Arrogant Pilsner

Good stuff and between this and Go To 16 oz six pack cans, I'm loving Stone this summer!

 

This is hilariously ironic coming from a professional marketing team that made the original blanket claim about beers that comprise some of the world's great classics [under the rubric of "fizzy yellow beers''], dismissing them more or less out of hand. Ridiculous.

 

Mr. Burgess, your ego has gotten the better of you, as you are twisting a phrase and personalizing it to make it about you and your opinions. It has nothing to do with you, or the hallowed brands you seek to defend.

It must be quite saddening to some of the humans you surround yourself with for them to know that you have torn yourself so asunder with the self-focused machinations of the champion of an imagined underdog. Feeling quite charitable, I will assist you in relieving what is apparently some considerable angst.

Being that you have spent such a significant portion of your life on these forums with nearly 6500 posts (which is either extremely impressive, or a bit needy), you should be abundantly aware that the so-called rubric that you have referred to came into use in and around 1997/98. It was a clear reference to the industrial beers of the United States, as for the first 18 years of my temporal existence I have been focused primarily on the New World.

On the bottle which bears my name, it is quite clear that this is the target. I will refresh your memory by quoting myself: “We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory—maybe something with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beer will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multimillion-dollar ad campaigns make a beer taste better.”

Pray tell, which of these “world classics” that you feel are being so maligned has plied in the trade of suggesting that their beer denotes sex appeal upon the drinker? None of course. Which have multimillion-dollar ad campaigns (note that Dollars were mentioned, rather than Euros or Deutschmarks)? None of course. “World classic” and promoters of imagined attributes of sex appeal are distinctly polar opposites. Even the fizzy yellow beer drinking numbskulls out there get that one.

Be aware that “the world’s great classic beers” need no defense. That’s what makes them world classic styles. I am intimately aware, as this is the company I regularly keep. The fragility of ego exists only where they are knowingly donning the mantle of a false king, which of course, means that they are indeed not a world classic style.

Keep in mind that if you swaddle yourself in Germanic user name and imagery, and apply continental defensiveness where it’s unneeded, you achieve only to further the generalization that some certain people are challenged when it comes to a sense of humor. Fortunately, I find this generalization to not be completely true.

Lastly, the wannabe hipsters these days have convinced you in their misuse of the word irony to employ it as they do: incorrectly. I implore you to leave such inaccurate applications of usage with the fixie bicycle and skinny jeans crowd. I use facts and insights, not irony.

I must be off. Forums such as this tend to be a black hole of imagined slights, needless hyperbole, pointless arguments over minutia, and endless posturing. As a gargoyle, I have real demons and other evils to vanquish, rather than imagined ones. Too much of the latter distracts from my important work of saving the world and the pitiful little creatures called humankind.

 

Wow. Took more than 12 hours to put together 9 paragraphs that say nothing -- impressive use of a thesaurus, I'm sure. At least it was broken up into those paragraphs.

 

Bought a sixer this past weekend. Not a bad pilsner, certainly, but not something I'm geeked about either. Much too hoppy and bitter, even for German interpretation. That said, it drinks easy and finishes nice and clean, but I wouldn't get it again. Will happily stick with Prima, which for me, even though hoppy, is a much better balanced and executed pils.

 

LOL 12 hours to put together, you honestly think the poster was waiting for any incoming forum posts then sat for 12 hours composing this? LOL wow.
As far as content, I totally get what was said in those paragraphs, what was so hard to comprehend?

 

Very well said, there are a lot of these so called experts on beer with zero real first hand experience in it. Cheers to you!
:-)

 

Not my implication at all.

Didn't say anything about comprehension.

 

Really enjoyed this beer on these hot days. It's full of flavor and isn't a palate killer. Only one store got them in my area and when I picked up my second six pack it was the last one so I'm hoping it comes around again soon.

 

I was referring to part you said 12 hours to say nothing? I totally get what was said, it did not seem like he was saying nothing? Anyway, not a big deal, just seemed like a bash to me, I thought it was pretty well said to be honest.

 

Well, you did crush a whole pallet of beer, and @herrburgess was one of the first to comment that Jever may have been in there...a world class Pilsner when fresh in my opinion.

