Pilsner ...

I heard this interesting anecdote when I was in California last week ... We were quite a diverse group of people - There were folks from India (me !), US, Canada, UK, Spain, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Germany and Switzerland. We were all sitting at the hotel bar - We were going to grab a quick drink before going out for dinner.

When the bartender asked us what we wanted, all the Europeans ordered the Czech beer (which is supposed to be the original), Pilsner Urquell. I stuck to my Corona, which got a mild dose of ridicule from the European beer purists - But when my American colleague ordered a Bud Light, they really tore into him !!

"Horse piss", "Fermented Horse piss", "Horse piss without the horse", "Don't take the piss out of Budweiser, it needs all the flavor it can get" were some of the choice comments about the Budweiser. All in all, it was clear that nobody considered Corona or Budweiser as being worthy of the name "beer" !

And it was then that my Spanish colleague told us an anecdote about a World Beer Conference (in Munich), where the CEO's of all the top beer companies in the world were present. In the evening, they all went to a bar. Every CEO ordered his own company's brand - The Budweiser CEO ordered a Bud, the Miller CEO wanted a Miller Lite, and so on ....

Finally, it was the turn of the Pilsner CEO to order. And he declared - "I will have a Coke".

This caused gasps of surprise all around the room and everybody wanted to know why the Pilsner CEO would not drink Pilsner ...

And then he responded, "Seeing that none of you is having beer, I decided I would not either !". Classic Eastern European :-)