Pilsner Vs Lager: What's The Difference?

Thank you for pointing it out.

To my fellow BAs.

 

That would explain why when I read it I didn’t think it was cringeworthy, just basic

 

Yeah, it's heavily edited, or I suppose you could call it a re-write. There is still a lot of errors or misinformation.

Maybe new info is stuck in there too. I don't recall this statement from the original article: "Lager (which Eater explains comes from the German word lagern, meaning "to lie")...." Google Translate says 'lagern' in German means to 'to store' which is what I've always read. Maybe they mean to 'lie' around which is a real stretch for their translation. (To explore a translation a little further, the Czech language defines 'lagern' as 'place' so that's not a source for 'lie.')

 

I've always had trouble with that word....lie, lay, laid, lain, layed..... (To tell an untruth!)

 

Yes sir indeed.

Maybe if we click on this crappy article tomorrow it will be 'better'?

Cheers!

 

I don't know if it's normal to rewrite articles after they've been posted (correction of minor errors, yes, but a re-write?), but you'd think that whoever discovered the errors that prompted the re-write would have been smart enough to point out all of the errors. Maybe they should have canceled the whole thing and removed it from their site. It's really kind of a trivial topic anyway. (Even though many of us think the differentiation of a 'lager' from a 'Lager' is an important point to make. But, hmmm, they didn't even pick up on doing that.)

 

All pilsners are lagers, but not all lagers are pilsners. Is that the correct answer?

 

If you believe the BA style definitions not all pilsners are pilsners. I direct your attention to "Miller Lite A Fine Pilsener Beer" which is classed as a "lager-light". Also a brewery in Pilsen might want to justifably label a dark lager or ale as a pilsner beer. Your answer is correct as far as it goes, but an understanding of the situation demands more.

 

There is definitely the "when in Rome" perspective to be aware of, but once the 'Pilsner' word was appropriated by the Germans so long ago the 'hoppy pale lager' definition has been pretty much locked into place, colloquially speaking. And the vast bulk of our beer talk these days flows from that point of view, and not so much the Czech one.

 

To add to @moodenba 's complications, according to craft brewers, not all pilsners are lagers (if we use the definition of lagers that the linked article uses... a definition that probably most people on this forum pretty much also use).

 

I just mean that craft brewers have been known to sometimes brew beers they call "pilsners" with "top-fermenting" yeast. (Not that I'm finger-wagging that approach)

 

Found a few other nice advertisement pictures on the same theme which I thought were worth sharing here. The first picture shows a Swedish brewery advertisement for their pilsner and lager. The labeling of "Klass II" (which is a post 1919 classification) and the bulbous top of the bottles (a pre-1932 model) means it stems from the 1920s most likely. This would be the standard line up for a Swedish brewery from the late 1800s-1950s, with the pilsner being the most popular following WW1.

The Carlsberg advertisements were nice I thought in showing a line up of Gamle Carlsberg Lager øl, Carlsberg Pilsner and Ny Carlsberg Lager øl. The original gravity of the beers is listed as 13% and 10.75%. They belonged to two different tax classes, the two weaker beers to Skatteklasse I and the stronger one to Luxusøl A ("luxury beer" type A). Ron has written some very informative blog posts, here and here, about Carlsberg beers in the late 1920s period which is when I'm assuming these are from.

I added some information about the Danish tax system (taken from Swedish governmental reports on malt beverage taxation from the 1930s) which I can paste here:

Going back to Ron's posts the Pilsner would have been 80% pilsner malt and 20% corn, while the two Lager øl were 98% lager malt and 2% caramel malt, obviously resulting in the color difference in the advertisements above. Interesting to see that they were so similarly hopped, at 180gr/hl for both of the weaker beers and 210gr/hl for the stronger Lager øl.

The use of pilsner malt for pilsner beer and lager malt for lager beer was also the case in Sweden. Below is a brewery year book from 1913 showing the inventory of malt at the start of the year. It lists pilsnermalt and lagerölsmalt, with the majority being lagerölsmalt (lager beer malt). Pre-WW1 lager beer was still the most sold type of beer in Sweden nationally.

Below is another inventory list from another brewery in 1908. Note the printed headings written vertically, from the left: Lageröl, Pilsener. The two main types of beer brewed. The list then goes on to list the volume of beer on hand for each type, pilsener, lageröl. Then the number of bottles of each. Then the volume of malt of each type, pilsenermalt and lagerölsmalt. Then finally a bit further down the hops are listed with 2500 kg pilsenerhumle (pilsener hops) and 50 kg lagerölshumle (lager beer hops) The pilsner-lager terminology was firmly entrenched in the Swedish and Danish brewing industry, even beyond advertisements.

 

While preparing to express my outrage about journalistic integrity and editing without citation...

“BY FELIX BEHR/JUNE 24, 2021 3:57 PM EDT/UPDATED: JULY 8, 2021 1:37 PM EDT”

So good for Felix and the editors of Mashed, for including the citation.

 

So did I, but they weren't different enough that they couldn't past for either style.

 

In Germany the pils is treated and served in a different manner than the helles. They even give you a doily.

 

You have to go to fancy places I guess. The also use the pilsner glass- go figure.