Lager (?) of the week — Plzen Ij

I haven’t been drinking in Holland since an enjoyable afternoon at the Red Lion in the Limburg city of Venlo several years back; here Lindeboom’s uncomplicated but enjoyable Pilsner was the order of the day amongst others, including the landlord’s own home-brewed take on a tripel (it was pretty good). I enjoy Grolsch and Christoffel’s beers, as well as the ones I have had from De Molen, but more recently I have discovered Plzen Ij from the Amsterdam-based Brouwerij Het Ij. It’s an honest, unreconstructed, complex, horny handed, rough arsed, plain-spoken beer that dubs itself a Pils (see below) — and an utter delight. The nose is sweet and herbal, with hints of resiny hoppiness; on the palate it was balanced between its bittersweet notes and the start of a long bitter finish. My version was unfiltered and slightly cloudy and all the better for it. Like swallows and summers, one bottle does not make a classic but it’s a beer that really stands out and makes me want to try it again. I really like unfiltered Pilsners and I still drool over the deliciousness of the Pilsner Urquell that was served to me straight from the wood in the old tunnels beneath the brewery back in 2005 — I wonder if it is the same?
Just as I prepare to post this, I read that a top fermenting yeast is used for Plzen Ij — once again the thorny question comes to mind: is this a lager? It brings to mind something someone from one of my favourite British craft brewers said to me recently, when I asked if they were joining the British Lager campaign: ‘we make good beer, full stop.’ I won’t change the heading of this post, but if we are going to be doctrinal it’s incorrect. Oh lord, the semantics of beer don’t half drag one down.

Alloa, Alloa

I like Williams Bros Ceilidh. They call it a lager. Now I don’t know whether it has been lagered and if so for how long, but it certainly tastes and feels more like a Munchen Pilsner than any member of that oxymoron of British craft brewing cask-conditioned lager. It’s the colour of Welsh gold — I hold my wedding ring up to it and the colours match. The nose is sweet and fragrant, gently toasted bread with a slight scent of elderflower and lemon in the background — the beer equivalent of that old Victorian standard Come into the garden Maud; sweetish and soft on the palate, then it becomes lemony midway through the palate; it has a gorgeous rounded mouthfeel before its dry, tantalisingly grainy finish. This is a very good approximation of a Munich Pils (too forthright to be a Helles and not floral enough to be Bohemian) — how wonderful it is to see another British brewer take on lager and produce something creditable. The label says ‘brewed in Alloa’, which if I seem to remember correctly was often seen as a Scottish equivalent of Burton-on-Trent; it was also a place noted for its lagers, so hence the legend on the label.