Monday, July 29, 2013

Pilsner Problems

I'm wrong. A lot.

It's a fairly common occurrence , especially if you ask my wife. Not, just here at drinkdrank, either—all the time, everyday—at the grocery store, picking-up the kids, you name it, chances are I'm wrong.

In my own defense, though, I don't have a fact checker working for me, like a major men's magazine might. A men's magazine like, say, GQ. So, when I read something like this:
Pilsner was born into dark days for beer. In the late nineteenth century, brewing was still a rough art and beers were, on the whole brown, smoky, and thick as curdled milk—gut-busting liquid bread, hearty fuel in an age when breakfast for most was a bowl of beer soup.
I say to myself, okay, that seems...off.

A little background on this might help a bit. It comes from William Bostwick and was written for GQ's Beer School column. The good mister Bostwick is expounding the virtue of pilsner—specifically Firestone Walker's new offering, Pivo. That's great, I'm sure it's fantastic, most FW stuff is. It's just that he seems to have taken some liberties with the history. Aside from stating that Pilsner was born in the 'late' 19th-century (Pilsner's birthday is October 5, 1842—not so 'late'), and that brewing in that century was 'a rough art' (British breweries produced million and millions of barrels of beer during the 19th-century, so maybe not that 'rough'), the author later asserts that Pilsner was invented because British brewers began light-toasting their malt, and then Continental brewers began making something imitating IPA and Bitter. The Brits may have influenced Bohemain malting techniques, but I don't think I'd go as far as to say Pilsner was invented to imitate IPA.

The author has also submitted, for our disapproval, a link to his own website, showing a 19th-century/early 20th-century, anti-temperance ad which states 'Against Prohibition - Lager’s amber fluid mild, gives health and strength to wife and child.' That would be fine if there was some mention of Pilsner, not simply, generic amber lager—which Pilsner is not. 19th-century American Amber Lager would be more akin to Yeungling than Pilsner Urquell.

A lot—not all, though—of this confusion, could have been easily cleared up if he would have just added the words 'Bohemia' or 'Bavaria', or just simply 'German', occasionally... Pilsner was born into dark days for German beer... Bavarian brewing was still a rough art and beers were, on the whole brown, smoky and thick... Many German breweries were technologically behind the Belgians and Brits—and Prussians for that matter—but that's an important thing to include. Otherwise the reader assumes that all 19th-century brewing was pre-industrial, for lack of a better term.

There's one other issue.

Bostwick is seeming to imply that Firestone Walker Pivo is the first 'craft' Pilsner. Samuel Adams Nobel Pils, North Coast Scrimshaw, Sierra Nevada Summerfest and the Crisp from Sixpoint, might not agree.

So, am I wrong?

17 comments:

  1. Great post, Craig. As a novice beer-historian (so novice I'm just at the enthusiasm + consumption stage), it's great to pickup these tidbits of information from the likes of yourself and some of your friends listed on the right sidebar. It's especially enjoyable to get the frame of reference you critique the article from. "Yeah, the article is wrong, but here's why..."

    You mentioned that Germany was further behind other breweries at that time. Is there a reason for this? German beer is held in such high regard nowadays for certain styles, some dating back hundreds of years (existing at the time you speak of). Is it the breadth of style (or lack-thereof) that dated them or their lack-of innovation, or something else?

    Perhaps this is the wrong place to ask the question, but I'd love to get a few reading recommendations from you sometime. I like scratching this itch and hate putting the invisible burden on the blogs I follow. Cheers!

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    1. I'm far from an expert in European history, but my guess as to why Germany—or rather the region of central Europe that is now Germany—was behind, technologically, some of the other countries was that it wasn't a cohesive, unified country. Germany doesn't unify until 1871. Countries like Britain, or France were also colonial powers, exploiting their colonies resources and profiting off them. Demands for goods also increased, which in turn demanded technological advances to process those goods. Large scale brewing is a direct result of the industrial revolution, and countries like the UK, and the US for that matter simply advanced faster than Germany in the 19th century. At least that's my take on the whole thing.

      As far a good reads, check out Amber, Gold and Black by Martyn Cornell—It's a great history of British beer. Pete Brown's book s are pretty entertaining, too.

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    2. Which German styles can be unambiguously dated back hundreds of years? There were dunkelbiers of one kind or another, but modern Dunkels mostly date to the innovations of the 1800s, surely? Maybe Bocks, although the medieval ones were top-fermented ales - the modern ones derive from the bottom-fermented Bavarian clones.

      The backwardness of German (and Austrian) brewing was why first Gabriel Sedlmayr II and then his friend Anton Dreher went on journeyman tours round Europe in the 1820s/1830s, learning what they could from the best brewers in western Europe, especially England & Scotland.

      Why was it backward? They lacked modern indirect malting technology, which they (and Pilsen) got from the English, who'd been making golden ales for some years before Pilsner started up. They also lacked refrigeration technology, which enabled brewing in summer as well as winter. And as Craig says, they lacked scale - Germany didn't really industrialize until the late 1800s and early 1900s.

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    3. Well put, Mr. BeerViking.

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    4. Germany's good reputation for beer is relatively recent. I've a German source from the 18th century that says the best beers are brewed outside its borders, in Britain and in Bohemia.

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  2. Beer School? Really? And they get that most basic of facts THAT wrong?

    That's quite a school they have going on there...

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    1. PS: I must confess to mentioning that thing about the brewery owners in Pilsen wanted to imitate (I-less) Pale Ale, but I was careful to say it was just a theory...

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    2. I think he must have bee wagging it (playing truant/absconding from class) when they taught the Czech class Max.

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    3. I spent minutes—minutes I tell you—looking on the all knowing internet about the Pilsner-as-replacement-for-IPA/Pale Ale theory, and didn't come up with much.

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    4. Dreher did try to brew a Pale Ale in Vienna, but without a great deal of success. That came when he started using the bottom-fermenting yeast he got from Sedlmayr.

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    5. So not so much as an imitation, but more likely a replacement?

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    6. What Ron just said more than half a day ago is what got me thinking about that theory of the Pilsner Burghers wanting to do something like a Pale Ale, but with cold fermenting yeast.

      (The theory is very likely bollocks, I refuse to acknowledge it publicly)

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  3. Great post Craig. I'd like to add that we have a great pilsener (yes I spell it with an e, as in "pilzen") made here in Ontario called Prison Break.

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    1. Send me some. Oh, and if you can find it, check out Southern Tier's Eurotrash.

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  4. Craig - Re pre-FW craft pilsners. The list is too long and goes too far back to even start on.

    Perhaps I dreamed it, but I sort of remember Matt talking about how is experience making Baderbrau when he was at Goose Island was part of his pilsner education. And, of course, Baderbrau made Baderbrau years before selling the brand to Goose.

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    1. Exactly! As soon as I had type those four, I'd thought of four more!

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  5. RE: 'imply that Firestone Walker Pivo is the first 'craft' Pilsner'

    I am a pilsner/pilsener seeker; particularly, American craft pilsner.
    .. I maintain a ranked leaderboard of my favorite American craft pilsners. There are >40. I can list 25 Exceptional, Excellent, Very Good.
    .. I look forward to testing Pivo; Firestone and Walker make very good beers; but, Pivo is a Johnny-come-lately.

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