In our post on Czech Premium Pale Lager, we went through the story that began the worldwide pale lager boom (you can check that out here). As those beers exploded onto the European market, German brewers were well aware of their popularity, and a confluence of study and technological advancement helped them to make their own version of the style. 

As Michael Jackson points out in his writing on Pilsner, the northern Germans have had a love for hops in beer about as long as anyone. Hops didn’t really take hold as the primary bittering agent in beer throughout Europe until around 1400, and even after that their usage spread slowly. In England, for example, brewers and drinkers distinguished between hopped and unhopped drinks with the terms “beer” and “ale” respectively for several hundred years after that. In northern Germany, however, hops arrived on the scene before 1000 CE, when brewers in the city of Bremen started using them. Southern German cities were still under the control of what was known as the gruitrecht (Gruit Right), which was a highly taxed mixture of herbs that were used to bitter beer. Today, gruit is its own category of beer, but brewers under the gruitrecht were legally bound by it–they had to pay for, and use the local gruit mixture, which was most often owned by the church. In what’s now northern Germany, brewers were outside of the church’s control, and were therefore able to season their beer as they chose to. Clearly brewers began using hops in several northern German cities, because when the royals in Bavaria hired a brewer from Einbeck several centuries later to boost their local beer culture, they brought hops to the south with them.

Although the pale lagers from Plžen were quickly gaining popularity, English brewing was still admired as the model of efficient and industrial practice during the nineteenth century. It’s no surprise, then, that when Anton Dreher and Gabriel Sedlmayr wanted to learn about advances in brewing technology, they traveled to England to learn (and sometimes steal) their secrets. Some folks were welcoming, giving information away as it was requested, while others were a bit harder to get to. These two precocious brewers weren’t deterred, however, inventing a walking cane that doubled as a dip tube they could use to quietly steal beer samples for study. When they arrived back in Germany, these two, and Sedlmayr in particular, made technology a primary focus of their brewing practice. They began using thermometers, then rare in German brewing, were instrumental in introducing commercial refrigeration to the world (not just the brewing industry), and invented several new styles that remain with us to this day.

The pilsners of Germany were a confluence of new technology, a historical thirst for hoppy brews, and one last important factor: local ingredients. German pilsners often use a blend of local hops for bittering and aroma including Mittelfrüh, Hallertau, Tettnanger, Hersbrucker, and Spalt, whereas Czech brewers stick with their own local Saaz hops. This gives German Pilsners a floral, spicy, and herbal bouquet, whereas Czech lagers have a distinct yet pleasant spicy character. Germans also use local water, an ingredient that can often get a passover when we talk about brewing. The water in Plžen is very soft, meaning it has less dissolved mineral content than most water. When German brewers began creating pale lagers, their water therefore lent itself to hoppier, drier beer, a trend that remains to this day when you compare the two.

German pilsner has become one of the most popular styles the world over. It was avoided by the American craft industry for quite a while, perhaps because of communal PTSD from macro-domination during the twentieth century. It’s enjoying a revival on brewery taplists, though, as craft drinkers are recognizing its refined and pleasantly aromatic profile, not to mention its dangerous drinkability. If you’re someone who’s avoided pilsners for the same reason, give one a try sometime…we promise they aren’t the flavorless macro lagers they’re associated with.