St. Louis Beer Blog: Czech Pilsner

Czech Pilsner

The end of Daylight Savings Time is always a difficult time of the year for me, however if there is truly a bright side to this, it also marks the appearance of our Winter Seasonals German Porter and Czech Pilsner! In particular, I not only appreciate the chance to drink our Czech Pilsner, but I truly relish the chance to talk about the history of the style, how we brew the beer, and Czech beer culture. This will be the first of several posts about Czech Pilsner so I hope you’re ready to dig in!

What differentiates Czech Pilsner from Stammtisch? Sure, both are pale beers fermented with lager yeast and feature pronounced hop bitterness and aroma. This is where the comparison ends. Czech Pilsner features deeper malt character (ie more bread-like than the cracker-like malt found in Stammtisch) as well as more body than Stammtisch*. While they may have similar IBUs, the extra malt character reduces the perceived bitterness of the Czech versions of these beers.

In terms of the invention of this style of beer, we really can pinpoint its beginning, which puts it in contrast with most other varieties of beer. A human tendency is to be able to determine the origin of everything in society, and beer styles are no exception. Several books, blogs, and other sources will tell various stories of how certain aspects of beer came into being, however many of these stories are often tall tales, legends, and outright falsehoods. Luckily, we can nail down the dates when this style was first brewed (October 5, 1842) and served (November 11, 1842).

The story begins in 1839 in the Bohemian city of Plzeň (Pilsen)**. The city resolved to construct a large, modern brewery called the Bürgerbrauerei or Měšťanský pivovar (Citizens’ Brewery). Thanks to the excellent reputation of Bavarian beer***, they sought out a Bavarian brewmaster and found Josef Groll from Vilshofen. Groll may have been a particularly prickly character, but he was an excellent brewer. As noted, he brewed a pale beer with Bavarian methods (triple decoction mash, cold fermentation, and cold conditioning) on October 5 1842, and on November 11, 1842, this new pale lager (Světlý Ležák) debuted.

There are many myths and legends about the creation of this beer, which we will cover in future posts. Also, we will discuss UCBC’s brewing methods of the beer as well as the tasting notes. Na zdraví!

*Deeper malt character and more body can usually describe the difference between Czech beers and their German equivalents. This extra body is a result of traditional Czech yeasts which leave more residual sugar in the beer than modern German yeast. Modern barley varieties also tend to produce more sugar that yeast can consume, however most Czech breweries tend to use traditional malt from Moravia (eastern Czechia)

** Plzeň is now located in western Czechia but was part of Austria at the time. And while much of the brewery’s documentation was German, Evan Rail, an American beer writer who has lived in Prague since 2000, points out that Pilsen was always a Czech city.

*** Bavarian Beer in the early 19th century was defined as a dark, somewhat smoky lager beer.

By Nate Brinson