Fake Lager
Brewery: Brewdog
Type: Czech Pilsner
Alcohol: 4.7%
Country: Scotland
For those who are not familiar with this beer, it started as Brew Dog's april fools joke. You can check out the fake post on their blog. Suffice to say this is their take on the mass produced common denominator lager beer that they make fun of and rail against all the time. This is not exactly what you would think of as a mass produced lager, usually having names like "premium lager", "euro lager", so on and so forth. This lager is their attempt at taking back the "Pilsner" beer style. Instead of making this like most pilsners on the market, with cost cutting adjuncts, this is an all malt Czech style pilsner. Lets see if they have created a beer that will change the pilsner game, or just a forgettable beer worth nothing more then the PR it produced.
Pours slightly cloudier then expected for a pilsner. Much more orange then light straw color of a normal pilsner. Head is bright white, thin, and doesn't last very long. The smell is a bit lack luster. You get the bit of malty sweetness, and a whiff of noble hop grassy spiciness. The taste does save it in the end. Very classical Czech pilsner taste, almost spot on to style. Bready malt with just a hint of a bit of out of style caramel sweetness. Very nice noble hop spicy grassiness, much more then most pilsners would be willing to let shine through. Body is typical lager, medium-ish with a bit of bitterness that is welcome to the style. Now this is a nice twist on the actual pilsner style. Those bigger noble hops tones are what I would really like in a pilsner, and are really the saving grace of this beer. So did Brewdog succeed in making the new messiah of pilsner and giving the finger to AB Inbev? Not in my opinion, unfoutunatly. I think they ended up making a hoppier pilsner urquell, which hey homebrewers all over the world have been doing since the old days. In my humble opinion brewing a spot on clone of a style is not going to change peoples opinions of pilsner, or lagers in general. I will put my faith in the emerging India Pale Lager style in redeeming the name of this much battered style amoungst the craft faithful.
