Stella Artois is one of those beers that almost everyone in Britain has an opinion on. It has been a pub and supermarket staple for decades, has carried more than its fair share of cultural baggage over the years, and for many drinkers of a certain age it probably comes with a few memories they would rather forget. I certainly hadn’t gone out of my way to drink a Stella for the best part of a decade, so when I loaded a 5% Stella Artois keg into the PerfectDraft, my expectations weren’t exactly sky-high.
Watch my full review on YouTube below:
That makes what happened next all the more surprising. I’d originally picked Stella as something of a safe keg to test in the new Big Brew-view setup, thinking that if anything went wrong I would rather sacrifice this than one of the more exotic Belgian beers sitting on my shopping list. A friend came round, we poured ourselves what we call in Cornwall a “racing half” – somewhere between a half and a pint – and both looked at each other after the first mouthful. This was actually really good. Not just better than expected, but genuinely good.
Straight out of the PerfectDraft, Stella is a lively beer. Even several pints into the keg, it produced a big, compact white head with plenty of carbonation chasing its way up the glass. My pour wasn’t exactly competition-winning material, leaving me with around three to four fingers of foam, but once it settled the beer looked fantastic. There’s a pale straw colour with a slight amber tinge, plenty of visible bubbles and, as you work your way down the glass, some lovely lacing left behind.
On the nose, this is immediately recognisable as a straightforward lager. There’s malt, a slight cereal character and that familiar clean, crisp aroma that doesn’t try to be anything overly complicated. And that’s actually part of Stella’s appeal here. In a world where plenty of mainstream beers can taste increasingly anonymous, there is still enough character coming from the glass to remind you that you’re drinking a proper European-style lager rather than something designed simply to be cold and fizzy.
The biggest surprise, though, comes with the taste. Served at 3°C from the PerfectDraft, Stella Artois is incredibly smooth and wonderfully crisp. There’s a richer mouthfeel than I remembered, enough body to stop it feeling thin, and a gentle Pilsner-like bitterness underneath that gives the beer a nice clean finish. Nothing hangs around for too long, but it doesn’t disappear without leaving an impression either. The balance between that slight bitterness, malt character and carbonation is spot on.
This is also where my memories of canned Stella and the PerfectDraft version seem to go in completely different directions. The last cans I remember drinking years ago did absolutely nothing for me, and that experience was one of the reasons I had largely stopped drinking Stella altogether. From the keg, however, it feels like a different proposition. It is smoother, fresher and far more enjoyable than I expected, to the point where I’m now very interested in putting the keg alongside a can or bottle for a proper side-by-side comparison.
I’d also keep the PerfectDraft set at 3°C for this one. You could knock it down to 1°C or 2°C on an especially hot summer’s day if you wanted something exceptionally cold, but at three degrees there is enough chill to make Stella wonderfully refreshing without completely flattening its flavour. The head remains lively, the carbonation stays strong and even giving the glass a little swirl brings the beer straight back to life.
Where does it sit against the other mainstream lagers? For me, Stella comfortably rises above many of the traditional big-name options such as Carling and Carlsberg. It might not have the complexity of some of the Belgian beers you can load into a PerfectDraft, but that’s almost missing the point. I could easily see myself keeping a Stella keg around as the dependable house lager while rotating something more adventurous – a Kwak, Duvel, Leffe Blonde or seasonal beer – alongside it.
And then we come to the Big Brew-view scenario. Stella on PerfectDraft feels made for a few drinks with friends before heading out for the evening, but I’d happily put it alongside food as well. My choice would be a proper homemade Neapolitan-style pizza straight from a wood-fired or gas pizza oven: blistered crust, good tomato sauce, plenty of mozzarella and whatever toppings take your fancy. The crispness of the lager would cut through the cheese beautifully while the light bitterness would keep everything refreshing.
Ultimately, this keg has completely changed my opinion of Stella Artois. I went into it expecting an average mainstream lager that I’d probably finish and then forget about. Instead, I’ve found something smooth, crisp, nicely carbonated and dangerously easy to drink. More importantly, it is a beer I would happily serve to friends – particularly those who, like me, wrote Stella off years ago.
The Big Brew-view verdict? Stella Artois on PerfectDraft is an absolute belter. It might not be fashionable, it might carry plenty of baggage from its past, and beer aficionados will undoubtedly tell me there are far more exciting lagers out there. They might even be right. But poured cold at 3°C from a PerfectDraft, Stella has reminded me why it became such a huge favourite in the first place.
And I genuinely didn’t expect to be saying that.
