Euro Lagers - Part 5: The Rest

Being the truly universal beer, lagers are produced in just about every country of the world. In this final part of my five part Euro Lager Saga (tm) I present six Euro Lagers from five countries in Europe not known for their beer production. Although their countries of origin may not be known for their beers and Euro Lagers are not the most titillating style, the last three are actually quite good (especially Kronenbourg 1664)!

Zubr (Poland) 5.6%

Dark yellow gold. Tastes of musty melon, it is sweet and not bitter. Somewhat unusual taste for a lager. Great copy-writing on the back label and a really cool bottle cap.

Viru (Estonia) 5.0%

Gold is a glass. Malty and fairly bitter for a lager - somewhat musty tasting. Thicker on flavour than a typical international lager but bland compared to any other style. The bottle is really cool though, and I quite like the bottle cap.

Peroni (Italy) 5.1%

Smells a little bit malty. Really carbonated and tastes of... barely anything. A little malty, barely hopped at all. If you want your beer to taste like nothing at all this beer is for you... or if you just want its cool bottle cap. Otherwise I would suggest you save yourself for a beer with a flavour.

Birra Moretti (Italy) 4.6%

A dry hoppy, slightly malty aroma. Gold in a glass. Quite a malty flavour with sweetness and toasted bread as well as a hint of caramel and all balanced out by lightly dry hops flavour - not very bitter but just bitter enough to make Birra Moretti work. A very nice Euro lager when it is all said and done.

Mythos (Greece) 4.7%

Quite skunky aroma - likely due to the light green bottle and UVB. A dry, light hops aroma typical of Euro lagers; a little musty perhaps due to age. The taste is mostly of that same dry hops flavour, though in Mythos it is bordering on wood tones with a hint of smoke. A bit of a tang and some spicy also from the hops. Lightly malty and probably more bitter than sweet. All in all, not a bad beer it's quite refreshing because it is dry rather than sweet and would probably pair well with spicy foods and lots of other kinds of fare. A fine Euro lager. Pale gold in a glass with a good head of foam.

Kronenbourg 1664 (France - Strasbourg) 5.0%

A sweet malty aroma with a touch of dry hops bitterness and a fairly strong banana and white grape juice smell too. More flavour to this beer than I expected from a Euro lager: it is still predominantly sweet malt but with a few lightly roasty hints and a bit of dry hops, but also plenty of that same white grape juice and some perfumy herbal characteristics make Kronenburg 1664 much more complicated than other Euro lagers. My refrigerator can be a little cool for ales and higher alcohol beers but the low temperature suits a lager like Kronenbourg 1664 just fine. I don't suggest giving it a few minutes to warm up. Gold in a glass with a good head and nice lacing. I was actually worried it might be flat when I opened it not much gas escaped when I cracked open the can. However, that was only because the can was very full (I might have an extra 5 ml) so there was very little room for gas to accumulate.

 In case you missed it, here are the earlier Parts to this Euro Lager Saga:

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic
Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia
Euro Lagers - Part 3: Germany
Euro Lagers - Part 4: Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria

Euro Lagers - Part 4: Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria

While hardly representative of Belgian beers, Stella Artois is a large part of Belgium's export market. It is included here with a trio of Euro lagers from Holland and one from Austria.

Stella Artois (Belgium)5.0%

A pronounced mix of sweet maltiness and dry hops. The result is a sweet moderately bitter lager that is refreshing and characteristically well balanced. There is also a detectable skunky off-flavour, that comes about due to the use of a green bottle which doesn't block UV-B the way a brown bottle does. Though technically an off-flavour I feel the skunkiness adds to the balance of the beer by forming a bridge between the malt and the dry hops.

Hollandia (The Netherlands) 5.0%

A somewhat yeasty, grain aroma. Full gold in a glass. Malty and quite bitter. A slight metallic alcohol flavour which is surprising for a beer that is only 5.0%. A generally unremarkable beer but not bad.

Grolsch (The Netherlands) 5.0%

Its characteristic flip-top bottle is a favourite of home-brewers (read: favourite of mine) and has also seen service as a bottle for homemade hot-sauce. The beer itself is gold in a glass. It tastes quite bitter for a lager with a dry hops flavour. A pleasant and typical European lager.

