Pilsner Urquell

Pilsner Urquell is the original pale lager — the 1842 Plzeň beer from which every golden pilsner on earth descends. Its German name means "original source of pilsner," and that is a statement of fact, not marketing: before this beer, lagers were dark and often inconsistent. Brewed with pale malt, soft local water, and Saaz hops, it set the template that most of the world's beer still follows.

The citizens of Plzeň, fed up with poor local beer, built a new burghers' brewery and hired the Bavarian brewer Josef Groll to run it. He mashed in his first batch on 5 October 1842, and the clear, golden result was first served that November — a sensation in an era of murky brown beer. The brewery still uses a triple-decoction mash, which gives the beer a malt depth unusual in a pale lager.

Ownership has traveled even as the recipe stayed put. After years inside SABMiller, the brewery's parent Plzeňský Prazdroj was sold to Japan's Asahi Group in 2017 as a condition of the AB InBev–SABMiller merger. Pilsner Urquell is still brewed in Plzeň, where visitors can drink unfiltered beer from oak lagering barrels in the brewery's sandstone cellars.

Deep gold with a caramel-touched malt richness from triple decoction, cut by the spicy, herbal snap of Saaz hops. The bitterness is firm for a pale lager, and the finish stays crisp and moreish.