Is it time to rediscover Heineken?

Before the craft-brew craze hit the United States (I’m relatively young, but I can still remember those days) Heineken was one of the only escapes open to the discerning beer drinker in the United States. It isn’t even that good, really, but it was something about the green bottle that screamed exotic and kept bringing people back to its green-bottle counterparts St. Pauli Girl and Beck’s. Fortunately we’re no longer subject to the tyranny of the green bottle, as the mico-brew revolution has ushered in the age of the brown bottle democracy; it remains to be seen how destructive the Civil War between West Coast and East Coast Brewers might be for American Beer History.

Back to the point...in Europe it’s much easier and much less expensive (relatively speaking) to get your hands on the old world’s equivalent to MGD, to I recently set out to re-evaluate my relationship with the old guard beer aristocracy. I was surprised to find that it wasn’t quite as mediocre as I remember, and there’s a lot to be said about an appreciation for Pilsner style lagers that have mostly been left behind by today’s craft brewers. It had a good introduction, lacked bitterness, and was surprisingly smooth going down. It doesn’t quite hit the spot the way Czech Pilsner’s like Urquel or Budveis do, but it’s highly preferable to its Dutch counterpart Amstel or the French mockery of Pilsner style beers like Kronenbourg or 1664 (not to mention the American macro-brewed lagers). So the next time you have a craving for an old worldly beer, give your old tyrannical master a second chance!