Personally, and I mean no offense to either of you, but I feel @LuskusDelph was a bit overboard and too general with that assessment of the US craft beer scene's ability to brew a good Pilsner, or any other style. It's been improving, but still has a long way to go for some styles. There's FAR more IPAs that are good to great than there are Pilsners. Part of it is that there are many more IPAs being brewed I'm sure, but I would guess the other part is one style is simply more difficult to brew than the other. A mediocre IPA is still drinkable...a mediocre Pilsner, not so much.

And @ArrogantBastard, while your sentiments are much appreciated, you also didn't really respond to his comments with anything of substance. It takes skill to brew beer, yes, but to say the degree of difficulty with a Pilsner is the same as an IPA may not be correct. If it is, I would have liked to see more detail surrounding this reasoning, and more specifically, detail regarding Arrogant Pilsner and how it was brewed/tastes. For the most part, it was an unnecessarily wordy diatribe (although I assume that's part of the whole shtick, which I get and can appreciate). For what it's worth though, I absolutely plan on picking up some Arrogant Pilsner and giving it a whirl. I'm always excited to try a new Pilsner.

Aggressive flavors in beer can mask flaws, in fact, the double IPA grew in popularity and was "created" (we could debate about when/who created the double IPA) to mask flaws. See the quotation below from Vinny Cilurzo...who I assume knows what he's doing.

'If a guy named Electric Dave hadn’t sold Cilurzo plastic fermenters, he might not have brewed the country’s first Double IPA. He was launching Blind Pig Brewing Company, and as he puts it: “We weren’t sure how the equipment would react [to the plastic], so we decided that we’d take our base IPA recipe, double the hops and bump the malt up a little bit. The hops would sort of cover up any flaws, and it would also give us some idea of how the whole brewhouse would run. It was 10 times more bitter than most Double IPAs now and lower in alcohol. There was a blistering bitterness on the palate; it was amazing how many people actually liked it back then.”'

 

This whole "mask flaws" argument is nonsense. All beers (regardless of style) should be properly brewed and quality breweries are fully capable of doing this. Sierra Nevada properly brews their hoppy beers (e.g., IPAs) and there are no flaws which need to be masked there. Sierra Nevada properly brews their Pilsners (e.g., Nooner, Summerfest) and there are no flaws to be masked there.

Cheers!

 

Well, to be fair the poster he was responding to runs a brewery that specializes in authentic German styles.

 

Of course all styles and beers should be properly brewed.

Aggressively hop forward beers can't mask flaws at all then? What did Vinnie mean in that quotation? I took it to mean (and have read in multiple places from different brewers) that it is difficult to brew a beer such as a Pilsner (or a Koelsch for example) because it is a lighter style, with less bold flavors to mask any flaws.

 

Wasn't his statement pertaining to the possible leeching of plastic flavors into the batch? I am not certain it was a blanket statement about ways to cloak variances or issues with a poorly made beer.
I think most know you can pour perfume on any pig and it still is a pig, LOL.

 

Well, he did say 'sort of '. In my experience that translates to a certain number of ounces before the palate adjusts to the hops and starts detecting any additional flavors and /or aromas - almost always between a half and a full pint.

 

AHA Forum with a lot of experience answering alike and/or agreeing to:

In answer to easiest styles to get right.

 

Honeygo had 6 packs on Saturday. Tasty.

 

Does it matter? He added more hops to cover up potential off-flavors.

Personally, and it makes sense to me, if there's any flaws or off-flavors in two beers, and one of them is a 100 IBU double IPA, and the other is a Helles...I'm going to have a much easier time picking up on nuances (both good and bad) in the Helles.

This applies to anything, not just beer. If I'm at a potentially subpar coffee shop, I'm going to order their dark roast. And most people will simply dump a bunch of sugar and cream into it to help as well. It's much more forgiving due to the bold flavor than their light or medium roasts. The latter tastes REALLY bad if not brewed properly, you'll pick up sour or bitter notes depending on what was done.

Crappy sushi? Add wasabi.

Don't really like the taste of steak? Add steak sauce.

I'm not saying you can't pick up flaws in an IPA either. But it simply makes sense to me that the bolder flavored style would be harder to pick up flaws in.

 

So if the malt begins to break down and become honeyish, that flaw won't be noticeable in a 20 IBU helles or koelsch before it would in a 65 IBU, dry-hopped DIPA?