Czech! Czech! Czcech! All night long!!!

My higher education continues at another beer tasting event hosted by the LMU Alumni Association. It was the same hosts, same venue, but a different theme. This time it was European beers. I had high hopes for this event as I have a healthy respect for European beers. After all, Newcastle comes from Newcastle, England and Belgian ales come from Belgium, naturally.

The last tasting featured a broad spectrum of beers from California. There were variations in style as well as drinkability. One thing that really stood out during the Cali tasting is that some beers were not meant to be bottled. They were meant to be canned - shit canned that is. Generally, these are the ones that tasted like urine drank from a hobo's boot. See my earlier post about my first beer tasting for details.

The Euro tasting was as varied in style but less so in drinkability. The tasting included pilsners, stouts, ales, as well as several others that I don't remember. However, none of the beers were horrible; all were drinkable. Perhaps this means that on average, Euro beers are better than Cali beers. I don't think it's fair to formulate this opinion yet as I've had such a small sample size of all the beers out there. I'll revisit this comparison after more testing.

Of course, some were better than others and that is to be expected. Since I lost my beer tasting cheat sheet between the time of the tasting and the time of this post, I'll only mention those that surprised me in one way or another.

First on the docket is Murphy's Irish Stout.
Despite the dark color and the style, this beer is surprisingly light in consistency and sweet. Well, it's not sweet like milk chocolate but if you've ever had Guiness then this is the polar opposite. Another plus is that this beer is available at BevMo and is reasonably priced at $6.49 for a 4 pack. Overall, this beer was a very pleasant surprise and I would definitely take this over a Corona or a Heine.

Next is teh Gulden Draak.

Ah, a Belgian ale! Zesty!!! This one was unique from the others that I've had. The bottle was all white and opaque. This protects the beer from light which can degrade the quality of the beer over time. This Belgian ale wasn't bad but I've had better. It wasn't as sweet as I'm normally used to but not to say that it tasted like ass; it was decent. I'd drink it but I probably wouldn't buy it again over some of my other favorite Belgian ales. Like other Belgian ales, this one isn't cheap; it's $11.99 for a 750 mL bottle at BevMo.

Last, the weiner of the evening: Pilsner Urquell.

Since the tasting, I've already gone through a couple cases of this stuff. It's that good. It's got a nice golden color, great flavor, and a very slight bitter finish that I think caps off every sip perfectly. I definitely would not hesitate to order this at a bar. I'm not sure how it stacks up against my current favorites but I feel it's already earned a place amongst them. I'll probably be picking up 12 pks time again since they are reasonably priced at $12.99 at BevMo.