Perlenbacher

Perlenbacher is the house brand of the Lidl supermarket chain. It isn’t an actual brewery; several breweries produce beer for Lidl on contract.

Premium Pils

Their most popular offering appears to be their Premium Pils which they stock in large quantities (any beer with “premium” on the label must be making up for something). A 500ml can can be purchased for just 29 Euro cents (49 Australian cents) and contains 4.9% alcohol; it is brewed on contact for Lidl by Frankfurter Brauhaus.

Visually, the Pils doesn’t look too bad; it has a bright gold colour with a satisfactory but delicate head. The smell is rather innocuous but has a slight stale grain note. Taste is sickly sweet with a very unpleasant bitter aftertaste; the hops are muddy and very metallic. There’s also the presence of a strong chemical note. Mouthfeel is very watery.

This is clearly a very bad beer, but at 29 cents a can this is very good value if you enjoy drinking bin water. Ultimately, its horrid aftertaste destroys drinkability; I struggled to finish this shit.

Rating: 1 Star out of 10

Vollbier Hell

Another interesting offering from Perlenbacher is their Vollbier Hell, a Helles-style beer at 4.7 percent alcohol brewed on contract by Oettinger (the most biggest brewery in Germany in terms of beer sales). The sheer pseudo-Bavarianness of the label is quite a cringeworthy attempt to appeal to Bavarians. This brew is a whopping 39 Euro cents (62 Aus cents) per 500ml can, so 10 cents more than the pils, but is it worth the trouble?

The colour is a darker gold than the pils with a pathetic head and has a sickly cane sugar sweetness but without the unpleasant bitterness. This beer is extremely watery and extremely flavourless, but, at least it, is more drinkable than the pils.

Rating: 2 Stars out of 10

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