Next month, Japan’s Kirin brewery will offer a pair of retro brews to celebrate its 120th anniversary, serving up vintage-style cans packed with vintage recipes of the company’s original Lager and Pilsener beers.

The big difference between the old styles and today’s modern Kirin? According to an English-language post at Japan Marketing News, the modern version of Kirin is made “with rice and starch,” while the earlier versions “did without starch” or were made with barley and hops only.

Now, to celebrate its founding back in 1888, Kirin will offer a limited run of beer made without the stuff that isn’t really supposed to go into good beer — just like it did way back when.

Imagine what might happen if this idea spread to the Czech Republic.

Pilsner Urquell might offer a commercial run of the beer it still ferments and lagers in wooden barrels just as it did years ago, a sought-after brew which is currently only available for visitors on the PU brewery tour.

InBev in the Czech Republic might offer the legendary 12° Braník dark, or a Granát that tastes like it did when it was called Millennium.

U Fleků might turn their dark lager back into a dark ale, switching yeast from Saccharomyces carlsbergensis back to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae they used from 1499 up until the late nineteenth century.

Breweries in Rakovník, Jihlava and Žatec might offer popeněžní, freiberk, samec and other pre-Pilsner lager styles from Bohemia.

Brezňák might once again produce their syrupy Doppel-Doppel Bock… or perhaps their Afrikakorps beer.

Gambrinus might re-issue their wheat beer or their two Gambrinus darks.

And so on.

Now that I think about it, I’m not sure that this is going to end well. On the one hand, this is a nice way for a brewery like Kirin to celebrate its birthday and show off how long it has been around.

But on the other hand, putting out retro recipes seems slightly dangerous. You’re saying “Taste how good our beers used to be!”

When consumers taste the old versions, like them, and then ask why your beers don’t taste like that anymore, what on earth is the marketing department going to tell them?

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. So I picked up the phone and called Pilsner Urquell’s press spokesman Jiří Mareček, who said that yes, Pilsner Urquell is brewed under contract by a Czech brewmaster in Poland (at a dedicated brewery in Tychy) and in Russia (at Kaluga, south of Moscow), but that the Polish and Russian versions are only sold in those countries and not exported elsewhere. The Pilsner Urquell in this country and everywhere else in the world is from the original brewery in Plzeň, aka Pilsen. He added that the Czech brewmasters export both hops and barley to the breweries in Russia and Poland, and clarified via email that the licensed Pilsner Urquell in Russia uses 100% Czech Saaz hops, just like the brew back home, contrary to what was reported in the article.

Points of contention: the licensed brew is made with Russian water, so if you’re buying a can of Pilsner Urquell for the famously soft water of Plzeň, you’re out of luck. And while the original says “Brewed in Plzeň” on the front, the Russian and Polish versions say “Born in Plzeň,” which might lead to confusion.

Personally, I can see both sides of this issue. I’m keenly interested in beer as a local beverage, with local roots, and I have no interest myself in drinking any Pilsner Urquell that doesn’t come from Plzeň. However, the Russians might not be making out so badly: a story quietly making its way around Czech beer circles has it that the Russian Pilsner Urquell was the winner of the brewmasters’ in-house quality-control tasting, besting the Polish version as well as the Czech original.

If the Russian Pilsner Urquell actually tastes bad, I can understand why people would be disappointed — but no one is forcing them to ever buy that beer again.

Of course, if the beer is good, does anyone really care where it’s made?

And on a macroeconomic level, isn’t a local product — even one with a foreign name — a lot more desirable than an import?

Not to get too far out on my contrarian limb here, but there’s also an environmental aspect that no one ever seems to mention: the vast amounts of energy that it takes to ship beer all over creation. One would imagine that Greenpeace and Al Gore would sign off on the Russian-brewed Pilsner Urquell, at least for local, Russian beer drinkers.

I’m not saying I’m crazy for licensed beer. I always found it strangely sad that at one time much of the Asahi in Europe was actually brewed at Prague’s Braník brewery, despite the fact that it presented itself as a Japanese beer. And after InBev closed the Braník brewery last year, nothing stopped them from brewing Braník across the river at the Staropramen brewery, but still calling it Braník.

But what if the Russian-brewed Pilsner Urquell is actually the best golden lager in Russia? Would brewing under license really be so bad?

Here’s a solution for everyone, no matter where you are: buy the best locally produced beer that you can, no matter what it is. And if it’s not good enough or not what you want, let the breweries know what you prefer and buy that.

Vote with your wallets. And vote every day.