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Pilsner Madness Round 1: Southern Tier EuroTrash Pilz (13) -VS- Great Divide Nomad Pilsner (14)

May 1, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Today New York faces off against Colorado with Southern Tier EuroTrash Pilz versus Great Divide Nomad Pilsner!

The Contenders:

Southern Tier EuroTrash Pilz (13) – Southern Tier, an eponymous nod to the southern most counties in New York, was started using the equipment from the (sadly now defunct) Old Saddleback Brewing Co. in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Non-East Coasters might know ST for their more novelty beers, like the excellent fall seasonal Pumking or the desert-like “Blackwater” series that includes Chokolat Stout, Creme Brulee Stout, and Plum Noir Imperial Porter. Their primary line-up is nothing to shake a proverbial dead workhorse at, made up of a nicely balanced IPA (comparable to Brooklyn IPA or Harpoon IPA) and my personal favorite, 422 Wheat Ale.

As I was searching high and low for Pilsners, my wife spotted this one, tucked away as a single near the back of the seasonal shelf at Total Wine in Laurel, MD. It’s labeling makes it look sort of like an edgy unicorn who spells his name with a totally hip “z” who was playing chess fell into the label printer, but it’s appropriately refreshing garb for this crisp pilsner.

Great Divide Nomad Pilser (14) – Great Divide is particularly decorated, having won twelve Great American Beer Festival awards and four World Beer Cup awards. Their original mission was to brew “strong” beer, both in ABV and flavor. To that end, they’ve succeeded, powerfully. I’ve only had two of their other beers – Titan IPA and the Bronco’s Pride, Denver Pale Ale – but they are undeniably, unquestionably, unforgivingly, bold.

Nomad Pilsner was the last beer I found for the tournament, but certainly not the least. The mission for strong beer carried over into the body of this malt-strong and abundantly hopped pilsner. Lagered for five weeks, it has the weight of an ale, but the tickling effervescence and refreshment of a Rhineland lager.

The Fight:

We’ve got two completely different beers clinking glasses here. The EuroTrash is so light, its bubbles whispering through my tongue to my brain, telling me to go outside and drink this while playing mandolin in the Spring sun. The Nomad is the opposite, its heavy malten-spine and powerful upfront, slightly alcoholic flavor demands I sit down on the couch, put on a bad SciFi movie and just chill the eff out.

The head on the EuroTrash froths enthusiastically during the pour, but settles to just a few puddles of bubbles within minutes. The Nomad retains a meaty, creamy pure-white head until the beer is about halfway gone. Both smell delightfully hoppy; notes of citrus and grass waft from the tops of the thin glasses.

The EuroTrash is clean, but unembroidered. It makes no pretenses about who it is, or why it’s here. It wants to be consumed, probably in large amounts, probably to stymie relentless summer heat. The Nomad is full of pretenses. It’s a pilsner that seems to want to be an ale, that wants to echo its IPA and PA and Stout brethren. It don’t take no guff about being a “light” beer.

While I really appreciate the simplicity of the SouthernTier offering, I have to give this one to Great Divide. This is the first pilser I’ve had that had the audacity to try and keep up with the regime established by the ales, and I think it did a mighty fine job. It’s not quite on the level of Victory Prima or Sam Adams Noble, but it’s damn close.

Winner: Great Divide Nomad Pilsner!

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Victory Prima Pils (11) -VS- Gordon Biersch Czech Pilsner (12)

April 18, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Next up: The hop-heavy hitter, Victory Prima Pils trades blows with the malty-mangler, Gordon Biersch Czech-style Pilsner!

The Contenders:

Victory Prima Pils (11) –

For an unacceptable amount of time, I hadn’t anointed my tongue with Prima Pils, and had let Sam Adams Noble Pils, in all its noble, hoppy glory, reign as the king of flavor town. One sip immediately caused a coup in my brain; the loyalists of Noble Pils lining up in the corpus callosum, the revolutionaries of Prima Pils meeting them head on, glasses in hand like clubs made of delicate stemware. Then it got ugly. German malts and delicious hops everywhere. There is still a great-schism in my mind, two factions constantly warring over the holy pilsner lands, clashing at least once a month when I stand in front of a refrigerated case struggling to choose a six-pack.

Prima Pils carries with it the Victory Brewing pedigree than can be enjoyed in a few of their other brews: HopDevil, Golden Monkey, Storm King. They have a reputation for going big with the flavors and never going home, staying all night to party it up with the most hedonistic beer enthusiast. The word “prima” is a proclamation of joy, excitement, and success in German, and is definitely something I recommend yelling, inappropriately loudly for wherever you are, when you drink a glass of this stuff.

