The Bar Towel

Bought some king pilsner yesterday, pretty decent but not spectacular. What do you guys think is the best year round available pilsner at the lcbo?

Pilsner Urquell

I've been enjoying Bitburger and Czechvar.

Stone Hammer pilsner. A good priced beer, with a smooth finish.

matt7215 wrote:Pilsner Urquell

+1 great value buy and often very fresh in can.

If it doesn't have to be a pilsner, I really loved the Hofbrau Original (Munich Helles) when we got it.

Also Cameron's Lager is a really clean German Pilsner.

Urquell....IMO everything else is just playing for second place

I'll fourth or fifth Urquell, but I'd say a strong contender is Cameron's Lager...I know, sounds a little crazy, but this stuff fresh is awesome. Not sure why they seem to push their medicore auburn and cream ale more than this, but the lager should be their flagship beer.

Problem, of course is freshness.

It won some big international prize a year or so ago. I still remember doing my first 100km on a bike and drinking one, thinking it was the best damn thing I ever tasted.

(drinking a lot of steamwhistle lately because they seem to have the freshest stock of the pilsners)

I've been working through all the "old world" pilsners at the LCBO recently and trying to give them a good, critical drinking (taking notes etc.). I've done about 50 and some have been great and others... not so much.

It really comes down to what you're looking for in a Pilsner. If you're into the more sweet (honey, bread), spicy hops (pepper), and absurd balance with a crisp finish then Czech is the way to go. I'm going to break with tradition and say that I prefer Budweiser Budvar (Czechvar) over Urquell, but only just. It's slightly brighter and crisper for my tastes, but still has that classic creaminess. Urquell is so, so honey-forward, that it's almost unbalanced. My third choice for Czech Pilsner is Kozel which is made at the Urquell brewery (which is a SAB-Miller brand). It's a slightly lighter take on the classic Urquell, perhaps better for a hotter day.

For the bold, dry, and really brutally bitter German Pilsner, it's Jever Pilsner or bust for me. Hands down my favourite lager at the LCBO. (It's also a new listing and the cans are all fresh, fresh, fresh.) Strong spicy and earthy bitterness with a clean and crisp malt profile. My ideal German Pilsner. Second goes to Bitburger which is a solid example with some Graham-cracker sweetness cleaned up by a really good bitingly crisp bitterness. Radeberger would be third, with a nice slightly iron-tinged bitterness.

Munich Helles are great too, a little more malt forward and a little less crisp, but excellent with food. Gosser is Austrian made, but a really nice malt-forward pale beer with some really interesting spicy hop aromatics. Hofbräu Original is probably my favourite and really worth seeking out. If I were to drink a bunch of a Munich Helles, it'd be the classic Spaten Original Munich Beer. That there is a beer to put in a Maß! Honey, spicy hops, and really crisp and dry for the style.

Dortmunders are fun too! They are like the "session IPA" of the Pilsner world. They have the malt character of the Helles, but the hop character of the bigger, hoppier Pilsners (Pilsners are IPAs in this analogy). I like DAB for this style, super smooth with some floral and grassy hops. Lowenbrau also pretty good for this if the can is fresh, again it has some floral hops and dry bready pils malt. Not much else grabs my attention for this style though. Baltika 7 Export maybe in a pinch.

As for generic "Euro Lagers" (i.e. not Pilsners), Kronenburg 1664 is my favourite by a long shot. The hops are really interesting in this. Despite using extract (nothing wrong with extract) they still use Strisselspalt hops which give it, and I'm going to sound crazy, almost a saison vibe (a little liquorish, some dry citrus). Try it and think about Dupont. By far the best of a much maligned lot. Stella Artois is my (somewhat distance) second choice if for some reason I have to get a Euro Lager and not a proper Pils.

Kaiser Bier, Hollandia Lager Beer, Zubr, Martens Pilsner, Lvivske 1715, Estrella Damm, Efes Premium Pilsner, Beck's (go with Holsten over Beck's!), and Bavaria Beer all should be avoided. Lots of weird corn, DMS, apple-y, and sugary things going on in these beers. Carlsberg and Heineken are both safe bets (to be average) in my books, but both have a weird savoury, almost tea like (not astringent though) type flavour that reminds me of lager and iced tea. Not bad, but a strange, strange set of tastes.

Those are my "old world" choices. I also really like Steamwistle, but it's a really strange, super Graham-cracker forward and super spicy take on the Pilsner. Very over the top and North American. And, with calling Steamwistle "over the top" with flavour, I will stop writing. This has been the madness of drinking every Pils and "old world" lager in the LCBO. If you want to see full tasting notes on all 50+, DM me, though I suspect no one needs to see that spreadsheet of madness. Now, on to those Ontario pils...

^ This is one of the best Bar Towel posts I've seen in a long time. Thanks! My immediate takeaway will be to try some Jever.

midlife crisis wrote:^ This is one of the best Bar Towel posts I've seen in a long time. Thanks! My immediate takeaway will be to try some Jever.

+1

groulxsome wrote:I've been working through all the "old world" pilsners at the LCBO recently and trying to give them a good, critical drinking (taking notes etc.). I've done about 50 and some have been great and others... not so much.

