Maybe the least understood amongst the alcoholically educated, the pilsner is often lumped in with other cheap lagers, given a bad name by those who remember the bad old days where Harp lager was the best thing you could get. Even now there's little to shout about in the English pilsner world. No lager is appealing, no decent English pilsner... exists as far as I can see, and you completely forget anything that even remotely resembles a high percentage pilsner. That's Special Brew territory and nobody drinks that apart from the homeless, vagrants and travelling folk... Or so says the Daily Mail.
They're all still right too because this Imperial Pilsner by Meantime is for export only, which is sad, but I have a bottle, which is AWESOME!
The pour is beautiful and controlled with a 2 finger head that soon whittles away down to a thin foam, leaving light speckling. The aroma is exactly what you'd expect from a good pilsner except there's just more of it. There's a sweet caramel core to the aroma that's surrounded by a light breadiness that is most appealing.
It tastes as light as a beer half its percentage and the light caramel/biscuit sweetness hides the little twinge you get from the alcohol. This is a beautifully well balanced Imperial Pilsner with a nice, thick, mouth feel and a medium carbonation that gives you just a little fizz as you pull away. It is as refined as Lady Penelope but has the same ability to utterly destroy your liver as drinking a bag of rusty hammers. Maybe it is more a case of it being the beauty that brings out the beast because this is certainly not to be sniffed at, especially when you can get it for £8.50 in a 750ml bottle... Which may sound like a lot but consider that you would pay more for 500ml bottles of Evil Twin or Stone... Unless you happen to live in Denmark or America, in which case you probably pay normal prices.
The moral of this story, however, is that some of the great stuff being made in this country is export only and I can only assume that's because the brewery don't think there's a market for it here. I would argue that there's always a market for good beer and this definitely falls under that category.
Food suggestion: Sweet caramel flavours in a pilsner? I think that lends itself well to pork belly! Aw yeah!
Drink this if you like: Sleeping in a gutter, mugging innocents and not paying taxes... According to the Daily Mail.
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