Gordon Biersch Czech-style Pilser (12) –

Where Prima brings the weight, the seriousness, the raw-heft, Gordon Biersch keeps it light and simple. Gordon Biersch (who many of you might know from the very massively displayed “GB” signs outside the restaurants that pepper various states in the US) is an odd mix between craft and mass produced. Some of their beers have hints of technique and artistic culinary flair but then you find out that they also brew beer for Costco.

Their Czech-style pils is competent, but unapologetically plain. It tastes like a beer brewed by committee, who decided what the best flavor balance would be with reports and statistics, not with what hops and malts went into the brew kettle.

The Fight:

I don’t want to be mean to Gordon Biersh here; this pilsner is solid, tasty, perfectly refreshing on a hot day. It’s got a nice balance of subtle hops to mildly-sour malt and I quite enjoyed drinking it, and would drink it again.

But Prima Pils – holy shit – it’s like a battleship cruising the seas of taste. It fires 48, deeply bored cannons of perfect hop, blasting a hole of wondrous joy into the smoking ruins of your taste buds. Drinking this stuff is like convening with a deity whose sole purpose in the universe is to make your happy and warm your belly with perfectly executed post-beer-bloat. It is alpha, followed quickly by omega, followed quickly by alpha again as you pop off another top. This beer is good.

So, this wasn’t a really fair match up, but not much could stand up to the mastery of Prima Pils.

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Laguintas Pils (9) -VS- North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner (10)

April 10, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

(Yes, I am aware that the basketball tournament is over. The pilsners are still fighting it out anyway!)

Today, Northern California’s Laguintas Pils throws some ‘bows at its slightly northern neighbor, North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner.

The Contenders:

Laguintas Pils (9) – Laguintas brewing has been on non-literal fire since it was founded in 1993. Led by the presumably pretty quirky Tony Magee (who wanted to open the Languintas Chicago Brew Pub early so that patrons and beer lovers could watch the adjacent brewery being built in near-real-time), Languintas is now in the top 20 Craft Beer Club with a yearly distribution of about 106,000 barrels.

As anyone who has ever held a bottle of their brew knows, Laguintas likes eye-catching names, labels, and flavor text. Their pilsner, brewed in the traditional Czech style like a few of our other competitors, has this blurb on its label: “…Ales and Lagers are as different as can be. Still, we must love each for who they are, separately but equally, with liberty, and justice, for all. Cheers!”

I agree.

North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner (10) – Most beer enthusiasts only know North Coast Brewing for their incredibly well crafted (and incredibly well reviewed and tasted) Old Rasputin Imperial Stout. If you’ve never had it, if you’re not really a stout person, or an imperial person, or a dark beer person, even if you’re really into depriving yourself of good things, you should go try this beer. It’s one of those benchmark beers; once you’ve had it, your perception of the very beer universe (beerniverse?) might change.

But in the shadow of Old Rasputin, North Coast has 18 other beers in its lineup. That’s like, Sam Adams level of variety. The Scrimshaw Pilsner shows their technical expertise, it is perfectly clear, well balanced, and spiced right up with a little bit of Hallertauer and Tettnang.

The Fight:

These two middle seeds are not messing around. They might not have the per-year barrel volume to compete with some of the craft beer giants, but their skill in brewing is practiced, professional, and mouth watering.

Both pour nearly the same color, pale golden yellow, like a late-season wheat field catching the final rays of a lounging summer sun. Both produce a small head that leaves popped bubble residue hugging the top rim of the glass. If I took the bottles away, it would be nearly impossible to decide which beer was which on appearance alone.

Scrimshaw hits hard with a much stronger (and more pleasant) hop aroma, reminding me a gently hopped ale more than a pilsner. Laguintas by no means smells bad but it has a significantly more malt forward smell to it, like some of our contenders in the previous few match ups.

And then beer hits lips and angels sing and the world finds peace. Scrimshaw bites at the tongues a little bit, but is relatively simple in the depth of its flavor. Laguintas is significantly more complex (the extra malt zing works well here) and it finishes so crisp and refreshing that I find myself cracking another one before I’m even finished with the first one.

Behind the scenes, I score these beers (or should say, scored, past tense, when I drank them) based on presentation, smell, and taste. These two tied. I didn’t think I’d have a tie. I have no tie-breaker. Oops.

I did the only thing I know how to do: I left it up to Google. It’s like flipping a coin that has been silver-plated with the weight of the analytics hive-mind.

Laguintas Pils: 22700 results
North Coast Scrimshaw Pils: 2080 results

The Googles have spoken. Winner: Laguintas Pils. These are both great beers though, highly recommend either (or both!) for Spring and Summer time outdoorsy type things.

