Chameleon-like extra smooth Italian-styled pale lager gives faded chocolate roast mildness and sharp toasted hop chiding an overripe orange-peach tease. Skittish caramelized backdrop, shaky corn-barley base, and butterscotch-toffee sedation need better assertion. Brewery defunct: 2004.

Disguised as a dry lager in America since pilsner designation is deemed light and watery, golden-hued hop-infested medium body is similar to Dutch competitor Heineken with its musty aromatic pungency and prolonged bitter-grained finish. Yet Grolsch has saltier bitterness, sharper Bavarian grain perkiness, and oft-times malt liquor-like strength.

Tinny grain bitterness and intrusive phenolic fizz disrupt slim honeyed lemon sourness, fresh cut maize dryness and husked wheat backbone of bland moderation. But brisk mineral water flow nearly saves it from indistinction.

Matured in open underground vats, unfiltered ‘keller’ beer styling uses only four basic ingredients (water-hops-barley-yeast). But turbid copper German suffers from crumbling spice-hopped butterscotch overlay and musty yeast bed. Clover honeyed caramel malts sour at midst, debunking dried tobacco whim and spiced apple tinge.

Fine smoked beer with perky hop-spiced fizz increasing burnt wood overtones and ashen-grained pale malts. Lighter and less dynamic than the nearly perfect Rogue Smoke Au Rauch, therefore less worthy.

Impossibly transparent paleness, puffy cumulous head, and fey malt pungency further dulled by unripe quince dalliance. Putrid alcohol astringency negatively affects unassuming ethanol aftertaste.

Dry-roasted barleymalts and sour citric nip welcome rising butterscotch proclivity of coppery medium-bodied Vienna-styled lager. But dormant finish undone by lack of hop-grain punctuation.

Attractive Scotch-like copper-toned Swede finds faded wheat wine aroma caressing roasted barleymalt dryness and dainty caramel creaminess. Bottom yeast sediment provides sweet warmth echoing candied clove reassurance countering dry hop finish.

Interestingly, many Portuguese beers emulate watery mild-bodied Spanish styling rather than heavier wheat wine mode their French neighbors relish. White head, unassuming aroma, soft grain palate, and gentle hop fizz dissolve by bland, indistinct finish.

Musty dough aroma, persistent phenol hop coarsening, and garbled malted grains up-front. Insufficient clove, citrus, and mint hints get drowned out. Weak toasted barley finish as drab as aluminum hue. Plain, ordinary, but not common.

Clean-watered pale lager needs deeper cereal-grained cornmeal penetration to supplement dry breaded malt slope, grassy hop moderation, and thin rice adjunct.

Lighter, simpler and less musky than most similarly styled Czech brews, lean Bulgarian lager relies on gentle barley, maize, and rice backbone to constrain sugary cereal graining contrasting mildly acidic herbal hop bitterness. Diacetyl finish veils gummy malt cloying.