Seriously. How do you f*** up a Pilsner?

One of the side effects of the global craft beer movement in an old beer country like Belgium is revivalism: long extinct brands (sometimes even styles) are being recreated, in this case the Piedboeuf Extra Pils launched in 1946 by Piedboeuf (now Jupiler) to compete with the then-budding lager market in Belgium. The old name Piedboeuf, once a household name in the Belgian brewing landscape, was up till now only retained for their table beers, but lo and behold, AB InBev apparently saw a necessity to bring up this long-extinct 'pilsje' back to life... I never tasted this quite literal 'father of Jupiler' (which itself was launched in the mid-sixties), but I find it hard to believe that the original version already contained rice, as this revived version apparently does - interestingly so, however, because its successor Jupiler contains corn rather than rice (none of both are generally considered 'noble' grains for brewing of course). Can from a Delhaize supermarket, with indeed a depiction of a long defunct logo. Thick and frothy, snow white, cobweb-lacing, very moussey head on a crystal clear golden blonde robe with 'old gold' tinge and some strings of visible sparkling. Aroma of plaster, soggy breakfast cereals, damp kitchen towels, old cooked rice, the water from a can of corn, rubber, wet gypsum, rainwater, vague background hint of withering grass. Clean onset, neutral, with some minerally carbonation effects even though carbonation in this case is not overly sharp; slick grainy body with the rice adding only emptiness and a whiny sweetish effect, paired with annoying metallic and rubbery flavours, straightforwardly moving into a 'finish' in which admittedly some grassy hops step in to add a bit of end bitterness - more so than in that dreadful Jupiler, I must say, but there is a bothersome 'chemical' kind of plastic-y bitterness as well. Still, the hops do persist in a somewhat peppery way for a few minutes after swallowing (the whole can) which is more than I was hoping for. A tad drier and definitely more hop bitter than Jupiler, so this is clearly the better one of the two for me - but it remains, of course, just as industrial and bland, and not an enrichment for the Belgian beer culture at all, in spite of what AB InBev's smooth talking marketeers try to tell you. Honestly not worse than expected, but my expectations were very low to begin with, of course... I am off to Germany next week and in the land of Lager, hopefully (and very likely) this kind of unnecessary marketing tricks of macro lager brewers will soon be forgotten.