Hoppy IPAs may get the glory, but California pilsners are perfect for summer.
Despite all the attention paid to all things hoppy — India pale ales, Imperial IPAs, red ales and so on — pilsnerstyle beer continues to rule the world. That’s been the case outside the craft beer sphere for well over a century. Inside our craft scene, pilsner-love has been a little slower to take hold. Most microbreweries, especially early on in the craft beer revival, concentrated on ales because they were a bit easier to produce. They required less time to brew and one could argue that they were more forgiving. An ale doesn’t have to be perfect to taste good.
At the risk of oversimplifying here, most beer falls into two basic categories: ales and lagers. Ales use top-cropping yeast, which floats to the top, while lagers use bottom-cropping yeast, which sinks to the bottom. Ales are brewed at warmer temperatures, while lagers need cooler temperatures to work.
Ales were the first stars of the modern craft beer revolution, which began with pale ales, stouts, brown ales, porter and soon IPAs. Few microbreweries made lagers, although Samuel Adams Boston Lager, for instance, is a Vienna-style lager, and the Bay Area-born brewpub chain, Gordon Biersch, concentrated exclusively on lagers, including a still-delicious pilsner, from the time the brewery debuted in 1988.
The last time I wrote about pilsners was half a dozen years ago, when I detailed the style’s 19th century roots in Bohemia. Several local brewers were making lagers at the time that column ran, but they were still outliers. In 2004, Berkeley’s Trumer Brauerei took over the old Golden Gate Brewery and began brewing just one beer, Trumer Pils. It was an unusual move, but time has proven it a savvy decision. Not only is Trumer Pils one of the best pilsners anywhere, but Trumer Brauerei correctly predicted that people would support a tasty, locally-made pilsner.
Six years later, many American brewers are making many lagers, and we now take it for granted that there are numerous well-made pilsners brewed right here, which rival their imported cousins — and are fresher, too.
There are several varieties out there, but the two main lagers produced here are Czechstyle pilsners, inspired by their Bohemian ancestors, such as Pilsner Urquell, and Germanstyle pilsners, which are drier, grainier and more bitter. There are also American-style pilsners or pre-Prohibition lagers, which often use corn as an adjunct, and even internationalstyle pilsners. The latter are usually even more light-bodied, but they’re not the classic pilsners (though they can be quite tasty, too).
I recently saw a new Bay Area brewery, whose owners boasted that they decided to make a pilsner because there weren‘t any American-owned companies making one anymore. They must have been referring to just the biggest beer companies, because there are hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of pilsners and other lagers made by American craft brewers.
Some 82 of the top 100 Czechstyle pilsners ranked by the popular beer-rating website Beer Advocate are made by American breweries. Ditto for German-style pilsners, with 82 of the top 100 brewed by U.S. craft breweries. And if you look at Rate Beer’s 50 top-rated pilsners, 40 are made by American breweries.
More than a few are made here in California. Trumer Pils is one of the best. Probably the best Czech-style pilsner is Reality Czeck, made by Santa Rosa’s Moonlight Brewing, and available on draft — or in growlers at the brewery. For Germanstyle, it’s hard to beat Firestone Walker Brewing’s Pivo Pils.
Other German-style lagers worth seeking include AleSmith’s Spezial Pils, North Coast’s Scrimshaw Pilsner, Sierra Nevada’s Nooner Pilsner and Victory’s Prima Pils. On the Czech side, check out Russian River’s delicious STS Pils, Bear Republic’s Double Aught, Figueroa Mountain’s Paradise Rd. Pilsner, Lagunitas Pils, Mendocino’s Peregrine Pilsner, Pizza Port’s Pick Six Pilsner and Sierra Nevada’s seasonal Summerfest.
You may not hear about them as much as hoppy IPAs, but Pilsner 2.0 has quietly worked itself into the fabric of American craft beer culture, and there are great pilsners everywhere you turn. And they’re perfect for summer.