Today, you don’t have to sniff out the European section of your favorite bottle shop for the good stuff. Bright and beaming domestic pilsners lost out to, well, Bud (and sibling beers).įortunately, the recent rise in the craft beer tide has lifted all styles within, including the pilsner. And while there likely were some tasty batches early on, it wasn’t long before the biggest breweries took the pilsner and stripped it of its personality. With so many European immigrants coming to the states a couple of centuries ago, one would expect a decent pilsner recipe or two. Countless labels specialize in the stuff, from Pilsner Urquell and Stella Artois to Beck’s and Warsteiner. It has been a sensation ever since, the most-consumed beer style on the planet. Thus, the pilsner was devised, a combination of Pilsen’s esteemed local water supply, native hops, and a bottom-fermented approach. Brewers and drinkers alike wanted more consistency and the former looked to fine-tune their recipes with better ingredients and more sophisticated strains of yeast. By the 1800s, there was a movement towards higher quality beer inspired by the goings-on in Bavaria. It was first brewed in the Czech town of Pilsen, a place with a rich beer heritage that goes all the way back to the 13th Century. The pilsner was born in the Old World in the mid-18th Century.
The incredibly clean lager beer style was long something Europeans excelled at.
It took a while for America to get the hang of the pilsner.