BIG Thanks to Engelsmann for this bottle. Best before SEP 07, it says. Huge white head, very strong retention, snow white in color and very dense/creamy, providing ample sheets of lace. Great clarity in the very pale-straw body, with faint bronze-copper tints. Unfiltered, but settled and carefully poured. Tiny bubbles rising methodically in the liquid. AROMA. Nose just blows up, surging forth with saaz and hallertauer dryness, but just enough light grass-like fruitiness and a very crisp lager yeast bite that dries things out even moreso on the end. Snappy, crisp, dry, highly aromatic, this is pilsener at its best. Further sniffing shows ripe green bartlett pears, mixing with a mildly sweet, almost tart white grape juice note. Malt is grainy, with minimal traces of sourdough, but it adds substance without butting in on the masterpiece that is the hops and yeast. FLAVOR. Pears and juicy white grape juice notes combining with lighlty sourish malts and crisp, snappy yeast, flow gracefully down the throat, with not-overdone carbonation. The dry, hay-like, sweaty and grassy hops keep things very dry, without overdoing the bitterness. Just a wonderful job with the finishing hops! Malt adds light honey that lets the crisp notes simultaneously nip at the palate and then sink in to a soft sweetness, only to be rinsed lightly by the engaging carbonation and then further cleared by the genuinely crisp yeast. No flaws whatsoever. Perhaps a little vacuousness in the middle, with some water and just a touch too round of a maltiness, but then, not all pilseners are bone dry. Oregano/dill and grass come in retronasal, quite pleasingly. Perfect carbonation levels, thanks to a superbly executed bottling job, especially for an unfiltered, delicate lager. Texture is supple, bit too round at times as stated, but it makes up for it by being wonderfully dry at the beginning and end. If this does indeed have American-style hops in it, they are certainly used sparingly and complementary.