Pilsner Hate

Put a pils in a silver can splatted with neon colors and non-sequiturs and you'll find beer nerds lining up for them.

Give them tradition in a glass and they'll turn their bearded necks towards Kuntsville

 

Hate? I doubt there are many people that are into beer and 'hate' pilsners.

I think the reason they aren't as popular as other styles is because they have a similar appearance and taste to AALs and can cost nearly double. I also find many craft pilsners to be overly hoppy (american versions anyway) or are complete shit and have off flavors because the brewer can't brew the style. I've never brewed beer but I imagine a delicate beer is much tougher to get right than something like a DDH IPA with adjuncts added to it.

 

I think Pilsners would be more popular if American small breweries understood how to make them properly. I find that many of the Pilsners I've tried from small breweries seem to forget the importance of malt in the brewing process, and these beers tens to taste like grass and bugspray to me, instead of the breadiness that I seek out from this kind of beer. It seems to me that American brewers do not understand grain and do not take it seriously.

 

That would certainly be a step in the right direction. If the marketing challenge here is that beer geeks view Pilsners as being the functional equivalent of AAL beer (e.g., Miller Lite - A Fine Pilsner Beer) then regardless of how small breweries brew their Pilsners they will not be buying them.

Cheers!

 

One could say Americans' disregard for brewing grain stems exactly from the same source - the major breweries didn't either, using commodity-quality barley, rice, and corn (or whichever syrups and sugars to substitute, but that's a different matter).

 

I would recommend a visit to SEPA. There is a number of small, local breweries here that brew their German Pilsners with 100% German PIlsner Malt. I know of a half-dozen that brew theirs with 100% Weyermann Pilsner malt. I would not claim that this is representative for the US craft breweries at large but using 100% German Pilsner malt for German Pilsners is the norm here.

Cheers!

 

What is meant by "commodity-quality?"

 

Sounds like they installed new pipes to allow for the drawing of a thick mash back and forth between what would be the mash kettle. So they probably used the cereal cooker PBC already had and used for their cereal mashes and used it as a thick mash kettle instead.

 

I'd say in the end pilsner will rule. Too good an invention not to be appreciated properly.

You go here and there, but eventually you sit there with a pilsner.

 

I mean a focus on purchasing those gains based on what they can get the most of for the least cost, usually with low regard to the quality of grains themselves as they are ultimately generic. The opposite (which isn’t a choice for large-scale brewing and even most small brewing really) is special sourcing from certain farms or buying from specialty maltsters, as @JackHorzempa noted with Weyermann malt sourced from Germany.

The fact is, for small breweries, I don’t believe buying simple “Pilsner” malt and pale two-row is enough, there has to be some care towards getting a higher-quality grain to make a high-quality beer.

That, and mashing technique as well - including decoction mashing, which has been discussed many times around here...it’s slower, but really draws out the bread flavor from simple grass and crackers.

 

I bought a crowler of a keller pils from my local brewery, have Victory's Prima Pils on tap at my house, picked up a sixer of SN's Summerfest and plan on possibly even getting a keg of Summerfest to put on tap after Prima kicks... Oh, and I usually have a homebrew Pils on tap, too.

Pilsners are probably my favorite style, when done well.

 

Yeesh. A Pilsner that doesn't use Pils malt? Golden color? Looks quite amber to me.

And as @JackHorzempa said, I wonder if they decoction mash Boston Lager today?

Also, is it common to use decoction mashing for American two row pale malts (of course I'm assuming it's American, the website just says "Samuel Adams two row pale malt blend).

I drink Pilsners because they're refreshing but I don't find them to be undemanding. Quite the opposite. I'm paying attention to that initial hit of Pils malt, how crisp the beer is, how dry it is, how clean it is (searching for off flavors), and then finally the hop bitterness blending with it all, and trying to determine if it complements the beer or dominates it.

Something like a pastry stout or New England IPA (which I do enjoy, more often the latter than the former) there isn't a heck of a lot going on beyond the initial burst of flavor. Those beers are undemanding to my palate.

