Beer Style: German and Czech Pilsners
Includes both Czech and German-style Pilsner recipes
Gordon Strong’s German Pilsner
This German Pilsner recipe can be used as a template for any hoppy Pilsner. Replace bittering hops with a first wort hop addition of a flavor hop, move flavor and aroma hops to the whirlpool or dry hopping, and alter the variety of hops to match the target profile for the style.
Pilsners of the World
The Pilsner beer style began in the Czech city of Pilsen, but has been adopted and adjusted to consumer tastes worldwide since its origin. Get to know the modern Pilsners of the world, what makes them different, and how you can make each at home.
Victory Brewing Co.’s PrimaPils clone
Victory Brewing Co.’s award-winning, amped up German Pilsner with fresh noble hop aroma, bracing hop dryness, gentle malt character, and ultra clean fermentation.
Strike Brewing Co.’s Beat the Heat clone
Beat the Heat is an ode to the fastball — or at least an ode to a faster lager fermentation. Primary fermentation is started near ale temperatures and with yeast pitch rates that allow for a faster start, less yeast biomass requirements, and slight fruity esters that are produced in the first 24 hours.
Bierstadt Lagerhaus’ Slow Pour Pils clone
Slow Pour Pils is aptly named due to the 5-min duration that a proper, multi-step pour of it demands. What you’ll be rewarded with is a strikingly clear, straw-colored beer served in Bierstadt’s trademarked tall, narrow glass. Search as hard as you’d like, you won’t find a fault. Instead, the high-quality German Pils malt and hops, specifically Hallertau Mittelfrüh, shine brightly. Dry biscuit, crackery malt, and hints of honey more than support the white pepper and floral hops. It’s decidedly bitter with a dry, crisp finish that encourages the drinker to immediately take another sip.
German Pils
This beer is hearty but very drinkable. It is hop-spicy upfront, with a solid mouthfeel and a crisp finish. Many German breweries nowadays make a Pils with much less hop character and a lower gravity than specified here, but this recipe is closer to the original guidelines for making this beer as it might have been brewed in the 19th century.
German Pilsner By Brian Bergquist
BOS-winning homebrew recipe, brewed by Brian Bergquist. Winner of the 10th Annual Virginia Beer Blitz (Hampton, Virginia: 383 entries)
New Zealand Pilsner
This pale lager combines some of the better attributes of Pilsner and Kölsch with intriguing modern New Zealand hops.
Pilsner Geben Frei
A gluten-free Pilsner-styled beer that is brewed wtih Saaz hops to provide the crucial spicy aroma and character to this beer.
Bohemian Pilsner
The pale, bitter, hoppy lager known best to American homebrewers as Bohemian Pilsner and typified by the classic example Pilsner Urquell is also called Czech Pilsner, Czech Premium Pale Lager, Svetly Lezak,
Bohemian Pilsner (Michael Agnew)
Michael won Gold in 2010 in the National Homebrew Competition (NHC) with this recipe.
Bohemian Pilsner (James Golovich)
James won Best of Show at the 2008 Grant County Fair with this recipe.
