Penn Pilsner

Brewed by Pennsylvania Brewing Company
Style: Vienna
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

Serve in Lager glass

Bottle- Poured into a sam glass. Nice golden color with white head. Dissipates quickly but leaves a blotchy thick white residue on surface. High carbonation. Smell was pungent and very sour. Very much like soured fruit. The taste plays off of the smell. Tastes sort of like a fruit smoothie gone sour. The intial bite is very strong, mellows out a bit to slight hop flavors and banana. The sour taste holds strong in the aftertaste. Light bodied beer but a light slick on the tongue. To sour for my taste. Especially for a pils.

Slightly dark yellow, white cover. Aroma is crackery malt, some light grassiness. Taste is solid, again crackers, lightly bready but not heavy, some residual sweetness and dry, grassy, earthy hop finish. Nice, not sure why the name Pilsner and then the Vienna style though.

Do yourself a favor and stay on the North Side of the rivers in Pittsburgh to taste this accomplished Pilsner. So much better than the so-called Pilsner equivalents served at the Hofbrauhaus on the South Side.

Another Penn brewery beer that has this weird fruitiness to it. Pours golden with a thin white head. A bit of malt appears when aerated but it’s fleeting. Another easy drinking anonymous lager.

Pours gold into a Sam glass. Bright white head with medium retention recedes to skim surface. Sour summer fruit aromas. Sour strawberry and cranberries...uh, nope.

One of the first popular micos in the Pittsburgh area. Classic Vienna style pilsner….excellent. Maybe my rating is higher because of loyalty to this brewery. Aroma of caramel, sweet malts, and hops. The flavor is sweet malts medium body and a bitter slightly hoppy finish.

Their Penn Pilsner has been considered their flagship brand from the beginning and it took home a Gold Medal in 2001 from the National Beverage Tasting Institute. The first thing I noticed in pouring the beer was the bright, copper color, which is obviously a little darker than one might expect to see in a typical pilsner. It also loses its head rather quickly, even if the glass does manage to maintain its lacing. A true pilsner, it is said, should take seven minutes to pour, as the slowly evaporating head will not allow it to be poured more quickly. The first taste is surprisingly sweet and it’s apparent the brewers are pursuing a more Bavarian-style pilsner (as opposed to the paler and crisper Bohemian versions or the drier Northern German varieties). With a hoppy Hallertau bite that’s rather more of a nibble, this brew could easily be considered a Vienna lager, rather than a true pils. Still, it’s a very nice, drinkable brew that would serve its consumer well over the course of an evening. Serving type: bottle

Good color,nice malty scent, refreshing. Nice aftertase Good stuff for 17$