When most of the world asks for a “beer” what they’re looking for is a
“lager” and the vast majority of modern “lagers” are derivatives of the Pilsner style. Most of
them are pretty meager imitations, made to conform to a very light, bland formula that has become the most popular variant
of all.
The Pilsner style can be traced
to a single event, a rarity in brew-history. The very first batch of
“golden” beer was started on October 5th 1842. The brewer was Josef Groll, a Bavarian from Vilshofen,
and despite legends to the contrary the brew was not an accident. The brewery was the Burgress’s Brewery in Plzen, Bohemia
(Czech Republic today) which was part of the Hapsburg Empire, centered
on Vienna.
A direct descendant of that brew
still exists and can still be bought all over the world; it is the Pilsner Urquell, a German language rendition of the Czech
-- Plzensky Prazdroj. Josef
Groll did not operate in a vacuum, of course. A number of advances in brewing technique and other technologies were necessary
to make his golden beer possible.
The Brewery:-- The Burgher’s
of the town of Plzen voted to start a new brewery in 1839.
It was constructed in 1840, and was essentially a “state of the art” facility for its time.
Coke.-- made from bituminous coal--
is an almost smokeless fuel that burns at predictable temperatures and was vital in the improved steel making processes of
the late 18th century. The use of Coke in kilning barley malt allowed a greater degree of control over temperature. That made
it possible to produce “golden” malts.
Glass-- For a variety of reasons,
including the urge to keep flies out of one’s beer, lidded steins and mugs were what you drank beer from prior
to the mid-19th century. Glass was still expensive and inherently fragile. In Germany
and Bohemia beer was drunk from stoneware steins. In England from pewter mugs. In Belgium from a mix of mugs of various shapes. Venice
had been the leading center of glass manufacture from the 16th century onwards and an Englishman, George Ravenscroft had discovered
how to make lead crystal in 1676. Glass for windows became more widespread through the 18th century and the Venetian secret
for making “crystallo”--soda lime glass-- spread across Europe. With it came
a surge in the manufacture of drinking glasses. Then in 1827 came the invention of the glass pressing machine, which allowed
for the mass production of inexpensive glass products. Quite suddenly glasses became commonplace, and beer served in a glass
became the standard.
A pint of dark, murky beer in a
glass was one thing, but a pint of golden, clear, sparkling Pilsner was quite another. It was a visible sign of progress,
of technological advance, and instantly popular.
In time glassmaking would become
cheap enough for beer to be sold in bottles, just like wine, though in the 1840s that was still some years in the future.
Yeast:-- since the 1500s Bavarian
brewers had “lagered” (stored) strong, dark beers in caves and cellars during the hot Bavarian summers. This was
just one response to the age-old brewer’s problem of keeping beer drinkable during hot weather. Other techniques included
making it very strong because the alcohol would inhibit wild yeasts and bacteria, or using a lot of hops, with their anti-bacterial
effect. However, nobody really understood yeast at this point. And without yeast you can’t make beer at all. Keeping
yeast from breeding with wild cousins is vital if you want a consistent beer. Since yeasts at the time were all top-fermenting,
doing their work at the top of the brew, they had lots of opportunities for breeding with wild yeasts in the air.
In Bavaria, beginning around 1800, there had been a slow shift to isolating strains of yeast
that would ferment from the bottom of the barrel. This discovery was a result of the lagering technique, because during the
long, cool lagering period, the yeast in the beer would sink to the bottom, where it stayed alive, but worked at a much slower
rate. Yeast that fermented at the bottom of the brew was necessarily out of contact with wild yeasts in the air above
and thus could be kept pure and stable. In the 1820s, Gabriel Sedlmayr, of the family that ran the
Spaten Brewery near
Munich, made some significant advances in terms of
isolating
and purifying strains of yeast. Sedlmayr’s work lead to consistent strains of yeast and that meant that one batch of
lagered beer would be almost identical to the next.
Building on Sedlmayr’s work,
Anton Dreher in Vienna, found that with softer water than was available in Munich, he could successfully make beers with milder flavor profiles. In 1840-41, Dreher
experimented with malts kilned to an amber color grade and produced some amber lagers that were immediately popular. Word
of his beers, and perhaps examples, reached Bohemia and
helped inspire Groll and the Burgers of Plzen to make the next step in their new brewery, to lighten the kilning even further
to produce very pale malts and to brew with bottom fermenting yeasts in soft water.
Hops:-- It turned out that
the Saaz hops of Bohemia, with their exceptional delicacy
and flowery aroma were just about perfect for a light, golden style of beer. When
the style caught on and became a huge hit, it spread back into Bavaria,
where Hallertau Mittelfruh hops were found to be an excellent hop for aroma in light, golden lagered beers.
Water:-- Pilzn’s water
is very soft, and it was soon realized that soft water, not hard, was best for this kind of beer. Water softening became an
important factor wherever brewers set out to make a pale, light “Pilsner” style lager.
The combination of pale malt, soft
water, delicate Saaz or Hallertau hops, with lagering technique and a long, slow, cold secondary fermentation proved to be
enormously popular around the world and the style spread to every continent. Today it is ubiquitous, although unfortunately,many
examples of the style are lacking in flavor and aroma, being not much more than wet and bubbly and
freighting some alcohol.
Still, there are many great beers in this style, from Pilsner Urquell itself, to Bohemia’s other great “pilseners”
like Gambrinus and Budvar Budovice--sold in the US as Czechvar (for obvious reasons to do with the letters (B, U and D. )
From Munich comes the Spaten Brewery’s great lagers, and from elsewhere in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Scandinavia and
France there are brews great and small that are well worthy of the serious beer lover’s attention. Plus, of course,
American micros, and the more serious products of America’s
big brewers too, who have taken heed of the renewed demand for quality and more flavor and bitterness in this category of
beer.
