Wednesday, August 19, 2009

When Budweisers Go Wrong

The plan was simple, to try all three of the beers which lay claim to the Budweiser name. having found a shop in Columbia, South Carolina which had not just Czechvar but also B.B. Bürgerbräu I thought that this was going to be one of the most fun blind test tastings I had done in a while. Mrs Velkyal was in charge of bring out the three Budweisers, and the first two went swimmingly - I have drunk enough Budvar to know the difference between that and the American version. Then she brought out the third glass.

I was looking forward to the B.B. Bürgerbräu because I couldn't remember trying any of the products from Budějovický měšťanský pivovar while I was in Prague. When it came though it looked like this:


Oh dear! What was going on there then? But I wasn't too worried as I had bought a six pack so I decided to just get another bottle and ditch the blind tasting. The first bottle I picked up looked like this:

Oh dear, oh dear! Every bottle had this foul scum floating in the bottle, an entire six pack rendered undrinkable - I had taken a couple of sips of the original glass and it was simply awful.

What was going on? Surely they filter the beer, so where did this stuff come from? Any thoughts?

Next time Mrs Velkyal and I go to visit the in-laws I will pick up some more Budvar (still haven't seen it in Virginia) and a pre-checked case of B.B. Bürgerbräu in order to do a proper blind tasting.

5 comments:

  1. The way it is coagulating together in the bottle looks a lot like kettle cold break material, very odd that it should make it into the bottle!

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  2. Eww...nasty...never seen that before. You used to find Czechvar/Budvar in VA several years ago; but no more. I have seen it in SC and NC. In Richmond, I can get Podkovan, Kruscovice and Rebel, as well as Urquell (duh..) but have not seen BB in a while. We used to get a good bit of Herold, until they were sold. Cheers!

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  3. Make sure you take the bottles back to the store and get refunded. In Kentucky, people brought back various skunked beers and wines and it was our job to send it back to the manufacturer.

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