Green Bottle Beer Taste Test: Round 1

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It’s hard to say when my fondness for beer that comes in green bottles started. Perhaps it began beside a canal in Venice, a refreshing Peroni chasing away some of summer humidity. Perhaps it was on a sweltering Bangkok night, sitting on a little plastic stool on the sidewalk with a plate of burningly spicy som tam and an ice cold Chang. Or maybe it was earlier than that: as a 21-year-old in a Seattle Pioneer Square nightclub having no idea what to ask for when skeevy guys offered to buy me a drink but also not wanting to miss out on free drinks, and just blurting out HEINEKEN. 

Wherever it started, my affinity for green bottle beer has lasted long past the time that I should know better. Unlike brown bottles, green bottles do a poor job of blocking UV light, which can interact with the hops and cause “skunking”, which does indeed mean it makes the beer taste skunky.

Why would people want to drink that, though? First of all, I would like to acknowledge that Heineken has a hell of a marketing team, and they have done more than their part in gaslighting the world into thinking not only that their beer is totally, definitely supposed to taste that way, but that it is in fact the best way for a beer to taste. Secondly, have you had a macrobrew lager? They generally taste like varying degrees of pisswater, so depending on your tastes, the extra pizzazz of the skunk effect might actually be an improvement.

I decided I needed more excuses to drink beer–erm, I mean, that I needed to do a very scientific experiment to uncover the mysteries of the green bottle. I chose five green bottle beers from around the world for a blind taste test, with the goal of determining just how skunky they are, as well as the best beer green bottles can deliver.

Round 1 Green Bottle Beer Candidates

Heineken - Netherlands

Naturally, we have Heineken, the classic green bottle, as one of the contenders.

Chang - Thailand

My favorite of Thailand’s three major beers and a lot of other people’s least favorite.

Peroni - Italy

An Italian beer mostly drunk by English people wanting to feel fancy.

Tsingtao - China

China’s best macrobrew, which is not quite as flattering as it sounds.

Budvar - Czechia

The original Budweiser.

Color

Before anything else, I evaluate the color of the five beers. They are all varying shades of la couleur de l’urine.

#1 - This is the most golden-hued of the five.

#2 - This one is the palest. My boyfriend helpfully described it as “the piss of someone really hydrated”.

#3 - This is the darkest one and has a slightly amber hue. This one would definitely be on the dehydrated end of the piss color scale.

#4 & #5 are both pretty similar in color with a medium golden hue.

Aroma

Before tasting, there is first the sniff test; an important part of any skunky beer tasting.

#1 - It has a mild, wheaty aroma; it smells like a generic lager.

#2 - No wheaty aroma; it has sort of a generic alcohol smell.

#3 - This one has a distinct hops-and-malt smell. 

#4 - Sort of a combination of #1 and #2; overall very generic. Perhaps slightly skunky.

#5 - Very skunky. All skunk, all the time.

Taste

#1 - Any taste it has comes from the wheat aroma; otherwise, it tastes like nothing.

#2 - Tastes a little hoppy; definitely has more flavor than #1. Whether or not that’s a good thing is debatable. Sweet.

#3 - After the first two, this is very strong and distinctive. It has a very European hops taste to it.

#4 - This one has a malty and slightly skunky taste to it. 

#5 - Tastes skunky as heck.

The Reveal

I am a straight-from-the-bottle type of beer drinker, so I actually didn’t recognize any of them by sight. I knew #4 was Chang and #5 was Heineken as soon as I smelled them, and then deduced #3 was Budvar. This was confirmed after I tasted it, as it was definitely the most European-tasting of the five.

Numbers 1 and 2 I wasn’t so sure about. I decided that #1 must be Tsingtao because it didn’t taste like much of anything, and since I’ve had Tsingtao the most recently, I figured it would be the most neutral-tasting beer. 

That was incorrect. #1 was Peroni and #2 was Tsingtao. 

#1 - Peroni

Golden yellow-hued and mildly wheaty; overall, not much flavor. Not even skunk flavor. I feel like I have had a skunky Peroni in the past, though, so the skunkiness probably varies depending on how old it is and how much it’s been exposed to light in transit. Due to its nothingburgerness, this is the crispest and cleanest beer of the taste test. I think it is improved if it has a hint of skunkiness, because it calls attention to the crispness.

#2 - Tsingtao

No skunkiness, and I don’t think I ever have had a skunky Tsingtao (though I usually drink it from the can, as that’s more commonly available). Unlike a lot of lagers, it tastes more hoppy than malty, though it’s overall very mild. It is on the sweeter side and not very crisp.

#3 - Budvar

Budvar has the most distinctively European flavor with no skunkiness in sight. In my experience, Budvar seems to taste pretty consistent, whether it comes from a bottle or not. If you’re familiar with European lagers, this one really tastes like a Czech lager. It is a fuller-bodied lager.

#4 - Chang

Chang is a little skunky and, like all of the main Thai lagers, fairly malty with a strong wheat aroma. The skunkiness can trick you into thinking it’s crisp, but it’s not.

#5 - Heineken

Heineken is the only one that seems like it’s skunky on purpose. Like, they REALLY went with that. I don’t hate it. I think it’s pretty crisp underneath the skunk.

The Verdict

This taste test really made me think about my beer choices and come to terms with my questionable taste. With that said, I’m going to rank them anyway.

First Place: Budvar

This was clearly the best one by a mile. Czech lagers are dope.

Second Place: Heineken

I’m sorry, but I genuinely like skunky beers and no one out-skunks Heineken.

 Third Place: Chang

This is too high for Chang and I don’t care.

Fourth Place: Peroni

Peroni takes “clean and crisp” seriously. It doesn’t taste like much, but it goes down really easy.

Fifth Place: Tsingtao

Considering I live in China, I’m truly devastated to report that Tsingtao is…umm…NOT good.

Stay tuned for Round 2, which will include Carlsberg, Saigon, Stella, and Moosehead.

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