Color: very light, hardly any sparkling, fine white head
Taste: the bitterness introduced already in the aroma, comes completely forward in the aftertaste. Considered one of the top Pilsners during the Michael Jackson International Pilsner tasting in Beer Passion Magazine, autumn 2000, where 27 Pilsners from around the world were ‘blind’ tasted and compared.
A Pils or Pilsner beer is low in alcohol. The USA Pilsners are around 4 % abv, and the European Pilsners around 5 % abv. Many well know European Pilsners, that have been imported in the USA for many years, are watered down versions so that the word ‘BEER’ could be put on the label. This is because many US States didn’t and sometimes still don’t (Texas for example) allow one to print ‘BEER’ on a label when the beverage offers more than 5 % abv. That’s why many of you, who traveled to Germany and Holland for example, can get the idea, rightfully so, that the same brands taste better in Europe. For the same reason, Budweiser is higher in alcohol in some European countries than in the USA.
A Pilsner beer is ideal to drink, when you are planning for a long night of drinking or a night with lots of dancing and you know you’ll be thirsty. It’s also ideal if you have to drink a beer in a hurry, with a quick and simple lunch for example. The reasons for this are simple, Pilsners are low in alcohol, and there’s not much of a specific taste to offend the food you eat with it.
The Pilsner beer is the second style of beer that most kids in Europe learn to drink. First is the low alcohol table beers at home and in school, and later the Pilsners when they go out with their parents and/or friends. The beer is cheap, and low in alcohol. In Europe, this beer is the beer of choice during and after sport events, or other mass happenings, festivals or concerts. We can say the same is true in the US looking at the sponsors of such major events. When I was a young man in Belgium, we used to drink twenty of these beers (European small 25 cl. = 8.4 oz glasses) per night during a 10 hour stretch of dancing and fun. This isn’t an exception in Europe. Most of it we would sweat out from all the dancing, but of course, after a night like that you don’t drive a car but instead find your way home by foot, on your bike or with the bus.
Bavik Premium Pilsner, is considered one of the best Belgian Pilsners, and is certainly one that survived the onslaught by Interbrew-Labatt, which tried, and still tries to take over as many Belgian breweries as possible, to shut them down and to stop brewing their beers.
Bavik Premium Pilsner has been brewed since the creation of the brewery in 1894. Indeed, the emergence of the Pilsner, only a few decades earlier in Bavaria and Czechia, was one of the main reasons Mr. De Brabandere started his brewery. Read about the history of the brewery on the brewery-page. The Bavik Premium Pilsner has a very strong market in the Southern part of West Flanders and in theWestern part of Northern France. This is in fact the ‘local’ market for the brewery, and this market is still growing at a healthy pace.
