Saranac Golden Pilsener

Another Pilsener tonight, this time from Saranac. Saranac spells Pilsener differently from most, which I more frequently see spelled as Pilsner. Just an observation, for whatever it's worth. I tried this tonight as a comparison to the Carolina Blonde I had a couple of days ago. I have to say that the main difference is in the hops. Saranac doesn't have a lot of hops in this beer, but it's hoppier than the Carolina. The bottle describes this as a wheat beer, which surprised me, since most Pilsners are not made from wheat. This beer is a bit fruity like a wheat. The beer was packaged in Saranac's 12 Beers of Summer collection, and it is a good summer beer - light, refreshing, easy to drink.

Carolina Blonde - Ale or Pilsner?

Here's another beer I picked up during my vacation. My nephew spent some time in North Carolina recently, and really liked this beer, so he gave me a bottle of it to try. It poured a golden yellow color with a small white head. It's a very light beer in flavor and in body. In fact, it's pretty fizzy. Drinking this beer reminds me of my college days, when the only thing I drank was Miller High Life. All the German and Canadian beers were too "heavy" for my tastes at the time. That was in the mid 70's when not much was available other than American macros. The Carolina Blonde website describes this beer as a golden ale, while on the bottle they refer to it as a "Genuine Pilsner style" beer. Since a Pilsner is a lager style, rather than an ale, I'm not sure how this is brewed. By taste and body, I feel it's a pretty typical light lager/pilsner. The aroma is very light malt, and the flavor is somewhat grassy, with a little hint of citrus in the finish. There's not much going on in the way of hops. This beer goes down really easily, and would make a great lawnmower beer, but I wouldn't search it out.

Blue Marble Organic Pilsner

I bought this bottle of "earth friendly" beer at the local World Market. I guess it's earth friendly because it's organic. This is my second organic brew in about a month, and this one is vastly superior to the last one. This is a Pilsner style, rather than a pale ale. It poured a golden straw color, with a sizeable white head. It's pretty well-carbonated, but not excessively so. The first thing I noticed was the flavor of lemons, and a distinctly bitter finish. This has a healthy dose of Noble hops, as a Pilsner should. At 3.9%, it's pretty modest in its alcohol level. I enjoyed this brew, and I have a better opinion of organic beers now. Blue Marble Brewing is a subsidiary of Butte Creek Brewing.