means“ original source pilsner.” They wanted there to be no doubt that theirs was the original.
The Pilsner truly became the world’ s beer, influencing even more styles of golden lagers. The hiccup in innovation and technological growth was the 20th Century. Two world wars, prohibition, the Great Depression, and the spread of communism through Eastern Europe all had a stifling effect on world brewing. Half of Germany and Bohemia were incorporated into the Soviet Union after World War II. The Soviets closed most breweries and nationalized the larger ones, including Urquell. Productivity, profitability, innovation, and efficiency were discouraged at best and punished at worst. Surviving Czech and East German breweries were perpetually stuck in the 1930s until the fall of the Soviet Union. The UK was focused on ale brewing and the US was making light lager with corn and rice and calling it pilsner. West Germany and Austria, after recovering from war, were really the only countries making world-class versions of the style and they were rarely exported. Pilsner was being seen as generic beer and its golden light was fading.
The craft beer boom in the 1990s ignored pilsners and other lagers and, with few exceptions, featured ales predominantly. These craft brewers were rebellious and were directly opposing the flavorless lagers that flooded the beer market. Lagers require long fermenting and conditioning times and are very unforgiving when it comes to flaws where an ale is ready to drink in a week, is relatively easy to brew, produces a very flavorful beer, and was very anti-establishment for the time. No one wanted to brew a pilsner when Miller Lite proudly states“ a fine pilsner beer” on the label.
As craft brewing became more established, craft brewers got better and the real scientist brewers were intrigued by the tasty, refreshing pilsner. Not just because a well made pils can have a lot of flavor while remaining crisp, clean, and refreshing, but also because it is very hard and time consuming to make a good one. Lagers produce off flavors that must be conditioned out. The very word lager is German for storage, and that storage is important to make a good one. They ferment cold and slow, requiring closely-monitored refrigerated fermentation. Pilsners are more heavily hopped than other lagers, which appeals to craft brewers and drinkers alike. I love introducing craft beer drinkers to a proper pilsner. They’ ve purposely avoided the style thinking it to be swill, but au contraire...
The Czech style is hopped with spicy Czech Saaz hops and has a roundness from the decoction, where they boil part of the mash and caramelize the malt sugars. German style Pilsners are aggressively hopped with the very herbal“ noble hops” from the Hallertau region of Germany. German pilsners taste super clean too thanks to krausening, a conditioning process where active yeast is added to a freshly fermented beer. The yeast will absorb excess diacetyl, a byproduct of fermentation that has a buttery flavor and a slick mouthfeel, making German pilsners the crispiest. American brewers have been tackling the pilsner, paying homage to the European styles while doing it their own way. They might make it hoppier, or use non-traditional hops. Dry hopping is a very American practice that produces great hop aroma and can work wonders on a pilsner!
Pilsner is the brew that turned beer on its head and took over the world. It went through a rough patch thanks to being mass produced and overly available, but now it’ s getting vindicated by the craft brewing community producing some of the best versions of the style. Pilsner Urquell is still the original and is more available than ever. They updated the brewery to modern standards while still retaining the original recipe. They have recently improved things by getting rid of the green bottles which cause a skunky flavor from light-strike and packaging in cans and amber bottles. Even though they now have a fully modern brewery brewing over two million hectoliters a year, Urquell still produces a small amount of the original pilsner fermented in the caves under the brewery in the old wooden vessels. It’ s unfiltered and available only at the brewery in Pilsen. My old boss at Saint Arnold Brewery said drinking this beer was a“ religious experience.” I can see how he feels. Drinking a beer that was, and still is, a marvel of engineering, in its original form, at the very place of its birth. To quote my pastor when he comes across a sharable bit of wisdom:“ That’ ll preach.”
Chris Keller has worked in beer sales for a distributor, as a brewer for Saint Arnold Brewing Co. in Houston, and is the owner of Pint and Barrel Drafthouse in Palestine, Texas.
26 Jacksonville Progress | Fall 2025