“In hot weather,” says my cousin Lovibond, “Pilsner is very good. And has a history you should know.”

When Lovi says “history” she undoubtedly means European history, that of the varied and various countries she has called home, and their beers.

“Once, you understand, ‘pilsner’ meant lagered beer from the Bohemian town, Pilsen. That beer, Pilsner Urquell, it is the great-grandparent of the kind we will be Tasting. So before we Taste American descendants of this ancestor, we will meet Pilsner Urquell, the ‘original source’ pilsner, itself.”

Lovi’s rich voice has accents which have surely been influenced by Bohemian towns. “The Czech Republic it is now, of course, and Czechoslovakia before that, but always Pilsen or Plz. A town famous for very soft water that makes a different taste in beer. And the Czech hops, from Saaz. Pilsner Urquell was first.”

Pilsner Urquell is still the world’s definitive pilsner beer, even though its recipe, Lovi tells me, has changed over the years. As recently as 1983 it went to half as many International Bitterness Units (IBU’s are determined by a formula based on the weight of the hops used in a beer). Lagers, bottom fermenting beers requiring cool, extended storage (“lagering”) have low yeast profiles that allow the malt and hops to carry the flavor. They were fairly new on the scene when brewer Joseph Groll in Pilsen developed his “original source” (“Urquell,” or “Prazdroj”) beer in 1842. This was to become the most imitated beer ever made, as the trend toward lagers became explosive.

Lovibond has been filling me in on this history as we enjoy the hot weather at Granite Mountain.

We have scrambled over a lot of strangely-shaped boulders and found a good one to rest against when we open the basket to retrieve our Pilsner Urquell and glasses. The beer pours a deep straw color with almost no head. “Headless beer, pilsner,” Lovibond tells me. I wonder if the soft water is responsible. Urquell's aroma is floral, but murky, like marigolds rained on too long.

The murkiness continues in the taste, which has a swampy quality that is strangely appealing. I think of the soft, sinking feel of silt. And musk: deep, dark flavors that contrast with the bright mouthfeel and light color of Pilsner Urquell. This is a beer with character. Even the granite supporting us begins to feel softer as we enjoy this beer. The balance of malt and hops seems so delicate that it is difficult to imagine the much hoppier taste of its pre-1983 version.

Next day, Lovibond and I go to the café to Taste a couple of American pilsners (pils or pilseners – the spelling is variable, as it is with the name of that Bohemian town). We find North Coast Brewing’s Scrimshaw pilsner, from Mendocino, California, and Lagunitas’ Pils, from Petaluma. Appropriately, one label has a picture of a scrimshaw piece showing a whale, whose flukes also feature in North Coast’s logo. The other is nicely designed with a large font reading “PILS” across most of the label, some poetic prose in wandering small print, and a little dog logo. I love American microbrew aesthetics, a celebration of quirky graphics that leaves European beer labels in the dust.

We pour these beers side-by-side. True to what I’ve just learned, they have negligible heads with almost no lacing. Scrimshaw pours a bright golden straw color with a coarse carbonation that produces a pretty bubbling from the bottom of the glass. The Lagunitas Pils is slightly darker with a cloudier aspect reminiscent of unfiltered or bottle-finished beer, and a finer carbonation that doesn’t make as much of a show. Scrimshaw’s bouquet is lightly floral with some of Urquell’s soft quality. The Lagunitas smells somewhat hoppier, with a lemony-resin note.

A Taste of Scrimshaw: I am surprised to find that it tastes very much like a premium mass-market American beer; in fact, it tastes much like it looks, bubbly and golden. The mouthfeel offers that bubbles-all-the-same-size feeling of artificial carbonation. Scrimshaw is light-flavored and gentle, made for quaffing rather than sipping. A good beer for drinking nicely chilled when one is working hard outdoors on a hot day. Not a beer to let lose its chill, however.

Lagunitas Pils also has the subtle, refined flavor of a lager, as opposed to the ales I am used to. Like Urquell, this beer uses Saaz hops from the Czech Republic, but the taste, like the aroma, hints at sharper American hops as well. It’s a bit malty for a pilsner, an intriguing taste although that takes it another step farther from the definitive character of Urquell. I enjoy the lemony, acidic notes reaching the sides of my tongue, and the pleasant, surprisingly lingering aftertaste. Again, a beer to enjoy cold.

These are light, happy beers with an enjoyable high – tingling around my upper body, up my neck and all the way to the top of my head. My cousin and I laugh a lot while we Taste these lagers. But I find, as Lovibond does, that I miss the serious, even mysterious, tastes of Pilsner Urquell. The softness of pilseners, it seems, can go light or dark, either to perkiness or depth, and for character, I’ll take depth. Lovi too – she suggests 5.5 points on her personal rating scale for the Scrimshaw, and 6 for Lagunitas Pils. Our American microbreweries do great labels, but from our Tasting today it seems that Pilsen is still the place to go for authentic pilsner.