Swinckels Superior Pilsner

Bottle, 330 ml at Rocket Burger, Zagreb. Pours clear golden, minimal white head. Malty, grainy, very light and watery, bland. Some vague bitterness in finish. Malted water, calling this a beer, come on.

Clear, golden colored, medium- white head. Aroma is unappealing, green apple and cardboard with some malty notes. Taste is the same, green apple and even more cardboard, watery weak but also some sweet sugary notes. Medium bodied, soft carbonation, watery. Just no...

Bottle @ Bi Village, Fazana, Croatia. Pours yellow with a white head. Aroma of malt, little sugar, grass. Flavor is light sweet, malt, little white bread, light sugar, light grassy. Thin body, lively carbonation. 090816

Draft at The Hague beer festival. Clear golden with a white head. Aroma of grain, light malt and cereal. Flavour is light sweet and bitter. Light bodied with light carbonation.

As Swinckels’ Superieur Pilsener, from a colourless, stylish bottle of unusual shape, almost like a perfume bottle or something alike. Claims to have been hopped with Cascade so I am curious to find out. Beautiful bright gold colour with an ’old gold’ hue, cristal clear with lively fizz, sustaining a moussy, somewhat irregular, ’dirty’ white, medium thick head. Aroma is everything but pleasant: as feared, the colourless bottle has allowed too much light to penetrate the beer, and so we end up, of course, with a very strong skunked smell of ’lightstruck effect’ (the sharp, almost ammonia-like stench we all know and love). Other than that, I get little of the orange qualities ascribed to Cascade, though there is some orange-like quality somewhere, but very vague, along with hints of biscuit, popcorn, canned apricot, iron, wet (used) kitchen towel and plastic. Spritzy onset, sweetish grainy taste, slick with strong, fizzy carbonation, but otherwise thin, mineral water-like even, with a brief and weak floral and herbal hop bitterishness in the end, but not enough to provide body and structure in a sufficient way to deserve the ’Pilsener’ designation. This is another bland macro lager, but from an arty bottle; if they were going to use Cascade anyway, why not go into overdrive and make an India pale lager style beer? Because it is Bavaria, is the only answer, I assume... The only thing saving it from my drain, is the light, very light, too light citrus whiff to it, appearing a bit more clearly, but still extremely shy, when the ’cat piss’ odour of the lightstruck effect has faded. However, this clearly is far from ’volmaakt’ (dutch for ’perfect’) even for a standard pale lager.