When Will Italian Pilsners Be A Category?

What!?!

Pierogies are basically Polish empanadas!

Cheers!

P.S. Note: proper spelling of pierogies!

 

Unfortunately, they haven't made it out of the northeast and great lakes region in the US. You'd figure the British and Irish would love them. Boiled starch stuffed with starch served with butter and (sour) cream. Right up their alley.

Man, I love them though. Way better than ravioli.

 

Damn, I thought they were only good for being organ grinders and organized crime. Who knew they fueled the industrial revolution as much as the poorer peoples of the British isles and central Europeans?

 

They are also misogynist and can sniff out a pizza a mile away. But, please, let us not detract from the whole point of this thread: Italians are terrible at making beer.

 

My father recently informed us that him and a cousin of his had been doing some digging, and somewhere there is some Russian in us, although small compared to the German heritage. No one ever claimed to be Russian, and he asked why. I asked him any anyone would ever claim to be Russian. No one has ever looked at a situation and said, you know what would make this better? Let me tell people that I’m Russian.

 

Just now catching on here. We are always a few years behind...

 

But, ya got coonhounds and ticks, right?

 

This is especially true in Boston and New York. Oh wait, that’s another stereotype.

 

Not better than fried ravioli, lobster ravioli, butternut squash ravioli…

 

I’m going to go out on a limb and create a new stereotype: Italians don’t understand sarcasm.

 

Great info...I was wondering about all this as I am seeing more and more Italian Pils and really have never learned what differentiates them..

 

I disagree, a well made pierogi is better. I just tend to like pierogi dough better than pasta dough when done correctly.

 

I have the feeling that the “French” pilsner concept wouldn’t have nearly the same weight in craft beer if it wasn’t for Lohring’s article on it. In my opinion, Lohring’s article wasn’t ideal to begin with (for one thing - written without having traveled there). Then from that starting point, you had US craft brewers reading Lohring’s article and viewing it as everything they needed to know on the topic due to the author’s reputation… and then using it to brew their “French/Alsatian” pilsner. Do these beers actually mimic what people drink in France or are they more reflective of the craft beer culture of creating new marketing opportunities based mainly on a hop choice? US craft brewers copy each other rather than a distant source. It’s related to my post above to @Jack_14 and who people listen to.

 

I believe he’s since traveled there and has brewed several versions of this type of Pils. I’ve been to the Alsace region but almost exclusively drank wine.

 

Would you say that "Italian-style Pilsner" is the most popular style from the smaller Italian breweries? Is it seen as the most "Italian" beer style?

(Similar to how American IPA is seen as the most "American" craft beer style, ignoring the mainstream popularity of Adjunct Lager.)

 

While hoppy beers (IPA/APA, Session IPA, Hazy IPA) are probably the most popular and consumed style, many have their Italian Pils in line.
Then there are the necessary exceptions (see Birrificio Birrone, Birra Elvo, Birrificio Bondai) which instead specialize in slightly more classic bottom fermentations, but which if you don't know that they are made here look like bombs from some German brauhaus, often even thanks to the purity of the water sources to which they have direct access (such as Elvo Beer).
Elvo's Pils is not an Italian Pils but it's a Pils that is truly of a high standard, regardless of the various prizes won in the contests.
The same goes for the "old" Birrificio Birrone or for Bondai who at the last Eur Hop offered me what for me was the best Rauchbier of the Festival.
However, they may not be the most popular (in terms of drinkability and prices) but our spontaneous fermentations have reached a level that in my opinion either you don't like that type of work in general or it brings back a nice memory.
I wrote it above, as a lover of Cantillon's Fou Foune... in my opinion the SPACCARELLA - Vintage 2022 by MAESTRI DEL SANNIO has surpassed it in my preferences in terms of balance and general taste. And I didn't think it could happen.
CA DEL BRADO's works have an elegance and balance that, in my opinion, are worthy of a good wine alongside the right dish.
But there are also other examples of excellence (again in my opinion) which are also found in "easier" styles which however are exalted, such as the FIGU MORISCA by Birrificio di Cagliari or the FLEUR SOFRONIA by MC77, respectively blanche with locals Sardinian prickly pear and blanche with hibiscus flowers.
Wheat beers, products that are simple and quick to drink, but which really leave you amazed. Masterpieces in their simplicity and balance.
Unfortunately, given the limited production, they are not products that you find in the first beershop you enter.
The market is flooded with other products that are always artisanal but of a more standard level, with low production costs and which offer few points of inspiration.
You have to know how to move.
And the fact that the distribution and trade of craft beers follows a parallel line and does not meet that of large-scale distribution, it's difficult for a tourist who goes to a restaurant to be offered a different beer from the industrial ones.
Our most characteristic beers are often not easy to find everywhere(also due to a market saturated with standard offers) , but certainly there are.

 

I am down in South Carolina visiting my brother and am drinking a local beer labeled as such: Fattys Beer Works - High Style

 

It would seem that you can read sign language!?!

Cheers!

 

I generally find that "Italian" pilsners (which could be called American just as accurately at this point) follow the general progression of pilsners getting more late-hop aromatic as you go south from the Baltic/North Sea coasts of Germany. You basically go from early-boil-only hopping up north to some late hopping in the south, to dry hopping and late hopping in Northern Italy, which is an interestingly neat progression.

That said, I think there are many more breweries in the US brewing the style than in Italy, and most of the brewers probably never even had Tipopils before making one so I don't see anything particularly Italian about it at this point other than the quirk of Tipopils inspiring Oxbow to coin the term. Dry hopping pilsner was a natural progression for American brewers who brew predominantly IPAs and was happening well before most brewers here had heard of any Italian connection. So I generally think that we get this style of beer either way and the name is just a weird quirk of history that caught on because of the equally quirky history of Italian-American culture and general American weirdness and affinity for grasping at European culture for some sort of anchoring of authenticity and culture.

We've been brewing one for 12 years now and I always thought of it as s dry hopped German-style pils that was inspired by Tipopils (because that's what Augustino called it!). I'm not sure when the idea of "Italian Pils" as a style caught on in any significant way, but we had been making ours for years before that cultural shift and won multiple awards as a German-style pils in the early years as well.