Harpoon 100 Barrel Series #15 - Bohemian Pils

Formerly brewed at Harpoon Brewery
Style: Bohemian Pilsener
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Draught at Ginger Man, NYC
Blond color. There is a light aroma of straws. It’s sweeter than a classic Pils; it has a good body strength, but missing the hop of a real Pils. Drinkable, but nothing special.

(22oz bottle) Large white head atop clear pale straw body, nice lacing. Aroma is medium sweet, cereal, some floral. Taste is medium sweet, grassy/floral, some cereal, light lemon. Decent bitterness in the aftertaste. Watery, light body, light crispness.

(22oz. bottle) Pours a clear golden body with a moderate white head. Aroma of lemongrass, florals, herbs, cream, and honey. Flavor of malt, cream, and light hops.

22oz bottle acquired in trade with ppoitras (thanks!). Poured a light and slightly hazy straw / yellow color with an averaged sized white head. Aroams of grass, lightly spicy and honey. Tastes of grass, spices (stronger than the aromas), and grain. Thinner body.

100 Barrel series. Pours a straw color with a foamy white head. Smells metallic and peppery with some tea like hops and nice pils malt in the background. Taste is semi sweet with some mellow bitter hops on the finish. Mouthfeel is watery and lacking. Where are the malty hints I detected in the aroma? Lacking as far as Bohemian Pilsners go but sessionable.

22 oz bomber. Pale golden beer with thin white head. Light honeyish aroma, a bit of caramel. Aroma is lightly malty, pale malt, herbal/floral hops. Flavour is okay, but pretty genuine. Decent hop flavour, floral/spicy hops. As it warms a bit of hop flavour comes forward as well. Well-balanced but the malts are lacking. Moderate bitterness.

22 oz bottle from Table and Vine in Northampton MA consumed from a Christoffel glass just a bit above fridge temperature. Pale bubbly gold with a fairly stable white small-bubble head and thick fine-patterned lacing, looks nice....grainy Saaz-dominated nose comes off a bit skunky and old at first (this bottle was no more than a month old when I had it) though some nice malt and perhaps a hint of honey shows up with some warmth and the acrid wafts dissipate eventually....body has a touch of bite but on the whole is way too doughy/soft to really work and it just gets sweeter and milder as it works towards the dull, slightly dry finish....carbonation is biting but a tad too low....check this one a "no" if you’re keeping score on the 100 Barrel series.

Bomber consumed on 8/5/06.
Fuzzy white head is medium in size, but after the initial flurry of head-bolstering, forced carbonation dies off, thus so for the head. No lacing, no sediment, pasteurized.Grassy, soggy, mossy hops are no where near what I would call anything such as crisp, snappy, lively, or biting. And ya’ need one of those in a Bohemian pils. Just seems like an afterthought of predictable, modestly aromatic hallertauer. More herbal/wet grass than saaz, to me, it seems, though apparently not so. But it just sort of gets cozy with the nose, very fuzzy and warm-toned, again, not at all what a Bohemian pils should be. Of course, it gets no help from the malt, which is sugary, not overly so, but still too much so. It sweetens the already flagging hoppiness and further kills any crispness. And then the yeast. Poor guys, they arent even alive. Hardly much resemblance to a real, live czech pils yeast, though no doubt Harpoon claims/will claim that is what they use. Just like in the saison, there’s barely any yeast character and it just comes off dead and nutty.
By now, I hardly even need to taste the beer, and in doing so am not surprised to find the same, dull, somewhat sweetish honey malts, bland dough, wet grass, herbs, some hay and a fizzy carbonation. No alcohol perceived. Medium body.
Call me biased against Harpoon (I’m not, IMHO), but anyone who thinks this beer is crisp is kidding themselves.