Sugars and enzymes derived from malted cereal grains (most commonly barley) are dissolved in water. The sweet barley tea, called wort, is boiled to break down the sugars. Hops are added to the boil as a bittering agent to offset the sweetness of the sugar. Finally, yeast is added to eat the sugars and create alcohol in the process of fermentation. Using different amounts and varieties of these four ingredients, brewers can create an endless variety of beers.
Up until the late 1600s, most beer was heavy and dark. When the lighter pale ales started to become popular England, mainland European brewers tried very hard to imitate it. They stumbled on a technique called lagering, in which a different strain of yeast was used, and fermentation happened at colder temperatures than ales. This produced a much lighter colored and flavored beer. Lagering was perfected in the German town of Einbeck, where beer was fermented and aged in caves. German beer was still dark and malty, but lighter than before lagering. Even spies sent to English breweries couldn’t get the lighter colors of the pale ales.
A Bavarian brewer named Josef Groll was hired by the city of Pilsen in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, to make beer in the city-owned brewery (the brewery is still in business today, over 150 years after its founding in 1839). Groll had figured out how the English made their pale malts, but it wasn’t until a wandering monk slipped him a vial of the German lager yeast that all the pieces fell into place. Using the local barley, Saaz hops, and the famously mineral-free Pilsen water, he presented the first batch of pilsner to the city on October 5, 1842. It was an immediate hit, being lighter in color and flavor than any beer ever made up to that point. It was introduced to the wider world at the Vienna World’s Fair in 1873, and the style is now the most popular brew in the world. Fun historical note: the advent of artificial refrigeration happened about the same time, and greatly contributed to the spread of lager style beers, but even before that, anywhere a brewery could find or dig a cave, lagers were popular.
The American brewers (mostly German immigrants) didn’t have access to the lighter malts or soft waters of Europe, so they diluted their beer with corn and rice adjuncts, and the biggest brewers still do today. The mass-market pilsners have stigmatized the style, but there are many excellent versions of the original out there, including THE original from Pilsen, and many brewed here in the US. A good pilsner is pale to straw yellow, and a bit hop-forward, mostly because of the mild-flavored malts used. Noble hops like Saaz, Hallertauer, Tettnanger, and Styrian Goldings impart a spicy to floral flavor and aroma. If you ever find yourself in Germany you can order one by simply saying “Ein pils, bitte.”
This is in a tiny Worthington lakeside park with a small parking lot. Worthington city parks are open sunrise to sunset unless otherwise posted.