The Increase of Crappy Beer in America

           

The tidal wave of craft beers that has flooded the beer market in the United States has been a blessing to beer drinkers in America. The end of the domination of Miller and Anheuser-Busch, for most beer drinking Americans has enhanced the overall standard of beer in America. Today, the amount of styles of beers that American beer drinkers have access to when at their local grocery store can be overwhelming. IPA’s, pale ales, hefenweizens, stouts, porters, lagers, lambics, saisons, bock, and much more, including variations of all these beers. Not to mention massive number of new breweries popping up all the time have saturated the beer market.             

            The overwhelming access to this huge selections of beer style and the rapid increase of breweries that make them has caused Americans to neglect some of the most important and best beers ever brewed.  American beer was built on a perfect, smooth, light tasting stylte of lager also known as pilsner. Rarely can you find a Craft brewery that brews pilsner. 

             There may be two major reasons for the neglecting of this perfectly balanced beer. Pilsner yeast must be fermented at a lower temperature (55° F, as opposed to lager yeast which ferments at 68° F according to White Labs Yeast).  It also must be fermented longer. This requires large spaces for refrigeration systems to ferment pilsners. Smaller, less funded breweries may not have the funding, space, or equipment to ferment a pilsner.

            Pilsners were first brewed in the Pilzen, a city in the Eastern region of the Czech Republic near the German border.  It was originally fermented in the cellars of the monastery that holds a steady temperature of about 55°.  Today you can visit these cellars and they still hold a cold temperature, although the breweries have moved across town.           

            The original Miller, Budweiser, Pabst, Schlitz were all modeled after the Czech and German pilsners, and this is the other reason that Americans have shunned pilsners. The stigma of the large-batch nation-wide brewery in the current generation has been very negative (except for the re-emergence of Pabst, hipsters love that horrible, horrible beer).  This encourages craft breweries to try new things, which may or may not be a good idea.  Sure a pumpkin beer around thanksgiving could be interesting, but some breweries take it too far.

            Original German or Czech Pilsner is brewed following the German purity law which only allows the use of grain, hops, water, and yeast. It is the perfect combinations these that make pilsner the perfect beer.  If done correctly, it is a perfect balance of flavors; hoppy bitterness and acidity, fruity, and malty all at the same time.  Some American breweries have attempted their own pilsners, most notably Mama Lil Yella Pils by Oscar Blues in Boulder, Colorado and Scrimshaw Pilsner by North Coast Brewing Company. Both of these breweries make good attempts but do not have the true pilsner flavor.  Trumer is the one brewery that stands out among breweries in America in terms of making a perfect pilsner.
 The aspect that makes Trumer that stands out among other is that they only brew pilsner. Trumer is originally an Austrian pilsner (which is still brewed in Austria), that has been transplanted from Austria and is now brewed in the San Francisco bay area.  They have taken a long time successful import and simply moved its brewing and recipe to the United States. 
Craft Breweries get too carried away with the amount of IBU's, malts, different types of hops, and varieties of yeast.  There needs to be a new beer movement toward quality and not originality.  To many breweries try to hard to be different and original, when all they need to do is simply brew beer that is enjoyable to drink. If more craft breweries began brewing pilsners, the American beer industry may regain its standard of quality, drinkable beer.



Here is an great article on the American Craft Beer Industry:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/12/craft-beer-expensive-cost_n_5670015.html