Heineken (The Netherlands) 5.0%

A creamy malt aroma with a bitter touch of dry hops and a splash of something skunky despite the fact that this beer came in a half-litre can and not a green glass bottle. There is also banana in the aroma. Gold in a glass with perfect frothy head.

The taste is sweetly malty, chaulky with a distinct but not overpowering banana flavour. Not very bitter at all and not much of the dry hops flavour I get in the aroma, as a result Heineken seems to be more like a North American, rather than a Euro, lager.

Stiegl (Austria - Salzburg) 4.9%

Such a warm sweet malty scent. The aroma doesn't carry over that strongly into the flavour. Quite bitter, hoppy. Has barest hints of apple and nut. Yellow, fizzy, highly drinkable and more bitter than most lager/pilsner types; although it is bitter without a sprucy hops punch like an IPA, there is still a bit of hops character to go along with the bitterness and fizz. Also, the old-style design of the beer can is quite likeable.


 In case you missed it, here are the earlier Parts to this Euro Lager Saga:

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic
Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia
Euro Lagers - Part 3: Germany

Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia

Regular readers will know that my blog really got going during half of a year I spent in Norway (Norwegian Yule Beers). Here are a few other lagers and pilsners that I came across during my time in Scandinavia.

Fredrikstad Pilsner (Norway) 4.5%

Thin tasting, a little sweet (a kind of honey sweet) but very mild. It tastes lighter than 4.5% and isn't bad. However there isn't much to its flavour, good or bad. Cool label.

CB Pilsner - Christianssands Bryggeri (Norway) 4.7%

Thin but with a strong malty taste. It's unique but not terrible good: the flavour is one-dimensional and the beer is not very refreshing.

Dahls Pils (Norway - Trondheim) 4.5%

This is a dreadfully thin beer. It tastes of beer flavoured water with a hint of cardboard. The redeeming qualities are few and far between: it is cheap for Scandinavia and it has a nice looking bottle cap. Avoid this one.

Lundetangen Pilsner (Norway) 4.7%




A very sweet beer with a malty aftertaste. It's a little too sweet to be properly refreshing but in general not bad.

This beer is brewed by the Aass brewery but the recipe is from the now defunct Lundetangen brewery who's demise bankrupted the father of Henrik Ibsen, Norway's most famous playwright.

Nordlands Pils 4.5%

Nicely drinkable with a bitter (and delayed) aftertaste that I didn't mind. Somewhat sweet but definitely a solid Euro lager/pilsner. At 15.90 NOK it is on the expensive side of local beers but only by a few dozen cents per bottle.

Tuborg Green (Denmark - Copenhagen) 5.4%

A surprisingly lively pallet for a pilsner: a little bit fruity, a little sweet, a little bitter. Lightly carbonated and lightly, sparkling gold in a glass. Refreshing but mostly unremarkable.

Tuborg Pure Gold (Demark - Copenhagen) 5.5%

A dry hoppy smell. That hops character comes through in the flavour as well as sweet, smooth maltiness. This beer is a lovely gold (who would have thought Tuborg Pure Gold would be gold coloured!), well carbonated with a moderately bitter finish. All in all Tuborg Pure Gold is quite smooth, fairly refreshing though quite malty and is, on the whole, well balanced.

Gull (Iceland) 5.0%

A warm somewhat sweetly-toasted bread taste with a somewhat bitter aftertaste for a lager.

Viking Gultur (Iceland) 5.0%

A very ordinary international lager, slightly more malty and bitter than average.






In case you missed it, here's Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic.

Euro Lagers - Part 3: Germany

Germany is known for the Bavarian Purity Law (one of the older trade barriers) and its lagers (the word lager means 'storehouse' in German) and most of them taste very similar to each other. For that reason I am starting this post with one that tastes better than all the rest.