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) -VS- Brooklyn Pilsner (8)

April 5, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The first side of the Pilsner Madness bracket finishes up with the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephaner, facing off against New York’s finest, Brooklyn Brewery.

The Contenders:

Weihenstephaner Pilsner (7) – Weihenstephaner, a name I can never seem to spell correctly, has claimed to be the oldest continuously operated brewery in the whole world. With documentation regarding local Bavarian farmers paying hop-tithes (the best kind of tithes) to the Weihenstephan Abbey dating back to 768, it very possible that this is the oldest brewery still around. Weihenstephaner has a pretty extensive line-up (comparable to a lot of craft breweries in the US) including a Festbier, A Hefe-Dunkel, and even a non-alcoholic hefeweissbier!

Weihenstephaner also has a very well designed and highly navigable website that uses an animation of a beer glass being filled as its page loading indicator.

Brooklyn Pilsner (8) – My love affair with Brooklyn Brewery started with a simple pint of Pennant ’55 Ale. Since then I’ve sampled a lot of their suds, often satisfied, rarely disappointed. This brewery is 1219 years younger than Weihenstephaner, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t done some great things since it was founded in 1987. Owners Steve Hindy and Tom Potter, encouraged by their success and love of beer, wrote a memoir/how to brewing book (titled Beer School) that details their experiences with starting their own brewery and all of the business challenges therein.

Brooklyn pilsner was brewed in a style reminiscent to the light golden beer that was preferred in New York prior to the prohibition. The recipe boasts two-row barely malt and both Perle and Hallertauer hops, making this a very faithful recreation of the classic German-style pilsner.

The Fight:

The young Brooklyn pours a beautiful pale yellow with a twinge of amber, echoing the orange of its label. The old Weihenstephaner pours a perfectly clear pilsner-yellow with no off color, almost like liquid gold in a glass. Both bubble and billow into a large head as they’re poured, but retain very slight lacing that sends very subtle hop notes up your nose as you bring glass to lips.

A pretty even match.

Brooklyn’s flavor is enviable. Clean, crisp, surprisingly complex for the style of beer. Despite the overall quality, it has a very subtle carbonation burn on the tongue and the hops tend to get lost in the malty aftertaste. Weihenstephaner, somehow, is even more enviable. There is almost no acidity and the hops find a perfect harmony with the malt, making for lip-smacking refreshment. I felt it was very slightly under hopped, but that may just be an issue of personal preference. I guess nearly 1300 years is enough time to really get the recipe down.

I really enjoyed Brooklyn’s pilsner, but I have to give this one to Weihenstephaner, just because of technical brewing prowess and pedigree.

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Pilsner Urquell (3) -VS- König Pilsener (4)

March 18, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Next up in round 1 is the quintessential Pilsner Urquell verses one of the Rhineland’s best, König Pilsener.

The Contenders:

Pilsner Urquell (3) – When someone says “pilsner” most casual beer drinkers immediately think of this clear, crisp lager, the first ever mass produced pilsner in the world (according to SABMiller’s marketing people). Its origins date back to 1842. While not hoppy at all compared to an American IPA, Urquell is pretty hoppy when compared other pilsners, thanks to the generous use of Saaz noble hops. SABMiller also claims that soft water and fire-brewing (heating the brew kettle directly with flames as opposed to heated water or some other heat source) add to the unique taste of Pilsner Urquell.

König Pilsener (4) – Theodor König was a pioneer, brewing bottom-fermenting lagers well before they were popular. Brewed in altbier style, nearly as old as its competitor, Konig Pilsener has been gracing the Beeck area of Duisburg with its perfect balance and deliciously pleasant finish since 1858. König is currently represented by German producer, director, and actor, Til Schweiger (or Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz as you may know him) who often appears next to giant cans of beer of billboards throughout the country.

The Fight:

The two beers enter this match pretty evenly; both present well in-glass: straw yellow, earthy hop notes followed by a strong (if a bit sour) malty punch, airy pure white head that dissipates quickly. Each keeps pushing up and down the field, lots of complexity despite the simple formula, lots of hoppy progress both ways, but no real action. Everytime Urquell scores, König answers. This is going to be a close one, y’all.

Urquell loses the ball midfield due to a bit of over-carbonation and bite on the tongue. The turnover costs them dearly as König quickly capitalizes and finishes with practiced professionalism. Their well balanced team of flavors is just edging out the Urquell boys, who despite a great showing, can’t see to keep up with the nearly perfect grain-packed aftertaste.

And there goes the final whistle. A close, if somewhat uneventful match from these two classics. König 4. Urquell 3.

König Pilsener moves on to the quarters!

Pilsner Madness Round 1: Sam Adams Noble Pils (1) -VS- EFES (2)

March 11, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Round 1 of Pilsner Madness pits the seasonal brew turned mainstay, Sam Adams Noble Pils, versus the Turkish powerhouse, EFES.

