Imperial Pilsners

Jack, it is the OCB, I am a little OCD at times.

I see I could not spell Pilsner above!

 

We discussed this with an employee/owner of Victory in another thread: Prima is based primarily on -- and directly mimics the hopping levels of -- Vogel Pils (and also inspired by the floral aroma of Waldhaus Pils). Vogel is a small brewpub that prides itself on brewing a pils that is considered an anomaly in Germany, both in both its unfiltered-/cloudiness and its hoppiness. For anyone to claim that Prima is a good representation of a standard German pils -- either northern, southern, from the 1970s, or from today -- is to demonstrate a very convoluted and misconstrued understanding of German pilsners. It may be a good representation of an anomaly from a German brewpub, but that's like a German brewer basing a U.S. pale ale on, say, Olde Mecklenburg's Rein Pale Ale (which is meant to be an anomaly in its cleanness and adherence to the RHG) and then claiming they brew an authentic 1980s U.S. pale ale because hopping levels were lower back then. Again, a fine beer, but not a good representation of a German pils, historically or otherwise.

 

Maybe it was 17 Degrees Plato or some other measure? Some of the old literature for Stite is out there in the hands of collectors --and "spendy"-- but I hardly think that 17% was an ABV. I'm reminded of the sometimes-notorious "E.K.U. 28", which --back in college (and before I knew more about brewing methods) I mistook for '28% ABV'. It is strong, of course, and I will never again try to drink two bottles in a row after a visit to the glorious peanut bar at William's.

Older traditions often list Balling on the label; C.f. this link from my uninformed-nonsense above:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/707/58603

Gluek remained an old-school operation up until it went kaput. I've seen both internal documents and external correspondence (between their brewers and e.g. August Schell and Cold Spring) and these old codgers were more often than not writing longhand and -sometimes- typed in German, but *not* printed in the English language! What I found to be most interesting to note was that they included as much technical and other recipe data as possible -- trade secrets aside.

Oh well, enough of my uniformed bullshit.

 

Would you consider Zum Uerige a good example of an Altbier? It is an outlier, but my favorite.

 

May I direct you to the previously discussed "CHICAGO STITE INVESTIGATION", dated "9-5-50".
(Would a Chi-town bartender lie?)

 

I was not a fan of Imperial Pilsners, until I had this beer.

The other that blew me away was Fitger's Wizard of Saaz about a year or two ago...not listed here.

 

The base Zum Uerige, yes. The Sticke and Doppelsticke, not so much. I would also place Prima clearly in the "tradition" of 1980s German brewpubs, which historically don't filter (m)any of their beers and have a haziness, high hopping levels, and, often, a yeasty/hoppy bite. Again, many fine beers in their own right, but not something I would place in the continuum of German Pilsners as they developed from the 1850s to today.

And while I agree that Uerige's Alt is a bit of an outlier in the current landscape (as is Schlenkerla's Maerzen for that matter), I might place them both -- as well as Prima and its inspiration, Vogel -- in the much more ancient German tradition of each brewer brewing a beer to its own unique regional tastes and specifications. (Someone please chime in on the term for these beers...can't recall, or find anything on google. It's something like Stetbier?)

But now I'm threadjacking pretty severely...apologies to the OP.

 

I believe that's the same city where a bartender once tried to convince me that Doppelbock meant double-dark in German and had no connection to the strength of the beer.

Then again, it was also bartenders in that same city who coined the great nickname MindBlock for the oft consumed springtime treat in the Lincoln Square area; Maibock. Rendering many of their customers mindless after one (or two) too many.

 

Had a Golden Shower once. It was fantastic. Heard the beer was pretty good too.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/10099/29395

 

Doppelsticke is not to my taste, I do like the Sticke.

The German Pilsners we have today have much of their character formed by the brewing school at Weihenstephan, where many were taught to brew the Pils, and that 34/70 from the yeast band was the one to use. From OCB I think.

 

“ ..the yeast band…” More signs of OCD!?!

Cheers!

 

Holy City's Trippin Brick was fantastic, definitely my favorite holy city brew - too bad its so rare :/

 

As an engineer, spelling was never a strong suit, and with autocorrect...

 

what I like about this thread is the insight and sometimes disagreement (always polite though) among/between some of my favorite posters on BA--JackHorzempa, hopfenunmaltz, steveh, herrburgess, jesskidden...it was especially funny when hopfenunmaltz called steve "Jack", a compliment in my mind to both steve and Jack.

I also liked where Ron Pattinson picked as his favorite Imperial Pilsner--a Helles Bock, which cleverly made the point as to the lack of differentiation in the styles, or at least I thought that was what he was up to....perhaps because to me all an Imperial Pilsner is, is an ever-so-slightly hoppier Helles Bock.

Not much of a contribution, I know--just wanted to give kudos to all you guys.

 

Apparently hopfenunmaltz is suffering some OCD issues of late!?!

We must make allowances.

Cheers!

P.S. I am sure that some tasty Pennsylvania Pilsners at the NHC will get him 'back on track'!

 

Looking forward to the NHC. Might bring a clone attempt of Bell "Quiannanan Falls". It was deemed tasty at the club meeting.

 

Sweet!

Cheers!

 

I had Short's The Curl. Very nice, but unfortunately, it's not widely distributed (only in Michigan).