Pilsners, How fresh do they need to be?

a month

 

Depends a wee bit on which Pils, but if anything, freshness is more important with a Pils style beer than an IPA. The complex interplay of flavors depends almost completely on subtlety rather than it does on having a strong component of intensity. So changes with age are more noticeable and cost the whole package more.

Typically I buy a bottled or canned local Pils (Victory, Stoudts, Sly Fox, Troegs) by the case. I don't buy undated beer or a case more than a month old and then only with the expectation I'll be finished with the whole case in a month or less. On tap at the brewery or their eatery is hard to beat, but "within sight" of the brewery is right up there as well.

 

I drink German imports at 4, 5 and 6 months all the time, but they taste best when younger. If you're drinking domestics then obviously aim to get them as young as you reasonably can.

 

I'm not quite the freshness **** that others here claim to be . I like them fresh but sadly my favorites don't get to me super fresh. They are typically better when they are freshest, so I buy as fresh as I can. I consider 6 months to be "old" but will gladly drink them up to that point. Personally I'd rather a less fresh German pils than most of what local or american breweries are putting out.

 

I'll gladly pick up anything under two months, and begrudgingly pick it up if there's nothing fresher and it's 3 to four months, but with a pils it's always the fresher the better.

 

It is amazing how much better the light German lagers taste fresh. I believe this is one of the reasons that American brewers have trouble replicating true German lager styles. We have so many brewers that try to brew Kolsch, Pils, and Helles, but come up short since they have not experienced (or haven't experienced enough) German lagers. Of course, some breweries do a great job of replicating, but many (or most) American breweries do not.

 

Many brewers cold age their pilsners (and other lagers) ahead of time, so freshness is a harder thing to judge. If you're talking about how soon after bottling to drink, obviously the sooner the better.

Based on my own experience brewing and drinking, I am of the opinion that lagers hold up better in the bottle and keg, relative to IPAs.

 

Seems to me almost all beers are better the fresher they are. Except maybe a few RIS' and Barleywines, which improve with age.

 

Pretty tough to see less than 3 months on a German/Czech import. At that point, at least to me, they still taste delicious, so I would say anything in that 3-6 month wheelhouse should still be pretty tasty (doesn't apply to green bottles)

 

Many of the German imported Pils suffers from staling. The first sign I get is a honey aroma and taste, that is a malt component oxidizing into 2,3-pentanedione.

Many of the volatile hops oils from dey hopping are not in the refined hop aroma of German beers, as the hops are boiled 10 minutes to drive those off. Dry hopping was just recently declared "not illegal" in Germany, so it may become more popular.

 

Does anyone else get an occasional cardboard-like aftertaste in older pilsners?

 

Yup. That a side-effect of the aging. That’s one of the flavors of oxidation.

 

Ya, I got a 6er of Pivo when I was in Vegas and it had that pretty bad. Still a very enjoyable beer.

 

Yes that is a staling compound that comes out later, it is the classic sign of oxidation. That one is trans-2-nonenol.

In beers poorly handled at packaging exposing the beer to O2, that one can come about quickly. The better breweries have bottling lines that achieve O2 levels that are in the ppb range.

 

That's interesting. I had a growler fill from a local brewery 4 hours after he kegged the batch and it had that. This guy literally brews out of a garage and puts out great stuff but that one was off. I assume this was the case.

 

I see two bottom fermenting lagers and one top fermenting lager. Color me confused.

 

Typo, point remains the same.

 

Splashing fermented beer should be avoided. Bottom filling growlers by using a tube on the tap is better than just pouring the beer in with a lot of splashing. Victory has machines that CO2 purge and bottom fill, which is much better.

 

It is possible with beers with very delicate flavors that oxidation can start to show itself very quickly. It could have happened when he transferred the beer to a brite tank, or filtering, or fining, or even when he filled the growler. You can also get similar flavors from stale malt.