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2 Comments

  1. superbford
    May 4, 2018 @ 3:25 pm

    Yeah, you certainly need to have this beer on tap or try it again. It is a great pilsner, though true, it isn’t a classic German style pilsner. It is a Czech style.

    Their seasonal beer GOLD is a German pilsner and is also great.

    I do like Real Ale’s Hans better, but I rarely run into Texas craft lovers who don’t find Pilz to be stellar.

    As for being confused by the cans similarity? Only if you can’t read well.

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    • GT Wharton
      May 4, 2018 @ 4:44 pm

      Thanks for the reply. I have not had it on tap before – never saw it in Austin when I visited last time. I don’t think in my review that I knock it for not being Bohemian, Franconian, or Bavarian enough. This sample from a can would not fit any of the categories with the haziness and estery aroma – pretty much a disqualifier to be honest. If those things were absent, then we could start debating the sub-categories.

      In terms of the can similarity, I guess you just need to see the cans on the shelf here in Southern California. Brands have a logo and a design language, and that language is not to just copy and paste everything and just change the name of the beer. Each beer has its own unique design while still maintaining the overall corporate language so you recognize a beer as being from, say, Stone Brewing or Modern Times. With Live Oak, the eyesore black, white, and primary yellow definitely will standout from the others on the shelf, but then each beer in their lineup is only differentiate by words, not by design. That’s my main argument. You can look up the core lineups of the Top 10 breweries in the US and you’ll see that each beer is about 90% unique to the beer and 10% company branding. The Live Oak ones are the opposite, 10% unique and 90% company. It may be a wise choice for them as they are young and new to distribution, but in the long term the design could be heavily improved.

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