Mesa Cerveza Pilsener

the owner of this cozy pub is a german expatriot, affable and garoullous as he works the crowd and even takes the time to sit and chat. "we’re using augustiner yeast" he announces when i confess that i seldom order a pilsner when i see it on a brewpub blackboard. i show off and claim that augustiner is my favorite of the big 5 munich breweries. "give it a try", he says, and i do, but i warn with a wink: "don’t complain if i think it’s rubbish..." the interesting thing is that i like it. when i was THERE, at the brewpub, i liked it. i thought it was a fairly nice pils with some notable flowery notes in the aroma. then a week later i spring for a growler-- and now by god i have to spend an entire goddamn evening with a pilsner-- and not a hot evening either, but a cool rainy one. and not a brisk, hoppy true pils, but a plain jane backyard burger beer. gone is any sense that this was an enlightened departure from a carbonated grain bath. this is golden pale unto anemia. if it stood next to a balsa board the balsa would look canary yellow. the head was as big as a cookbook soufle, but under it dwells such a corned barley aroma that the head is fairly wasted. there is perhaps some crushed daisy petal sense of floral botany, but that is smudged by a smell more akin to yellow squash. on the tongue it can hardly supersede the taste of my own gums. water, dry chaff, predictable lager effervesence, a slight tinny bitterness. after a growler, i have the kind of illicit feeling buzz that makes me think i’ve been sniffing airplane glue.