Pilsner is the New Pale

For the first three decades of the craft beer era, pale ales were the undisputed king. Unless the brewery in question made lagers or somesuch, they invariably had a pale ale on hand. It captured the interest of the broadest number of drinkers, was pub-strength*, and mid-intensity. When you looked around at other classic pub beers—the German helles, the Czech pilsner, the English bitter—it lined up nicely on these dimensions. The ascent of IPA has dealt pale ales a mighty blow, however. For a time they completely vanished, and their revival has been fitful. They’re a bit too close to IPAs and now suffer for the things that once made them popular—they don’t deliver the same flavor impact, and they’re a bit weak for the $7 they cost.

All of which leads to a theory I’ve been developing: pilsners are the new pale ale, at least in Portland where I do my drinking. This impression developed organically; both styles are near the top of my interest level, so they catch my eye when I’m perusing beer menus. Over the last, let’s say three years, it seems like I see a lot more pilsners out there than pale ales. It made some sense, too. If a person wanted a session beer, something that was wholly outside the IPA spectrum makes sense. If you aren’t in the mood for an IPA, a lager is a distinct alternative. (The waters here muddy with the increasing popularity of West Coast and American pilsners, but we’re going to pretend that’s not a complicating factor.)

However, rather than merely assert this, fact-free, I thought I would do a little research and offer some data. I looked up ten Portland-area brewery pubs that were likely to have either a pale or a pilsner on as a rotating beer. I tried to avoid breweries with a flagship pale or pilsner so I didn’t stack the deck, and of course I skipped breweries specializing in lagers. So, what did I find?

Below are the breweries and their current taplists—or currentish, based on what they have posted online:

- 10 Barrel: one pale, two pilsners
- Assembly: two pales, no pilsners
- Away Days: two pilsners, no pale
- Culmination: one each
- Hopworks: one each
- Lazy Days: one each
- Migration: one each
- Old Town: one pale, two pilsners
- Second Profession: one pale, no pilsner
- Steeplejack: three each (!)

So, the final tally is: 12 pales and 13 pilsners. Only one brewery lacked a pale, while two offered no pilsners. Let’s one hand/other hand these findings. Pilsners did edge pales out. Circa 2010 that would have been unthinkable. Yet the sample may have been skewed because I had to eliminate a number of breweries that feature a pilsner as part of the core lineup, and that’s rare for pales. Lots of Portland breweries offer regular pilsners. Still, in the open marketplace, where breweries had slots for any styles they chose, they brewed a lot of pale ales.

I feel compelled to adjust my thesis a bit (but not the title, because it’s a right-proper grabber). Pilsners have really become standard, at least in pubs in Portland. However, the corollary is that the (or my) reports of pale ales’ extinction appear to be in error. IPAs are of course legion on these same taplists, and lagers now have quite a presence. A few other styles appear with regularity, and kölsch in particular jumped out—though I doubt any other single style would have been pouring at more than six or seven of these places. Pale ales appearing on 90% of them is an eye-opener to me.

Pale ale is dead; long live pale ale!

You may play this game at home and report your own findings. I’d be curious to hear how this dynamic works elsewhere.

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*British readers are always aghast to learn that Americans consider a 5.2% pale ale a session beer. Five percent is the standard for full-strength light lager, like Budweiser, however, which has been bog standard normal over here for a century. Beer is culture, and here that means boozier pints.