BREWERY: Heineken Nederland B.V.
STYLE: Pale Lager
ABV: 5.0%
PURCHASE: Case of 24 12-oz. bottles, $30.99
SERVING: 12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. Heady at first, then settled in the two-inch range with a standard pour. A slower pour whittled it down to half an inch. Decent retention.
APPEARANCE: Your standard straw color, your standard white head. Transparent like saran wrap. Minimal lacing.
BOUQUET: Fairly grainy--more so than most pale macrolagers from this continent, at least. A little malty. Features the standard "cooked-veggie" aroma commonly associated with mass-produced pale lagers. Not much in the way of hops. People often talk of Heineken having a "skunked" quality. It can, but I have found this factor is minimized, or even eliminated altogether, after dispensing the beer into a glass.
PALATE: Fairly light body with carbonation that can sneak up on you if you let it. Minor sweetness characterizes the front palate, but accentuates a bit from mid-palate on, in malt form. Finish is slightly husky but mainly seltzer-like. Yeasty aftertaste. "Skunk" factor seemed to be absent here--hopefully that's a thing of the past?
MUSINGS AND METAPHORS: This used to be a yuppie beer. Ever see Blue Velvet? The younger middle-class protagonist, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) favors Heineken as his beer of choice. The psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) chides him for it, famously proclaiming, "Heineken? Fuck that shit! PABST BLUE RIBBON!" You can't tell me symbolism wasn't at play here.
Heineken was also featured during the second season of Mad Men, when Don Draper tries to land the Dutch brewery's account by hosting a dinner at his family's home for their representatives as well as some colleagues from Sterling Cooper.
But those days are long and gone. Now, it's what I call a "corn flakes beer," and not one of the better ones. I'm with Frank Booth; I prefer PBR.
GRADE: D+
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