Kulmbacher Pilsner

Kulmbacher PilsnerI’ve got a backlog of beer review notes that I haven’t posted yet—things get behind when I’m trying to keep up with current releases and such—so tonight’s review of Kulmbacher Pilsner is one of those. This is from the Beer of the Month Club selection that I’d received in February.

This Pilsner is a session-strength 4.9% alcohol by volume, and despite the link I gave you above it’s really the Shelton Brothers import version that I had. (The bottles are different and the source website calls it "Kulmbacher Edelherb".)

Appearance: Very clear golden yellow, with a crisp white head and bubbles rising slowly a là champagne.

Smell: Clean and grainy with a hard water note… a nice lightly spicy noble hob—pretty typical Pilsner nose.

Taste: Crisp and biting with a bitter edge and a mineral-y, almost sulfury base. Sharp steel cut hops and clean, pleasant grainy malt. Dry.

Mouthfeel: LIght but firm and substantial. Has an edge—a bite to it.

Overall: A good Pilsner with (thankfully) none of the "European lager skunk" that I’ve come to fear from some of these…

On BeerAdvocate, it scores a grade of B+. On RateBeer, it scores 2.81 out of 5 and is in their 30th percentile.