Marks&Spencer Czech Lager
Purchased at the Marks and Spencer's supermarket, this beer is brewed exclusively for the M&S. Coming in a 500ml slim green bottle, BB 10/2010, served chilled in a pint-size weizen glass. A: pours a light golden hue with good clarity and lots of large bubbles ascending from the bottom of the glass, supporting a 1.5cm thick foamy cotton-white head. S: a touch of semi-sharp doughy sourness underlines the otherwise fruity+grassy hoppy profile, leaving lightly sweet grainy and nutty malts lagging behind. Not complex at all. T: the flavour is easily the lightest I've had for this beer style... semi-sour grainy at first, turning lightly grassy-hoppy in the middle, then an sweet-sour lemony aftertaste and nuttiness from malts catch up, leaving very little bitterness in the end. The finishing touch is way too light in flavour and in body - in fact, slightly disappointing. M&D: lightly carbonated, easy to quaff, but the body falls quite thin throughout the drink, without important support of maltiness and a more pronounced hop profile that a traditional Bohemian Pilsner should show. I find this lager numbed down greatly from the tap-version (Bohemia Regent Sv&#283;tl Lek) I've had whilst in Czech Republic. Maybe it's not a good idea to brew it "exclusively" for M&S after all... lest people wrongly assume this is as good (read "mediocre") as a real Czech pilsner can get?