Bavik Excel Premium Pils
Brouwerij De Brabandere in Bavikhove, West Flanders, Belgium 🇧🇪
Lager - Pilsener Regular|
Score
5.79
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Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 3 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3.5
'Premium pils' made by Bavik, sold by the Carrefour supermarket chain; from a 25 cl 'pilsflesje' with remarkably old-fashioned label, looks like a Belgian pale lager from the seventies or something, bought at the Carrefour in Lokeren. Irregularly 'shred-lacing', egg-white, medium thick but fairly loosely structured head, quickly showing gaps in the middle, over a pale 'metallic' straw blonde beer, cristal clear with no visible sparkling and paler than usual even for an 'industrial standard pale lager'. Aroma of freshly cut raw cauliflower, industrially made white bread slices, soaking wet birdseed, plaster, flour, mineral water, freshly ironed cotton cloth, cold - and spoiled - chervil soup when warming up, and a touch of drying grass. Neutral onset, tilting towards thin grainy sweetishness with minerally carbonation effect, thin body, very slick and grainy with a vague corn-like 'glueish sweetishness' to it, becoming a bit bothersome in the end but fortunately, all the way at the back, there is a soft touch of grassy and even distantly floral hoppiness to try and save this 'pilsje' from total oblivion - with a tad more bittering power than I was expecting, even if 'bitter' is too extreme a term to use here. Still, ends more hoppy than expected, but everything that happens before that, including the almost sickly pallid looks, could never have announced this sole redeeming feature. I remember Bavik's standard 'Premium Pils' as bland (as usual in this style) but not the worst in its kind, and even if it has been a very long time since I had it, I am inclined to conclude that this is a cheaper, boiled down version of it; fortunately there is this grassy 'end hoppiness' providing a bit of bitterness slightly increasing my rating here, but otherwise this is clearly a 'pils' as cheap and unremarkable as possible. Regardless of the indeed very cheap price, I am sure Bavik could have done better with this; the only things this Excel Pils excels at, are blandness, redundancy and boredom. It is 'impoverished' pale lagers like this that made me love 'real' beers in the first place. Shame on Bavik - also for using the purely commercial 'premium' term, which, as this beer amply proves, clearly has no meaning at all apart from trying to fool old school consumers who got stuck in the seventies.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
Pours clear blonde, small white head. Smell is weak, close to none. Taste is bit bitter. Nice malty aroma. Taste is nicely intense , which is unexpected after the weak scent. Not bad. agreeable mouthfeel and carbo.
Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 7
F: white, not big, not long lasting. C: pale gold, clear. A: malty, corn, grassy, hint of lemon. T: malt, lemon, grassy, light caramel, apple, light to medium body, good carbonation, considering the price 19c for the bottle excellent, 25cl bottle from Carrefour market @ Etterbeek, Brussels.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 2 | Flavor - 3 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 3.5
So viel Wässrigkeit überrascht. Keine Herbe, keine Getreidenoten, etwas trocken im Mittelteil. Ansonsten keine Aromen, erst zum Ende ist eine minimale Getreidigkeit erkennbar. Geschmackloses Zeug.. 7/5/8/4/4/6
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Pours clear and golden yellow with a small white head. Aroma is grassy and slight citrusy. Bitter, skunky and grassy. Dryand bitter and slight fruity. Dry and herbal finish.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Considering the price of 17 eurocents & an additional 10 eurocents for deposit, I am not sure I am allowed to complain about the quality of this beer regardless of how horrible it is. Clear apple juice / white wine appearance with little to no head. Light skunk, metallic, flowers, hint apple, soggy grains and cornflakes nose. Taste is cornflakes, white sugar, light corn, apple, sweet, sweet grain, white flowers neutral, starch, flour,… Lightly watery body. This is actually better than quite a few macro examples, not too bad & agreeable at the price. Neat. (25 cl. bottle @ home. Procured from a Carrefour in Brussels. BBF 24/01/2014)