Recently Paulaner USA sent me a can of Paulaner Pils, as part of a marketing blitz to reintroduce the German-style pilsner to the U.S. market. Paulaner, arguably one of the best-known German breweries when it comes to imports, offers up several iconic beers including Weissbier and Oktoberfest Märzen that are highly regarded.

I don’t know when Pils was last available in this country, but since Paulaner brought it back, it’s worth your while to seek it out if you want to experience an authentic Bavarian pilsner. Many American craft breweries in recent years have been brewing German-style pilsners and many are quite good—but this one is the real deal, and I was impressed.

A note on the style. I recently wrote an article about GoodLife Brewing’s Bavarian Lager, noting the subtleties of pale lager styles and particularly the differences between helles and pilsner. I summed it up like this:

Helles lager, like other pale lagers, is all about subtlety and balance. To casual (and even experienced) drinkers it may be indistinguishable from a pilsner, but there are several key differences. Pilsner emphasizes hop character and bitterness and a dry, crisp finish; Helles focuses on the malts, with rounder, sweeter malt flavors and more body while dialing back on the hops.

Or to put it another way (though with less nuance), pilsner is crisp and hoppy, and Helles is sweet and grainy.

I will say with Paulaner Pils, it’s a textbook example of what I wrote — “emphasizes hop character and bitterness and a dry, crisp finish” — so if you’re looking to understand the German pils style, this is a superb beer to start with.

My review notes:

Appearance: Bright, sparkling golden color, perfect clarity, delicate, lacy head of very fine foam.

Smell: Crisp, biscuit graininess, extremely clean fermentation profile, with a subtle note of gently spicy noble family hops. Mild malt sweetness of bread dough.

Taste: Crisp bite with a noticeable hop bitterness that’s got black team, loam, and subtle tobacco notes. Clean, lightly toasty malt (biscuit again) that’s dry in the finish and well attenuated, emphasizing the hops to a brisk snap of lingering bitterness. Moreish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body, quite dry, good lingering bitterness.

Overall: Masterful and quite nicely hoppy while being eminently drinkable.