I know that a traditional bracket works by putting the first seeded team versus the last seeded team in hopes of having a final of the first seed versus the second seed, but I never liked that idea. It seems unfair to the lower seeds. Every seed deserves the chance to grow.

To buck tradition, I’m doing a linear bracket, where 1 faces 2, 3 faces 4, and so on. The full bracket looks something like (or exactly like) this:

The Contenders:

Sam Adams Noble Pils (1) – Noble Pils started life as the Boston Beer Company’s Spring seasonal in 2010, but was promoted to a mainstay of the Sam Adams brand (meaning it is available year round) in 2012. It was replaced by the new Spring seasonal, Alpine Spring.

I’ve already reviewed this beer and it’s impressive. When properly chilled and poured, this is height of drinkability: a complex but refreshing hop bundle, crisp finish, very little bitterness, and flavor that could beat the hell out of a lot of ales. The hop-heavy bouquet is a little odd for a traditional pilsner, but the pale bohemian malt really helps balance out what might be an overwhelming aroma and taste from all five noble hot varieties.

EFES (2) – EFES Pilsener is the flagship of the EFES beer brand, the number one beer in Turkey, and the main sponsor of the Turkish basketball team, Anadolu Efes S.K.

I’d never had this beer until I started my search for a bunch of different pilsners. The name and simple label caught my eye initially, and its popularity in Eurasia made it seem like a worthy beer to add to the list. Similar to some large production American beers, EFES adds rice during the brewing process which is claimed to give it a “unique” flavor.

The Fight:

Noble Pils starts this match out strong, pouring a deep golden color with a fresh, pleasing aroma on top of a thick white head. EFES comes out onto the field weak and confused, like it wasn’t ready to play today. The grass and cereal aroma dissipates into the March air as quickly as the small white head, barely lasting long enough for photographers to get any action shots.

Sam Adams strikes first: hops pass the flavor onto malts who come running up from the back field to score crucial flavor points. EFES tries to counter, but just kind of sits there smelling like corn. Sam Adams scores again as EFES tries to build an attack with a taste that is oddly reminiscent of chewing on the wrapper of a day-old bran muffin.

This game is painful to watch. Noble Pils keeps rocking the goal posts and the EFES defense and keeper aren’t even looking in the right direction. This sort of match up makes you wish there was a mercy rule in beer-sports.

And that’s the game folks: Sam Adams Noble Pils – 45, EFES – 0. This is proof that a large number of sales in Turkey doesn’t necessarily mean quality.

Sam Adams Noble Pils moves on to the quarters!

Pilsner Madness!

March 8, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

I am the worst basketball player in the United States of America.

I can’t do a lay-up. I have mastered the air-ball. I am incapable of dribbling with any sort of rhythm.

As a result, I never partake of any March Madness madness. When coworkers ask me to participate in the pool or fantasy league or just fill out a bracket for fun, I stand awkwardly in my cubicle, not entirely sure basketball is a safe thing for me to be around.

I like to stick to what I know: words, games, beer.

If you can’t beat ‘um, join ‘um. Or reinvent the whole thing so that it fits your specific interests and fields of expertise.

Literature and Libation presents an Oliver Gray production of: Pilsner Madness!

Through painstaking field work, sampling, and research, I have located and consumed 16 different Pilsner style lagers and pitted them against each other in a fierce battle for crisp, refreshing supremacy.

I only chose Pilsners because I had recently brewed one. I specifically tried to find beers labeled as “pilsner” or “pils” or “pilsener” and avoided any other pale or golden lager. The name, for anyone interested, comes from city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic where the style was first brewed in 1842.

Finding 16 Pilsners out of season was not an easy task. It took tens of minutes to scour the shelves of local beer stores to find what I needed. That’s commitment.

Without further ado, here are your contenders. They are seeded by the size of the brewery’s distribution (in barrels, converted from hectoliters for international brands):

Sam Adams Noble Pils
EFES
Pilsner Urquell
KonigPilsner
Jever Pilsner
Red Hook Pilsner
Weihenstephaner Pilsner
Brooklyn Pilsner
Laguintas Pils
North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner
Victory Prima Pils
Gordon Biersch Czech Pilsner
Southern Tier EuroTrash Pilz
Great Divide Nomad Pilsner
Heavy Seas Small Craft Warning Uber Pils
Gunpowder Falls Pilsner

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting dueling reviews of these beers, in a bracketed, single elimination style tournament. I’m using my wildly subjective opinion of each beer to determine the winners, so don’t be offended if your favorite gets knocked out in the early rounds.

16 beers go in, only 1 beer comes out.