Hacker-Pschorr Munich Gold (Germany - Munich) 5.5%

Full gold in a glass with a malty and sweet aroma tinged with a dry hops halo. The taste is bitter more than sweet and has a very dry hops taste than nearly masks the malt. A perfect pilsner style lager which should come as no surprise as all the Hacker-Pschorr's products that I have tried are of top quality (their Hefeweisen is truly wonderful). Because it's so much a true pilsner, people who prefer their lagers yellow and fizzy but bland probably won't like: it really is quite bitter. Oh and it comes in a cool (and very useful) swing-top bottle.

Beck's (Germany - Bremen) 5.0%

A lightly malted, slightly skunky lager (green bottle!) with a dry hoppy tone and a hint of spice. A nicely drinkable European style lager.

DAB (Germany) 5.0%

A malty aroma with more than a touch of dry hops. A sweet malty body with a watery mouthfeel with a dash of dry hops and a slightly bitter finish. The taste is sweeter at first than the average Euro lager but the dryness of hops prevents DAB from tasting too sweet, the end result of which is a slightly sweeter but mostly average Euro lager.

Wernesgruner (Germany) 4.9%

A very pale beer with a full frothy head. This beer, brewed in accordance with the German purity law of 1436, has the dry hops flavour I associate with a pilsner. It is quite bitter though otherwise a fairly mild malt flavour and sweetness. Not any surprises in this half-litre can, this beer is very typical of german pilsners: bitter and generally ordinary.

Warsteiner (Germany) 4.8%

Light gold colour in a glass with a malty smell. Musty very bitter taste, hoppy but not sprucy at all. A good lager taste and good with food because the bitterness clears the palate nicely.

Lowenbrau Original (Germany - Munich) 5.2%

Yellow and fizzy, obviously European with its dry hops flavour (not to be confused with beer that has been dry-hopped). A little sweeter than a Grolsch. Somewhat malty, a little bitter. A rather plain pilsner all-told. Drinkable but not remarkable.

Krombacher (Germany) 4.8%

Very pale gold in a glass. A bitter classic European pilsner with its trademark dry hops flavour. Some grain malt flavours also, and some sweetness but more or less a typical pilsner. Very pleasant and easy to drink but not exotic by any measure.

Bitburger (Germany) 4.8%

Malty sweet aroma with more than a hint of dry hops. Also a light fruity touch of something like white grape juice. Pale gold in a glass with a good frothy head.

A nice dry hops taste with plenty of bitterness and some light malt flavour. Bitburger is really quite bitter and as such would pair nicely with food and is nicely refreshing.


 In case you missed it, here are the earlier Parts to this Euro Lager Saga:

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic
Euro Lagers - Part 2: Scandinavia

Euro Lagers - Part 1: The Czech Republic

With so many European Lagers/Pilsners out there with such similar flavours I thought they ought to be posted en masse starting with the Czech Republic and two from the town that lent its name to the class of beer.

Pilsner Urquell (Czech Republic - Pilsen) 4.4%

A delightful gold in a glass, fully carbonated with a nice head. This pilsner comes from the Czech city of Pilsen, and this is where the pilsner was born and from which the pilsner name is derived. A pleasant malt background with a distinctive dry hops bitterness and a somewhat fruity finish. It's aroma malty and slightly bitter & metallic. A beer with a distinct taste and a good story to boot.

Gambrinus (Czech Republic - Pilsen) 4.1%

"ORIGINAL - Gambrinus has all the merits of beers brewed in Pilsen, especially including a delicious, slightly bitter flavour, rich colour, ample foam and full carbonation."


A pleasant light flavoured beer but with enough dry hops bitterness and character that you can still tell it's a pilsner. Definitely well carbonated - can't be drinking this one too quickly without belching. Surprisingly dark golden colour for a pilsner but still well on the light side of an ale.

Czechvar (Czech Republic) 5.0%

Gold in a glass, this beer is bitter and has a dry, hoppy flavour. Despite being quite bitter with that pronounced dry hops flavour I mentioned, Czechvar is also quite watery and has a quickly fading aftertaste.

Yellow, fizzy and refreshing but, as the label brags, this is a proper European, pilsner. The Czech Republic is the home of the town of Pilsen (of Pilsner fame) and there can be no doubt that this solid beer draws heavily on that proud, dry, hoppy tradition.