It really comes down to what you're looking for in a Pilsner. If you're into the more sweet (honey, bread), spicy hops (pepper), and absurd balance with a crisp finish then Czech is the way to go. I'm going to break with tradition and say that I prefer Budweiser Budvar (Czechvar) over Urquell, but only just. It's slightly brighter and crisper for my tastes, but still has that classic creaminess. Urquell is so, so honey-forward, that it's almost unbalanced. My third choice for Czech Pilsner is Kozel which is made at the Urquell brewery (which is a SAB-Miller brand). It's a slightly lighter take on the classic Urquell, perhaps better for a hotter day.

For the bold, dry, and really brutally bitter German Pilsner, it's Jever Pilsner or bust for me. Hands down my favourite lager at the LCBO. (It's also a new listing and the cans are all fresh, fresh, fresh.) Strong spicy and earthy bitterness with a clean and crisp malt profile. My ideal German Pilsner. Second goes to Bitburger which is a solid example with some Graham-cracker sweetness cleaned up by a really good bitingly crisp bitterness. Radeberger would be third, with a nice slightly iron-tinged bitterness.

Munich Helles are great too, a little more malt forward and a little less crisp, but excellent with food. Gosser is Austrian made, but a really nice malt-forward pale beer with some really interesting spicy hop aromatics. Hofbräu Original is probably my favourite and really worth seeking out. If I were to drink a bunch of a Munich Helles, it'd be the classic Spaten Original Munich Beer. That there is a beer to put in a Maß! Honey, spicy hops, and really crisp and dry for the style.

Dortmunders are fun too! They are like the "session IPA" of the Pilsner world. They have the malt character of the Helles, but the hop character of the bigger, hoppier Pilsners (Pilsners are IPAs in this analogy). I like DAB for this style, super smooth with some floral and grassy hops. Lowenbrau also pretty good for this if the can is fresh, again it has some floral hops and dry bready pils malt. Not much else grabs my attention for this style though. Baltika 7 Export maybe in a pinch.

As for generic "Euro Lagers" (i.e. not Pilsners), Kronenburg 1664 is my favourite by a long shot. The hops are really interesting in this. Despite using extract (nothing wrong with extract) they still use Strisselspalt hops which give it, and I'm going to sound crazy, almost a saison vibe (a little liquorish, some dry citrus). Try it and think about Dupont. By far the best of a much maligned lot. Stella Artois is my (somewhat distance) second choice if for some reason I have to get a Euro Lager and not a proper Pils.

Kaiser Bier, Hollandia Lager Beer, Zubr, Martens Pilsner, Lvivske 1715, Estrella Damm, Efes Premium Pilsner, Beck's (go with Holsten over Beck's!), and Bavaria Beer all should be avoided. Lots of weird corn, DMS, apple-y, and sugary things going on in these beers. Carlsberg and Heineken are both safe bets (to be average) in my books, but both have a weird savoury, almost tea like (not astringent though) type flavour that reminds me of lager and iced tea. Not bad, but a strange, strange set of tastes.

Those are my "old world" choices. I also really like Steamwistle, but it's a really strange, super Graham-cracker forward and super spicy take on the Pilsner. Very over the top and North American. And, with calling Steamwistle "over the top" with flavour, I will stop writing. This has been the madness of drinking every Pils and "old world" lager in the LCBO. If you want to see full tasting notes on all 50+, DM me, though I suspect no one needs to see that spreadsheet of madness. Now, on to those Ontario pils...

Agree with most of this except for your comment about Holsten. Lots of weird off flavours in each of Holstens beers. I'd have to go back to my tasting notes to remember what exactly was wrong. But I remember there being a lot wrong.

I do love Urquell, and I find King to be the most similar to it amongst the small selection on Ontario pilsners I've tried.

Have you tried Golden Pheasant? It's quite nice if you can manage to find it fresh. Slight almost imperceptible diacetyl note that actually works with the bready, crackery malt flavour it's got going on. Weird, but apparently fits BJCP guidelines.

And I'll probably catch shit for this, but if I had to pick a euro lager I would reach for Harp.

Good thread. I'm with the Urquell acolytes, for the reasons they state above. The Budvar beer also is good but it is more delicate and less hoppy than the other and it has to be very fresh to be at its best. Urquell is more "sturdy" due to the impacfull malt and hop profile.

King lager is very good when not long out of the brewery, as befits any unpasteurized beer. To me, its palate stands more on the German side of the European pils frontier, or is at least a kind of German/Czech hybrid. Cameron's is very good, more North American in orientation, but again maximum freshness is important. Never been a fan of Steamwhistle. One thing it's not is bland and I always get a strong sulphur note in the beer which some German helles and pils have too, it's a certain style but I prefer the two Czech beers mentioned whose yeast background is quite different. Creemore and its iterations are more along Steamwhistle lines, IMO...

The Holsten beers almost never taste right to me and I always wonder if somehow the transport does something to them. Lowenbrau recently is very nice, Spaten too, buying early in the freshness window helps. DAB I find variable, just depends on the batch/transport maybe other factors. All these beers have a certain steely and almost acerbic quality that kind of defines good German blond lager.

Gosser is reliable with a good malt quality as noted above. I never really liked Kozel, not sure why, it seems more on the lines of numerous Polish and other East European lagers which are worthy but don't reach the heights of the best Czech and German beers.

Stiegl always had a very strong taste I found odd, the draft too, yet a glass the other day at Wallace Gastropub was much milder and softer, perhaps again a very fresh sample? Hard to say.

Gary

great post groulxsome!

As with many, Pilsner Urquell. I haven't had Jever but have had almost all others mentioned here Bitburger, King, etc...and have been let down by them.