Penn Pilsner

Brewed by Pennsylvania Brewing Company
Style: Vienna
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA

Name: Penn Pilsner
Date: 10/08/2006
Mode: Bottle
Source: Roadtrip

Appearance: muddy amber, whispy white head,
Aroma: lightly sweet floral malt aroma,
Flavor: flavor has lots of bitterness on a dry malt base,

Aroma: 4/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 4/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 7/20
Rating: 2.1/5.0
Drinkability: 6/10
Score: *+/4

Bubbled clear light amber topped by quickly dissipating beige head. Aroma is sweet butterscotch, caramel, floral, light earthy. Taste is butterscotch up front, followed by caramel, floral, before finally finishing earthy bitter. Medium body, some crispness at the end. A decent beer, but I would have liked it much better without the butterscotch.

Bottle shared courtesy of fatty. Poured a clear golden color with a small sized white head. Musty grassy aroma and tastes with breadiness to it. Thin and watery body.

(Bottle) Pours a light amber color with a large frothy head. I wish the beer tasted as good as it looked. It had kind of a sour taste.

GBof A PA-on tap-pours a foamy off white head and yellow color. Aroma is yeast?, musty, grass, light hops. Taste is saaz [actually Hallertau!] hops bitterness, light malt. OK carbonation.

Bottle... Clear, light amber lager with a large, rocky, off-white head. Excellent, creamy retention. Herbal, earthy aroma with a hint of crisp citrus fruit. Malty, earthy flavor. Leans just a fragment on the sweet side of balance. Light carbonation. Malty, bittersweet finish. Not really brewed to style, but I see Ratebeer has this one categorized as a Vienna. I agree.

Pours copper with a thin white head. Smells of caramel, corn flakes and oats. Taste is of corn syrup and a bit soapy.

A vienna? Then why call it a pilsner? I don’t know, but I guess the nose agrees well enough with the vienna style. It’s a bit buttery though, almost bourbon-like with the butter note, though. With some hay and grass scents, some dusty, dirty, earthy grains and a bit of an overly sweet corn and caramel smell, it doesn’t set up very well. Altogethor the nose is missing a lot, and has too much of an adjunct (corn and butter) scent. The color of this clear beer is pretty much spot on for orange, and the white head is about two fingers deep when poured, but dies down to a white film with a small amount of lacing present. Light and crisp up front, flavors are pretty faint, with some corn, butter, cracked barley and cereal grains tasted. Across the middle and towards the back of the tongue there’s a decent amount of bitterness, more of the cracked cereal grain flavor, and a husky, slightly sweet malt extract syrup flavor. At times this even smells and tastes like an old towel. Palate is left dry and slightly scorched, like burnt grapenuts cereal. I guess this gets a ’meh’ overall.