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The first time someone told me that pilsners are hard to make well I was surprised. I replied that I assumed sours were the hard beers to make well, which got a literal guffaw. “You can hide a shitload of mistakes in a sour. Ain’t nothin’ hiding in a pilsner. You fuck up, everybody knows it.”

And here we are. I’ve gotten overly confident because of my impressive Schwarzbier showing. The more of them I drink and share with others, the more I feel ready for the big leagues. So in my blind confidence I decided to go big. Do the pilsner.

My brew day went off without a hitch. A local brewery gave me some awesome hallertau blanc hops that they picked out themselves in Germany. But, I’m sure you can tell from the picture at the top of this...no pilsner you’ve ever seen looks like this one. I’d love to tell you that’s because I’ve perfected the style in a way nobody before me has, but that’s not true. My first attempt at a pilsner did not go great.

Here is my recipe

And here are my notes from creating the beer.

Here is an explanation of how I believe I got to this place of having a red pilsner. It’s a series of mistakes that built on themselves, so bare with me. During my brew day I under sparged (I believe I was over correcting for the over sparging that happened during the schwarzbier brew day) and as a result my wort gravity was a little higher than I wanted. Not significantly higher -- but higher. Fermentation went well, but I started my diacetyl rest a little late and when you combine that fact with my high OG, welp you’ve got yourself a boozy ass pilsner.

Anyway, that’s still not the end. I decided that I could smooth out the booze with an extra long lagering period...and here’s where things really go off the rails. The grainfather has been great, but July in Atlanta, GA is not a great climate for lagering beers. For weeks and weeks and weeks I had difficulties keeping the temperature low enough for lagering and in doing so was pumping 15 degree glycol that slowly rose to 35 degrees before being chilled again...constantly. I think that the temp changes caused so much expansion and contraction that oxygen slowly leaked into the plug at the top of the fermenter and walla...red….bad pilsner.

What was notable about this brew session?
* Initial wort tasted amazing.
* Got some super fresh and high quality hops from a local brewery.
* Did my diacetyl rest too late.
* Tried to lager in 95 degree heat.

What pleasantly surprised me?
* Sampling the beer throughout fermentation and noticing the changes in depth and flavor was extremely interesting.

Why can’t I officially call this my first good batch of beer?
* It’s oxidized as fuck and tastes like rubbing alcohol.

I learned a lot. I don’t think I’m going to attempt another lager until the weather gets cooler. Next up is a California Common.