As a beer connoisseur, it's easy to get lost in the world of increasingly exclusive and hard-to-find beers. This is because as an enthusiast you are always focused on the things you don't know/have not tried yet. In this column I want to do just the opposite: discuss beers that most beer connoisseurs, with their noses held high, avoid because they are too cheap and widely available and therefore do not radiate quality.
The reason for this is the silver medal that the renewed Albert Heijn house beer, with the tautological name Brouwers Pilsner, won at the Dutch Beer Challenge 2017† With this second place, the beer is directly under the exclusive luxury pilsner of Gulpner Chateau Neubourg and above pilsners such as Heineken and Brand. The fact that a panel of beer connoisseurs prefer such a budget lager, in a blind tasting, to various premium lagers shows that quality and affordability are often closer to each other than the consumer thinks.
I have experienced the same phenomenon in many blind tastings. I like to always include a number of budget brands in a lager tasting. I then let the participants fill in in advance what they think they think is the tastiest and least tasty lager. To great amusement, the budget brands often score higher than expected in such tastings: 'Ha ha! Henk always says that he absolutely wants Hertog Jan because other brands make 'koppijn beer', and now he chooses Schultenbrau himself!'
The fact is that many of the budget brands are also made by reputable breweries. Brouwers Pilsner, for example, comes from Bavaria and Klok Pilsner from Grolsch. Not under the same recipe as their 'A' brand, of course, but that doesn't mean it's bad beer. Some German brands are also sold for budget prices, such as Veltins and Oettinger. I have never in my life tasted German lager that tasted bad.
So take some unique advice from a beer connoisseur that will help you reduce your spending: try a budget beer! The quality is usually not inferior to the premium brands, where you pay for the advertising campaign and only way you get a headache from drinking beer is if you drink too much of it. That way you pump less money into the lager giants and you have money left over which you can use to buy a nice specialty beer. Save on lager, invest in specialty beer!
Ivo Thijssen
beer sommelier
Ivo is an international beer sommelier, entertainer and catering expert. Has an immeasurable passion for beer, catering and hospitality. Ivo will write a monthly column for Horeca Groningen.
