Cristal Oro

Brewed by Grupo Empresarial Bavaria
Style: Premium Lager
Bogota, Colombia

Bottle via PUB’N. Pours pale gold with 1-finger white head. Nose is pale malt, hopcitrus, mild thiols. Tastes pretty good, with pale malt, hops, apricotty fruit. Fairly smooth and decent complexity. This one isn’t too bad at all.

My bottle was also labeled as Colombian Gold and I couldn’t find ’Cristal Oro’ anywhere on the bottle or packaging, so let’s hope this is the same beer. In terms of categorical relevance, it doesn’t really taste like any other Classic German Pilsener I’ver ever had. Not much aroma at all, but the beer itself is a little light and side by side with a Corona (which I perhaps wrongly assumed all of these Latin American golden beers taste the same) it tastes sweet and buttery with relatively no bitterness. Little to no head. I’d actually rather drink a Corona because it has more flavor - with the lime of course. In all fairness I’ll re-rate this when I know I’ve found a fresher pack.

I’m rating this under the assumption that this is the same beer that’s marketed in the US as ’Colombian Gold’ from the same brewery. Decent tropical pilsener. A little adjuncty smelling, but not too noticable. Sweet, light, a little hoppy. Smooth and drinkable, so crack a cold one with the 3rd World strongman of your choice.

For coming in a different can than Club Colombia, this is pretty much the same beer. Not that it’s a bad thing - despite the light body, this is a refreshing hoppy lager - nice, crisp, north German.

Head is initially small, frothy, white, fully diminishing. Body is medium yellow, fair density of small and medium sized particles. Aroma is moderately malty (light bread, cereal), lightly hoppy (herbs). Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly bitter, lightly salty. Finish is lightly sweet, moderately bitter. Medium body, dry and syrupy texture, lively carbonation. It’s perhaps a little corny and sweet, but at the same time there is substantial bitterness in the finish and a pretty full mouthfeel for the style. My bottle is labeled ’Columbian Gold’ (by Cerv. Leona), but I’m sure that’s what this entry references.