Now if you're referring to how sessionable a Pilsner is, sure it definitely is. As opposed to New England IPAs and pastry stouts, which can weigh on you quickly.

I also enjoy a High Life from time to time, but I wouldn't compare it to a Pilsner.

I've enjoyed both from the source, and yes, they were quite good. Both on the hoppier end, but still quite good. I think I had Live Oak Pilz at the brewery, I tried quite a few beers there. At the very least I had it everywhere in Austin that weekend.

 

That's what they still claim on their current website's opening page (seemingly written after the recent "corn syrup" kerfuffle):

 

They still note their decoction mashing in their recent marketing.

"Sam Adams Boston Lager is not from concentrate. To deliver the full flavor and aroma, the brewing process is labor-intensive, including decoction mashing (four-vessel process), krausening (secondary fermentation), extended lagering (aging), and dry hopping during the final stages of fermentation."

I would be shocked if any of the American legacy breweries used a decoction mash, the closest any of them will get will be the American double mash (a la ABInbev's use of whole grain rice for Budweiser). US malt gets a bad rap but have people tried brewing a 13P wort from American 2 row, adjusted the mashing process and yeast to not attenuate the hell out of it, hopped it nicely and then drank it? If you treat malt the way American macro brewers treat it (by the use of flavor diluting adjuncts), or cover it up with roasted malt, I don't see how you can make an informed opinion about them. I haven't brewed with US 2-row yet but I have to wonder how terrible American maltsters manage to make their malt for it to get such a bad rap from homebrewers.

Concerning their pale two-row barley types this is what they said in an earlier marketing blurb:

Malt Varieties: Two-row Harrington, Metcalfe, and
Copeland pale malts, and Caramel 60

So they obviously blended the barley types for the production of their pale 2-row malt. If you look at Cargill's current base 2-row it consists of Metcalfe and Copeland. Whereas their Idaho IdaPils consists of Harrington. So is the 2-row blend a mix of their 2-row and their IdaPils?

 

Food Lion was selling Yuengling Pilsner for awhile, I don't know if Food Lion doesn't order more is because I bought all they had. I was the only person buying this in the Charlotte metro area. As far as I know. For what it's worth it reminded me more of Cream Ale than Pils. I spent 30 months in Germany and believe me when I say. "I know what a Pils is."

 

Thanks. Thought that might be what you were referring to. That's actually a common misconception.

Everybody purchases the best quality grains they can get for the lowest cost, regardless of their size. Some of the larger ones are able to contract with growers who regularly produce high quality crops so they don't have to spend money on the spot market.

Using Budweiser as an example, the AB folks who buy for Budweiser buy most if not all of their barley and their rice on contracts with growers who are known for reliably producing high quality grains. (All rice used in Budweiser is grown in the US.) Those grains never appear on the open market. In fact it's the small brewers who have to rely on the open market and whatever variable quality exists there.

 

Brewer James Koch modeled his Samuel Adams Boston Lager after Czechoslovakia's Pilsner Urquell, and while the designation of pilsener has come to mean light in this country, Sam Adams is anything but. In fact, it's stronger tasting than its prototype.
--- Boston Globe, April 18, 1985

Believe me, just because the Globe said it doesn't mean it's true.

 

Yeah, according One Hundred Years of Brewing [1902] it was pretty much dead in the US a century (but, then, so was Koch's great-grandfather, upon whose recipe SABL is supposedly base).

From pg. 61- 62 (some online editions are paged differently).

 

Patrik, thanks for that link!

It sounds like they drawed 25% of the mash for boiling. I wonder if they used this same percentage when brewing at the Sam Adams brewery in Breinigsville, PA brewery?

Cheers!

 

Undemanding in that, for me at least, a good pilsner just needs to be enjoyed. I don't feel an urge to analyze what I'm drinking, it doesn't insist on the proper glassware, it doesn't want my undivided attention, it just wants to help you have a good time.
To me, at least, pilsners are beers made to drink with friends.

This

The comparison was meant to mean that these are both beers brewed to be refreshing and thirst quenching.