Pilsners in Context

Thanks to a few drain-poured barrels of bad ale, Pilsners were born and became the most popular beer style in the world, showcasing the flavor potential of hops long before the first IPAS came on the scene, but giving brewers no place to hide faults.

MOST GREAT SUCCESSES

in history are preceded by spectacular failures—and it was barrels of rancid ale being dumped in the streets of a brewing-proud Czech city that led to the creation of what is probably the most imitated beer style in the world. You see, something stank in the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1838 (spoiler alert: it was the beer). Whatever the cause (and a good guess would be rampant mutation and contamination in the common top-fermenting brewing yeasts in use), the city of Plzen’s civic and brewing leaders decided that enough was enough and significantly changed the way beer was brewed in their city. The result was Pilsner, one of the first broadly produced lager styles and a beer that has become the mainstay of global beer consumption, production, and emulation.

Though the Bohemians can take credit for Pilsner thanks to geography, it was a Bavarian who gave them the opportunity. The first blonde lager produced in Plzen was brewed by Josef Groll, a German brewer who was tasked with producing an entirely new kind of beer and given a new brewery in which to do it. Using lighter-kilned malts (thanks to English technological advances), locally sourced Saaz hops, the soft water common to the area, and a monk-smuggled (or so the stories go) strain of new bottom-fermenting lager yeast, Groll produced the first Pilsner-style lager in October 1842. It was an immediate success. Soon, breweries all over the world were imitating the beer, and the pale, clean lager rapidly became fashionable in cities throughout Europe. In the 175 years since, the popularity of Pilsner has only grown, and it is far and away the most-consumed beer style in the world (upward of 90 percent of global beer consumption, depending on how liberally we apply “Pilsner” appellation).

But just what are those beer drinkers drinking? And how well does it match the style that Groll and the breweries of Bohemia established? The appeal of the beer was obvious: it was light, flavorful, clean, and easy to drink. As it traveled the the world, though, local circumstances led to a fracturing of the beer style into all manner of interpretations thanks to the idiosyncrasies of water chemistry, climate, ingredients, and drinkers’ tastes.

The Pilsner style has almost become shorthand for “beer” itself, and we owe it to Groll, the citizens of Plzen, and ourselves to know what Pilsner was, what it has become, and why its descendants have remained so very popular.

Nowhere to Hide

The four primary brewing ingredients all play their part in constructing a solid Pilsner. There are styles where some are minimal due to a lack of availability (think hops and Scottish ales), lack of visibility (yeast character in a Russian imperial stout), and/or lack of clear style guidance (saison can accommodate almost any combination of flavors since it evolved as a “whatever’s on hand” kind of style). Pilsner, on the other hand, left the ingredients (all of them) with nowhere to hide. This was a naked expression of beer in which all of the characteristics of the ingredients were starkly visible, and that hasn’t changed much over the years. The yeast produces very little, but what it produces is central to the style. There are no aggressive malt flavors to hide behind,