The always-great Good Beer Blog has an interesting post from Alan on brewing under license and a recent article about the Pilsner Urquell which is brewed in Russia. Unlike Pilsner Urquell, Russian journalism doesn’t have such a great reputation, and this article seems more than a bit sensationalistic, starting out with the premise that Russian beer drinkers are being cheated (it’s right there in the headline, folks).

Two things caught my eye: the article says that the Russian version doesn’t taste as good as the original, claiming that it uses Russian water and hops. Second, the article quoted a company spokesman as saying that Russia is the only brewer of Pilsner Urquell outside of the Czech Republic.

That definitely seemed strange, as everyone knows that Pilsner Urquell started brewing under contract in Poland several years ago.

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