence have really taken the back seat of concerns.

 

They take that missing 0.8 oz, add another .1 oz.and put it into the 500 ml cans. Bonus compared to a pint!

 

hey guys ... sorry to be an idjut.

Pilsner Urquell has long been my favorite beer, but I don't understand the deal with the brown bottles! Is this the same beer but just different packaging?

It certainly tastes different. Thank you!

Jeri

 

Yeah- it's the same beer. As to why it could potentially taste different:

1- Brown bottles are far less susceptible to what is colloquially known as 'skunking', which is what happens when ultraviolet light combines with the isomerized bittering compounds from the hops. This is a beer more properly known as being 'light struck'. It makes a sulfury smell not unlike that of a skunk's spray, hence the nickname. Due to the historic use of green bottles, that 'skunkiness' is sometimes associated with imported beer, although it truly doesn't belong.

2- Freshness. Beer that is fresh is less likely to have stale or oxidized qualities, or be less 'pungent' (when it comes to continental lagers in particular). Since we are not too far into the change-over, the brown bottles are bound to be fresher than what you may be used to.

Hopefully you find that it tastes better as well as different .

Enjoy!

 

Unfortunately you are held to your past and that's what people remember. Urquell might need to do some advertisements if they are trying to reinvent themselves. I wouldn't go as far as Buick.

 

I would love to see Budvar more readily available in US. I found a single bottle about a year ago somewhere and thought it was a great pilsner. I'll buy more P.U.'s if fresher. I always have a pilsner phase in my beer drinking monthly cycle.

 

Ok just had PU out of a can and wow what a difference to me. Never tried brown bottle but the last beer was green bottle and tasted slight skunk and have not bought until last nite 4 pak cans. This ladies and gentlemen is a good beer.

 

Also the born on date was 15 Oct 14

 

And really, it always has been. It's only been the packaging that was suspect.

 

Are you sure about that? (Besides the fact that "Born On®" is a trademarked term of Anheuser-Busch ), Pilsner Urquell exported to the US by MillerCoors has for the last few years been dated with a "Pull Date" of 9 months after packaging. The last 4 pk of cans, as well as the 12 pk bottles, I checked (last week) were still so dated, with codes for March - May, '15.

Never saw them with a bottling/canned date.