Praha

Eight weeks. That is how long Praha sits lagering before Pivotal lets anyone near it, in a beer industry that increasingly treats a two-week turnaround as a virtue. Patience is not usually a selling point breweries lead with, but a proper Czech-style pilsner does not really have a shortcut version.

The recipe is Bohemian Pilsner malt, Maine-grown Blue Ox Malt, and 100 percent Czech Saaz hops, naturally carbonated and poured through a Lukr side-pull faucet for that dense, creamy foam the style is known for. Sourdough, biscuit, and floral spice are the notes on offer, at a restrained 4.4 percent ABV that would look almost apologetic next to some of the double IPAs sharing shelf space with it. Restraint, in this case, is the whole design brief - Praha is not trying to win an argument, it is trying to be the pilsner someone orders three of in a row without thinking twice.

It is available now on draft and in cans-to-go. A beer this unwilling to show off is either the most confident thing on the menu or the most boring one, and eight weeks of patient lagering suggests Pivotal is betting on the former.