Excellent "The Buzz "

Thanks, Bill! Thought Miller deserved the pat on the back. But I wish SAB would put Pilsner Urquell back the way they found it.

Sorry? They messed with PU somehow?

Yeah, I've been convinced that PU ain't what it was. It's been simplified, or maybe standardized. Maybe I'm just geekin', but I don't think so.

I'll have to buy a sixer next time I visit my favourite local but how can I tell if it's the altered PU? I remember having a few bottles earlier this year and it was the standard product, if my palate didn't fail me.

I'm pretty much convinced that this started before SABMiller got their mitts on PU. Abandoning wood for stainless lagering vessels was just one sign of the apocalypse. Dunno if they've messed with lagering times, but I wouldn't put it past 'em.

"dgs" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net... Dunno if they've messed with lagering

Yes, they did. Guess in what direction.

Joris

Indeed. Got a very impassioned screed about this from an unlikely but believable source who heard I was going to the Republic; shorter lagering times, effects of steel cc vessels, simplified yeast regimen, less complexity all-round. He's got a beer in competition with PU, but he really didn't look on it as a competitive opp'y. He was pissed about what happened to a beer he used to enjoy a lot.

He urged me to taste it fresh and see if I couldn't tell the diff. He was right: the fresh stuff in-country did not taste the same as the imported stuff I remember from 10 years ago. I know, I know, ten years of taste memory? The PU I had in-country was not hop-perky, it was kind of limp in malt character. Still a good drink, but a world classic? Not the way it was.

"Lew Bryson" schreef in bericht news:r8gwe.2055$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...

Absolutely, the change in taste cannot be mistaken. What I find personally the worst, is that the change in lagering policies' has been set in motion LONG before the SAB take-over took place. I had an official visit at PU in

1991, and the idea to abolish with all that time-consuming Krausening, lagering, vatting,... etc. had been set in motion by the Czech themselves already. FWIW, a little spin-off of this onslaught, and a little proof as well, can be found in some Belgian gueuzeblendings today: some of the big wooden, formerly tarred vessels that contained that wonderful lagering stuff once, in the subterranean corridors, are now used for storing lambic at Boon, Drie Fonteinen and De Cam...

Joris