We had another tasting at the house recently and it was just as unscientific as the first one. Laurel is a pilsner fan so it was decided shortly after the last testing that we would try to find the best Pils brand available. I HATE Pils, so I offered to be the beer wench. Laurel’s dad was spending some time in The Czech Republic before coming to our place for a visit, so he agreed to get a sampling of Czech Pilsner – since that particular poison was born in a Czech monastery a few hundred years ago. He outdid himself by bringing a case of one liter beer 500+ miles on a train and then lugging it around Hamburg to our place.

Things started well and we had a fine turn out of participants as well as seventeen different beers to try. Mat and Karin brought aluminium foil for hats – lest other testers read your mind and it influence their decision and we provided beer related snacks. Donald, a chef by trade, cooked gourmet treats for the guests to have with the beverages.

Things started off well – I had a system where I assigned one glass to one person and would wash it real quick after a sampling had been drunk. After the second or third beer, Laurel stopped drinking and helped me with the serving. The testers started getting loud and opinionated after the fifth beer or so with the German testers saying hateful mean things about the Czech pilsner. Anytime we offered a German beer they knew right away and gave a little cheer. Consequently, as there were no Czech testers to balance it out, the German beer trounced the Czech versions, but two did make it into the top five.

A spreadsheet referencing each testers score for each beer and the overall ranking can be found here. The top five beers were:

#5 Warsteiner Pils
#4 Staropramen Svetlý (Pale)
#3 Bitburger (tie)
#3 Krusuvice (tie)
#1 Beck’s Gold

With hats, pizza, score cards, and beer. Click on the pic on the right for the best shot of the night.

There was continued drinking after the testing and things degraded further. At one point a brother of an invited guest decided it was a fine idea to grab a VERY expensive bottle of tequila and swig it like cheap bourbon. He threw back somewhere near $60 worth before the then half-empty bottle was taken from him. Shortly after we had to officially close the testing down for the evening. I would like to think that this proves, unscientifically, that Weisse beer is better than Pilsner and that the general public is better behaved and happier when they consume Franziskaner than when sucking down a Beck’s…