OnTap Magazine

PILSNERS IN SOUTH AFRICA Despite the fact that it provided the spark for the world’s most popular beer style (the pale lager), surprisingly few breweries in South Africa are producing a pilsner – and fewer still attempt the Czech version. Here’s a six-pack of pilsners to try. CBC PILSNER This multi- award winning German pils is the brainchild of brewmaster Wolfgang Koedel and a permanent fixture in my fridge. WOODSTOCK HAPPY PILLS Lots of malty breadiness and an assertive but not overpowering hop bitterness make this unfiltered pilsner a pleasantly complex pint. MAD GIANT THE GUZZLER With notes of citrus and freshly cut grass, this dry-hopped pils is clean and very easy to drink. KING’S CRAFT MADKING PILSNER Another German pils with a beautiful floral hop note and a lingering and pleasant bitterness. IMPI WARRIOR PILSNER A less complex version that’s perfect for quenching a Jo’burg summer thirst. HANSA PILSENER The “kiss” of the Saaz hop here is more an air kiss than a full-on snog, making t his a pilsner in name only. and German malt, and is also traditionally brewed with water with higher mineral content than a Czech pilsner. German pils also tends to be more highly attenuated than its Czech counterpart, which usually has more hop bitterness to balance the residual sugars left due to under-modi ed malt and a decoction mash. German pilsners are also usually referred to as ‘pils’ to di erentiate them from the Czech styles and, some say, to show respect to the original. And the Czech beers do deserve respect. e rst pilsner, Pilsner Urquell, is, in my opinion, the best beer in the world. Without being too subjective, the balance between the bitterness of the Zatec hops (better known by their German name, Saaz) and the under-attenuated malt is incredible. PU, as it is known, cracks in at 40 IBUs, which is more than some South African IPAs, but this only adds to the drinkability of the beer. Often, it does not pay to be the rst to market as someone else inevitably comes along and improves on your idea. But Groll produced an easy-drinking yet complex beer – on his rst try (okay, as far as we know it was his rst try and I’d like to keep believing the legend). Pilsner Urquell still brews its beer basically the same way it did back in the 19th century. e brewery has incredibly soft water (not unlike the water from Cape Town’s Newlands spring) and malts its own barley, which is what makes imitating the beer very di cult. e malt is only modi ed to around 60-75% (as it would have been two hundred years ago before modern malting techniques) so a triple decoction mash is used to break down proteins in the malt, allowing enzymes easier access to convert starch to sugars. A decoction mash involves removing a thick sample of the mash into a separate vessel and heating in stages to boiling. e process kills enzymes, but was one of the original ways to step mash and gives the beer more colour due to caramelisation during the boil. Saaz hops are then added to reach 40 IBUs before transferring the wort to the fermenters. Previously, PU used traditional wooden fermenters, before moving to stainless steel in 1992. However, some beer is still fermented in oak and those lucky enough to make a pilgrimage to Plzeň can taste the ‘original’ pilsner from the cellars at the brewery. ALL PILSNERS ARE LAGERS, BUT ALL LAGERS ARE NOT NECESSARILY PILSNERS e yeast used to make PU, and other pilsners, is a lager yeast. So to go back to our original question, is a pilsner di erent to a lager? Well, technically, pilsner is a lager. But not all lagers are pilsners. As the style grew and brewers travelled to countries like the United States and South Africa to establish new breweries, pilsner brewing practices changed. Adjuncts, such as maize and rice, were added to the beers rather than relying solely on expensive malted barley for sugars. e amount of hops was dialled back to increase the sweetness and to make the beers less complex in return for increased pro ts and ‘drinkability.’ And the result was what we today call a ‘lager’. But this has not stopped macro-breweries from endowing their adjunct- lled, easy-drinking golden beers with the majestic moniker of ‘pilsner’ in a marketing ploy to di erentiate their adjunct lager from their other adjunct lagers. And while the di erences between pilsners and lagers are subtle, and perhaps not of interest to some beer drinkers, it is important that we keep and respect this di erence and keep the traditions alive of the drink which changed the face of beer. THE NOBLE HOPS Hailing from Europe, there are four so-called noble hops: Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, Tettnang, Spalt and Saaz. They share a long pedigree, delicate floral aromas and a fairly low alpha acid content, but while the term might sound grand and filled with historical meaning, it was actually coined in the US in the 1980s and is more a marketing tool than an indicator of aristocratic origins. The best beer in the world ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2018 | 53