Buckleys Pilz

Brewed by Yarra Flats Brewery
Style: Pilsener
Healesville, Victoria, Australia

Serve in Flute, Footed Pilsner

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Chilled 330ml bottle. Acidic apple cider on the nose, some earthy English-style hops possibly. Hazy orange body with a minimal white collar. Body is a bit on the watery side. Has the resiny hop character one would expect in an IPA. Odd citrus rind sort of hop flavour in there, quite a bit of sourness like a really unripe apple with some cidery fermented heavily processed sugar in there too. Very drying and slightly bitter, but not in the right way. Homebrew-like indeed, a Pilsner? Surely not.

Bottle from brewery. Did not seem like a traditional pils. Light golden colour. Citrus and floral taste. Very average beer overall. Interesting to try but not sure if I’d repeat.

UPDATED: SEP 28, 2010 From a 330ml bottle on 10/8/2010. I’m surprised this one has got such a bagging on here so far, as it’s actually pretty good (note mine says ’pils’ rather than ’pilz’). Not that it’s recognisable as a pilsener. It pours cours cloudy, has a distinct smell of apple and a bit of toffee, and also has a sweet/sour fruity flavour. Couldn’t be more different from Uncle Urquell, other than some decent hop kick at the back. But that’s fine, as it has its own character. A nice, weird beer.

330ml bottle. A vibrant and bright gold colour with a crackling thick creamy head that levels out. Zesty aromas mixed in with some spice. Flavoursome with a medium level of bitterness but a long lasting effect on the palate. Yeasty sediments in the end pour.

Bottle. Pours clear golden with a small white head. I’m getting light citrusy notes with lemon and butter. The flavour is malt, citrus and lemon. Light bodied with low bitterness. A crappy pils.

Bottle (330ml). Poured a hazy golden orange with a rocky, white head which was fully diminishing. Aroma was of lemon juice, pineapple, lemon zest with some sweet malts hidden in the back of the mess. Flavor was confusing with lots of colliding flavors; a foul lemon acidity was the leading flavor, followed by an odd soapy bitterness with soda like carbonation and strong metallic notes in the finish. Light bodied with fizzy carbonation, quite watery texture and a short finish. This one was a absolute disgrace to the word pilsner, more of a radler.

The newly-launched ’Beer &Brewer Australia’ magazine faces a dilemma: to have editorial credibility, it has to critique the products of the very same brewers whose advertising it needs to be financially viable. Thus it has to walk a delicate line between being honest enough to retain readers and tactful enough to retain advertisers. The result in the first issue was that of "82 beers tasted", the overwhelming majority of the reviews were positive. If only that was a fair reflection of the current standard of Australian brewing. The only beers to cop a bucketing were a handful of CUB lagers (CUB is unlikely to advertise anyway - wrong market) and this Victorian "pils". Well, they got that right. If this is typical of their work, Buckleys have a place in the Oz Brewers Hall of Shame alongside Outback, Braidwood and Hopping Mad. This improbable pilsener poured a muddy bottle-conditioned orange with a spare covering of suds. The sour-apple aroma echoes Thorogoods Golden Malted, but not in a good way. Cider apples, lime pickle and fudge-like sugars fill the nose. The nose says "infected" and the flavour offers little dispute. However, from the rest of the ratings here, it doesn’t appear that the brewer agrees. This tastes like tart, watery apple juice full of acetic acid. It’s oddly refreshing, like homemade lemonade. Imperceptible bitterness. Strange salty finish. Undercarbonated. It takes a lot of chutzpah to describe this on the label as "a traditional pilsener". Er, no. This is the kind of stuff that gives micro-brewing a bad name. How the hell did they get Dan Murphy’s to stock this? (330ml bottle from Dan Murphy’s, Kingsford)

330ml bottle - Spicey ginger & very caustic green apples aroma. Palate doesn’t get any better. I hope the happy couple have a better future than this...

Whoa, a very sour apple aroma that has my glands wincing more than any lambic I’ve smelt. On tasting it proves to be sour, but not as destructive as its aroma. Rather shallow sourness, and no bitterness to speak of for a pils. Salty finish, which has me making some very strange head movements trying to clear my tongue. The label repeats the old adage, "Buckley’s... or none" - I know which one I should have chosen.

Bretty rank. Nothing outstanding here. Home brewish with alot of organics. Strange labelling too.