Interesting initiative!
Story time! I was visiting the Urquell Brewery with a couple of friends a dozen years ago or so. We got a taste of the fresh traditionally made pilsner Urquell and all agreed they should sell that instead of the boring Urquell we were used to.
Urquell switched to a more modern brewing process in the last years of the of the 2nd Millennium, and wanted to ensure that did not negatively impact the taste. They therefore continues to brew a part of their beer the traditional way and lets tour guests try this.
We then followed the tasting up with a couple cold ones from the brewery bar, and were genuinely surprised it was just as tasty as the craft one.
The main difference between the Urquell from Plzen and the one you can get in more germanic countries is the time it takes before you get the beer. I later learned that all bars in Plzen get fresh deliveries of beer each day so they never sell old beer.
Another story! We’d normally get beer deliveries on Fridays for the Friday bar at uni. One time the drivers were on strike, so.we did the only sane thing: reserved the department car and headed down to the brewery, which was at the time just down the street.
We got some 12-15 kegs of beer and went happily on our way, knowing that we had around 400 liters of beer in the back of the car.
That day the beer was just better than normally. To this day I still believe it was not just the newly-obtained title of “scab,” but also the fact we were lucky to get beer that just been tapped that same day and hence was extra-fresh.
I’ve also tasted pilsner that’s been “matured” a decade, and can report that doesn’t improve it one bit. This also goes for the ones that weren’t lovingly matured in the window of my university office, but rather left forgotten in a stone basement.
It will be interesting to see what Heineken does with this. With a bit of luck it will be unpasteurized and perhaps even with a bit more malt for a fuller taste. http://fd.nl/ondernemen/1127161/heineken-legt-vers-bier-in-het-koelvak