Historical Threads: Budweiser vs. real pilsner

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Budweiser vs. real pilsner

Budweiser sucks.

Or, at least, this was my hypothesis when I brought together thirteen friends and family members for a blind pilsner taste test on January 22, 2011.

The Vibe.

I had been thinking about hosting such an event for a few years now, but kept finding opportunities for postponement.

I discovered in 1991 that beer meant more than BudCoorsHammOly when I first tasted Paulaner Hefeweizen while stationed in Gaeta, Italy, with the U.S. Navy. My friend PJ and I used to frequent a small pub in Gaeta [~~PJ: help me recall the name!~~ Update Feb. 13 2011: Bar/Cafe Uno, V. Europa. 20, Gaeta]. The proprietor, Mario, was from Bavaria originally but married an Italian woman and was then living in Gaeta. I distinctly remember one day Mario serving up a tall glass of Paulaner with a lemon slice. I took one sip and was thrust instantly into an entirely new world.

Until that moment in Mario's pub, I equated beer with the highly-carbonated, straw-colored, slightly-bitter soda water that I had been drinking legally (in Europe) for about a year and had drunk other-than-legally in high school. The Heineken, Bira Moretti, and similar styles in Turkey, Morocco, Greece, and the other countries I visited weren't appreciably different than the Hamms, Coors, and Olympia that I ~sampled~ in high school.

After Paulaner had changed my worldview forevermore, I had the good fortune of going home to Oregon, where the microbrewery movement was really starting to pick up speed. After serving my country honorably from the age of 17 to 21, in 1994 I finally received my discharge at an age that I could drink legally in my own country. I had volunteered to die for my country and had been drinking legally in other countries, but once I had turned 21 I was finally able to drink legally at home [one of these days, in another post, I'll rant in excruciating detail about this silly dynamic].

For nearly two decades now, I've been an unrepentant Beer Snob, evolving beer connoisseur, and fledgling beer geek. I regularly snub my nose at American Style Pilsners. I consider Budweiser and Bud Light so bad that I won't even drink them if they're free [Seth can attest to this], and I'd gladly go without beer in any form than drink Pabst Blue Ribbon on a consistent basis (in spite of the ridiculous ongoing PBR billboard campaign here in Portland and elsewhere. Note to Pabst: this campaign is LAME).

However, I do possess just enough self-reflective ability to wonder if I'm full of sh*t. Is Budweiser really the worst beer in the known universe? Continue below the fold to find out . . .

The narrative that you've willingly clicked yourself into unfolds as follows:

1) Hypothesis

2) Method

3) Data

4) Conclusions

5) Lessons Learned

6) What Next?

7) Sources & Raw Data1) Hypothesis

My hypothesis was that Budweiser is a vapid, bland, beer that does injustice to the venerable "pilsner" appellation; I also extended this judgment to all North American macro-brewed pilsner-style lagers and their imitators throughout the world. Michael Jackson (R.I.P.) shared this opinion as well, and wrote that

this style has also become the basis for a blandified, cheapened adaptation, the standard golden lager of no particular character that is an international form of beer, sometimes further degraded by being made "light" or "dry." Whether or not they say Pilsner on their labels, and some have the impertinence to do so, that is the remote inspiration of these products (from p. 210 of Jackson's book credited in full below).With this hypothesis, I wondered if non-beer-experts (like myself) would evaluate Budweiser negatively if this beer was to be compared blindly with a number of other beers in the same basic style. I reasoned that it is one thing to disparage a product if one knows the producer, but if this bias is removed, how might one evaluate the product?

I do understand that the American Brewer's Association considers German, Bohemian, and American Style Pilsner Lagers to be distinct styles. I am also aware that some consider "Pilsner" to be an official appellation, and, therefore, only applicable to the Urquell and Gambrinus breweries. For the purposes of our experiment I did not consider either of these nuances.

2) Method

I led off the evening with an overview of the history of the pilsner style, based on Michael Jackson's Beer Companion (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Running Press, 1997, pp. 210-216) and Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers (Boulder, Colo.: Brewers Publications, 1996).

None of the participants were expert beer judges. Some of them -- like me -- enjoy beer immensely and have, for themselves, sampled various beers at various times with the intention of learning more about specific styles and style characteristics. The rest of the participants may not have ever taken the time to compile their own notes about specific beers they've had in the past, but they all do enjoy beer. None of the participants, however, indicated that the pilsner style was among their favorites.

Wish You Were Here

All participants were blind to the ten beers I had chosen, but I did tell them that they would be sampling three old-world pilsners, three macro-brewed pilsners, three micro-brewed pilsners, and one "wild card," which would be an additional selection from the previous three categories. I poured the samples in another room and brought the tray of samples to the participants.

I provided small (~6-oz) glasses for each participant, and had participants write their names on tape that I had affixed to the outside of each glass. I asked that participants rinse their glasses with water when they had finished the sample, and place their glasses back on the tray. I then brought the tray into a separate room where I poured ~1-2 ounces of beer into each glass. I kept the beers on ice in a cooler, so that they would be at more-or-less the proper lager serving temperature (low 30s F).

Me, servin' it up!

I provided each participant with a 33 Beers tasting journal so that people could get as in-depth as they wanted to in describing and tracking for themselves each beer. Regardless of what they chose to record in their personal journals, I asked that each participant rate the beer from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest positive and 1 being the lowest negative. I also asked for a few words, positive or negative, to characterize each beer. Participants recorded this information on a sheet from one of those large 20"x 23" easel pads on which I had created the appropriate rows and columns.

The Scoring Chart.

Also, I asked people to bring food that was broadly in the Central and Eastern European theme. This included cured meats, fermented cabbage, cheeses, breads, etc.

Food.

I did not rate the beers myself during this event. I had originally thought that I would be able to take my own notes for each beer, but I realized early on that the process of providing the samples took all of my time. I did taste ~2 ounces of each beer as I served the participants, and developed my own general impressions, but I was not able to take my own notes. I will do so at a later time and produce a post about this experience (stay tuned!).

Authentic action photo.

A special thank-you to Belmont Station, particularly Brendan. Except for the three six-packs of macro-brew swill that I purchased from another retailer, I bought all of these beers at Portland's own amazing beer store, Belmont Station. Brendan at Belmont was extremely helpful to me in identifying three quality microbrew pilsners for us to sample. My children will thank Belmont Station for helping make me a better & more knowledgeable person, but they may curse me for spending some part of their college tuition at the store.

3) Data

How did the participants rate the beers?!?!?!

Here is the scoring board with each beer lined-up in order served, l to r.

In descending order of preference, our 13 participants rated the 10 beers as listed below. A beers' rating in this list reflects the normalized scale, while the number in parenthesis represents the raw scale. Directly below each listing is a brief note about why I chose the beer, and below this is a selection of terms that participants used to describe the beer.

You can find the full data set and complete list of descriptive terms in the Sources section below.

A special thank-you to Chad for running the calculations to normalize the scores. As he describes below, most of the rankings do not change based upon this normalization, but at least we're able to factor-in some of the subjectivity of people's relative scoring to provide numbers that may be a bit more informative.

1 (1). Karlovacko Pilsner, Karlovac, Croatia

Rating: 1.564 (6.46/10)

Served from 22oz bottles