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Fourpure Pils

Fourpure Pils -- can and glass.

As lager lovers, we’re always keen to try British brewers’ attempts, especially when we’ve heard good things about them from fellow beer geeks.

Bermondsey Beer Mile brewery Fourpure’s Pils has generated plenty of attention, partly because it comes in that most contentious of containers, a 330ml can.

Trusting our peers, rather than dabbling with one or two, we included half a dozen (@ £1.95 each, plus P&P) in our last order from Beer Merchants, placed at the height of the recent heat wave when we were craving things cold and refreshing.

At first, we were a little disappointed: compared to the cans of St Austell Korev we had picked up from the local CO-OP (@ about £1.10 each) Fourpure Pils seemed rather rough-edged. Last night, however, having emptied the last two cans and crushed them against our foreheads with a roar (obviously not) we concluded that it was good stuff after all.

It is, for one thing, far from bland: by the standards of most beers calling themselves Pils, it has a pronounced wild-flower, blackcurrant, stinging nettle hop aroma, back up by a robust, parching bitterness.

The hint of roughness remained in evidence, however — somewhere in the brewing and packaging process, we’d guess there is oxygen where there shouldn’t be, leading to a persistent stale, papery note in the background. It’s much, much cleaner than our home-brewed lager (plastic bucket, no temperature control) but there are similarities.

Depending on your tastes, though, this might read as that much-desired quality — ‘character’.

We couldn’t resist one final experiment — would it taste different necked straight from the can? Side-by-side with a serving in a fancy stemmed tasting glass, we noted to our surprise that despite this practical issue…

…the aroma was actually far better, concentrated through the tiny aperture into a needle of bright hoppiness right up the nostrils. From a glass, though still punchy, aroma, flavour and bitterness all seemed generally gentler.

In conclusion, we’d buy Fourpure Pils again, and look forward to trying it on tap when we get the chance.

3 replies on “Fourpure Pils”

Reading that id conclude maybe worth a try if I see it in a bar and don’t fancy owt else but for homedrinking nothing to make me switch from notably cheaper budvar

What’s exciting for me is that how better it already is than it was 6 months ago. It’s evolving, improving and it’s evident the brewery are working hard to get their beers ‘dialled in’.

St. Austell Korev is on tap at a pub in Kensal Green near where I work (The Masons Arms). I think it’s fantastic, hope I see those £1.19 priced cans in a London supermarket soon.

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