Kolsch

Janet | Sept. 7, 2021, 3:23 p.m.

As all beer snobs know, pilsners take a week or so to brew and ferment, making a long production cycle ideal for making beer.

I know what you're thinking: beer brewing takes too long to make a long wort, so does anything beer related really take that long? If you're wondering about anything in this post, you can find the answer here.

The grain bill for this beer is entirely conventional. A little bit of wheat malt (70%) and a little bit of barley malt (30%) added in for stability, followed by a large quantity of wort from the previous batch of Pilsner I made. The Pilsner yeast – S-04 – is a German strain that was developed out of commercial American hops. Though I can't guarantee the results, I'm expecting these to be quite hoppy.

These pilsners will be pouring at the San Diego Craft Brewers Guild Tap Takeover, taking place April 6th. You can register to attend here.

These are my newest two pale ales. A porter and a Kolsch. These days I only do porters. But in the early days of brewing, pilsners were my go-to beer. A couple hundred years ago, the "pilsner" style, as so many of the styles of beer we now drink grew up out of, was made by fermenting a lot of grains, hops, and water with a large amount of grain along  with a mash just under 170ºF, followed by a long boil. It was then filtered and hopped. In many cases a kettle of hops would be added to that mash and left to open to let flavors from the hops and grains marinate in the mash. I don't see that happening anymore in this day and age, but I will admit that doing a short long boil with just fresh hops has proven to be an incredibly delicious way to show off hop qualities.

This porter uses both roasted coffee and a few cloves for that "bit of chocolate." It's a rather straightforward roast, but because the specialty (aka decoction) method is still common in porter brewing, it produces a very complex toffee-like character.

This Kolsch is a fairly simple style, but one that I find is very open to experimentation.

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