Beck’s

For much of the twentieth century, ordering 'a German beer' outside Germany simply meant a Beck's — the green-bottled pilsner from the port city of Bremen that built its whole business on crossing oceans.

The brewery opened in 1873 close to Bremen's docks, and even its logo is borrowed civic property: the key from the city's coat of arms, famously flipped to face the other way. Exporting early made Beck's the default German beer on menus from New York to Sydney, all of it brewed to Germany's purity-law tradition of malt, hops, water, and yeast.

It now belongs to AB InBev, with one modern wrinkle: Beck's sold in the U.S. has been brewed in St. Louis since 2012, a switch that surprised American drinkers enough to produce a class-action settlement offering refunds — up to fifty dollars a household — to anyone who had assumed their bottle was still German.

A proper north-German pils profile: pale gold, firm white head, and noticeably more hop bite than the international lagers it shelves beside — grassy, herbal, faintly peppery — over lean cracker malt. The finish is dry and mineral, with the clean snap of bitterness that defines the style.