Re-imagining a Classic
With the eventual triumph of pilsner as the central international style, we often overlook Vienna lager. Yet in the middle decades of the 19th century, it was really popular. Given the location of the original, the one Anton Dreher brewed in a Viennese suburb, it had a built-in advantage over its rural competitor. Vienna lager’s place in history became diminished, oddly enough, because by the time of the First World War, Austrians had lost their taste for it. The style lived a strange existence in North America thereafter, a golden-to-amber beer made more in the German-American tradition than the Austro-Bohemian one—and often with none of the original ingredients.
Popular it was, though. Vienna lager migrated all the way to Scotland by the 1870s, thirty years after Dreher edged out Groll by a year in the pale-lager sweepstakes. After a triumphant reception in the Paris Exhibition in 1867, Europeans were rhapsodizing about it in the highest superlatives. Ron Pattinson found my favorite passage, from a Brit who reported on the famous local pint. “When poured into a glass fresh from a cask just brought up from the ice-cellar, it glows like fluid amber, and is crowned with a delicate heading of bubbles.”
For years I’ve wanted to transport myself back to those times and see what the original tasted like. Vienna lager isn’t a footnote in the annals of minor styles that had a moment and died off, usually because they were weird in some key ways, but rather a beer that sparked a revolution in brewing. It must have been a tremendous beer.
When pFriem and I collaborated on a beer this year as a part of our partnership, I had hoped we’d be able to evoke the majesty of Dreher’s original. Recreating a lost style immediately poses a challenge, though. How do you capture the spirit of a beer made with (1) substantially different barleys and hops, (2) improved malting techniques, and (3) much better equipment and technical controls? Dreher (probably) made his beer from Hana barley, still available but likely not identical. He used Saaz hops, also still available, but again, ours are distant descendants and certainly not identical. Dreher adopted and sometimes developed the most modern, state-of-the-art facilities, but he did so forty years before refrigeration was used in brewing. Steam power was brand-new. It’s not possible to recreate his beer identically.
And here’s a more subtle issue: we’ve changed, too. Our preferences have evolved with the technology. So many of those old beer styles were massively underattenuated by modern standards; many were infected by wild yeasts and bacteria. Every time I have a Burton made in the “glutinous” and “adhesive” style of the early examples, I mutter, “there’s a reason we don’t make these anymore.” As a philosophical matter, a brewer has to ask whether they would like to make an exact copy of a 19th century beer, or an evocation of that beer updated for our own evolution.
With Vienna lager, the question’s not quite so pointed. Pale lagers represented the moment of inflection, when beers first became what we might recognize as “modern.” Part of that was the shift from ales to lagers, but part of it was a shift from very sweet, heavy brown lagers to sparkling, crisp pale ones.
pFriem’s Wiener lager (the name the Viennese use) does a wonderful job of splitting the difference. We tried to create a beer that would impress as much as Dreher’s did, with a similar character and flavor profile, but which would also have a contemporary profile—if an unusual one—modern drinkers would appreciate. pFriem did that by using a healthy dose of Vienna (60%), along with a pilsner malt made from Hana, that 19th century barley Dreher might have used. They did a single decoction to build body and color, rather than the three Dreher would have needed to fully convert his malt. And they used an interesting variety of Saaz—one grown in Germany.
I’ll get to the beer, which is available at the brewery now, but a comment on the pFriem process. It started with emails back and forth to select a style. Then I prepared a fairly extensive background on Dreher’s beer and sent it over to the brewery. Finally, a fairly large team from the brewery (including several brewers) met with me on Zoom and we spent over an hour discussing how to make the decisions I just described. New Head Brewer Campbell Morrissy is doing a Ph.D. on malt, and knew of Hana immediately. It led to a fascinating discussion of flavor profiles then and now. After our meeting, Josh and the brewers set about creating the actual formulation and they brewed it on October 1st. The process wasn’t slapdash, and a lot of thought went into all these difficult questions.
I got to taste the fruit of this labor a couple weeks back when pFriem tapped it for the first time at the brewery. As a special treat, they ordered Czech-style dimple mugs and put a portion of the beer on a gravity keg—similar to the ones Dreher used himself. I am obviously not a reliable source about how good the beer is. Although I had nothing to do with brewing it (except the obligatory act of dumping in one bucket of hops), I still feel a sense of ownership. That said, I absolutely loved it.
I feared it would taste too familiar, like a slightly offbeat pilsner. And of course, it’s a pale lager, so it wasn’t a radical departure. After all that work, I was pleased to discover it wasn’t samey at all—it was quite distinctive. The team hopped it stiffly, with 36 BUs of torque. That’s the note that hits you first, but even there it’s unusual. Those German Saaz have a slightly different character. They’re more lemony and brighter than Czech Saaz, which I think of as tangy. Josh selected German Saaz for their quality, but it had the added benefit of tasting different. One could easily imagine a similar profile in a 1841 Bohemian-grown hop.
The beer is pale—probably too pale by historical standards. Even Josh was a bit surprised. Yet the malt flavors deliver. They don’t taste anything like the grainy Weyermann pils found in so many lagers. Rather, they offer a sweet, light treacle/honey flavor that perfectly harmonizes with the lemon in the hops. On cask, the malts emerge from underneath the hops and bubbles and present as more fresh baguette. In either form, they offer an unusual flavor.
The cask version was a fascinating presentation and quite a bit different from the Czech-style side tap they were using as a contrast. It illustrates how much those flavors and textures are dynamic rather than fixed. My guess is that most people would like the modern pour, but the cask helped evoke a smoky 19th century pub Dreher would have supplied. It was fuller, a bit more rustic, and easier to swallow in great, thirsty gulps.
I hope you have a chance to try the beer. I heard a rumor it was pouring at Loyal Legion in Portland, and I expect it will make it to select accounts in the Rose City. Folks at the brewery seemed to really enjoy it, and at least in the buoyant moment of its release, Josh was excited to make it again. You can help make that happen by buying it and sending the brewery your feedback. Special thanks to pFriem for your willingness to join me on this adventure. I couldn’t be happier!