It’s always fun seeing some of the newly released beers – a great way to spend the weekend browsing through the singles isle at your local bottle house. Today I’m comparing one of the better San Diego area brewers, Alesmith and their Czech Pilsner with the one and only ORIGINAL Czech Pilsner, Pilsner Urquell.
Wow, that’s some pretty big shoes to fill! Alesmith comes at us at 4.9% ABV, is brewed with Saaz hops and is part of their Lagersmith Series, their ode to some of the great and historic lagers of the world. Hey these guys must be from my neighborhood! Great idea! Bready malt and Saaz hops, truly a mellow Czech-style lager if there ever was one.
Comparing this to Pilsner Urquell, I’d say they did a pretty darned good job. Not an exact clone, but well within the variation we saw last month when I was doing my Czech-Austrian-Swiss Beerfest. Pilsner Urquell has a 4.4% ABV and uses Saaz hops. The Alesmith can carries on the white-green-gold and red medallion theme as well, so somebody in marketing must have had this in mind when selecting the art layout.
I like the fact that this tribute beer lacks the sweetness I’ve seen in a lot of clone beers recently, notably Irish Reds and Oktoberfests that came in too sweet. This one’s pretty much right on the money! Alesmith did a great job on this, enjoy!