Getting to know your ingredients - Water (part one)

In Western Czech Republic, proudly sits Pilsen, the birth place of the worlds most consumed beer, Pilsner.

Beer had been produced in the Bohemian City for hundreds of years before Pilsner but was inferior in quality to those made in Germany to the west. So much so that many of the beers in the city were imported from Nuremburg and Bavaria. It came to a head in 1836 when the brewers got together and chucked away barrels and barrels of this swill. It was potentially dangerous to drink, and it just wasn't good enough, something had to change.

Josef Groll

At around this time, the world was coming to terms with yeast. It wasn't yet fully understood, but they knew what yeast did, even if they didn't know why or what it was exactly. The poor quality ales of the time are thought to derive from poor fermentation techniques due to a lack of knowledge of the process. 

So in comes the “Gordon Ramsey” of 1830’s European brewing; a young Bavarian named Josef Groll who was appointed to facilitate an increase in quality and consistency.

At his disposal, Mr Groll had some Bavarian yeast (reportedly smuggled out of the region by a monk), a good supply of Saaz hops, some suitable caverns for lagering and some very soft water from a local well. The hops will have been familiar to the brewer, being part of the Noble Hop family used widely in Bavaria and the rest of the process will have needed his experience and ingenuity to turn around the fortunes of the brewing fraternity of Pilsen.

Work began immediately, and within a few years the raw ingredients were transformed into a pale, clear, crisp, spicy, refreshing beer of the likes that had never been enjoyed before. Shortly afterwards, imports slowed and for the first time, the Country had a booming export beer market. The original Pils, Pilsner Urquell was no doubt a fixture in bars of the time and is still regarded as one of the finest Pilsners in the world today. The style became the subject of many imitations, from as far out as the USA, but even using the same malt, hops, yeast and process, brewed elsewhere, you would struggle to achieve such excellent results. This perhaps is due to the most subtle ingredient of this beer being the most important - Water.

Pilsen water is soft, low in alkalinity and other ions important brewing beer. A perfect balance of water and grist creates an ideal pH during the mash which gives such a fantastic balance found in beers such as Pilsner Urquell. Conversely, the hard, high alkaline water of Dublin lends itself perfectly for the dark, roasted, acidic malts used in Guinness. If you brewed Stout with Pilsen water and a Pilsner with water from Dublin, without any alterations, it's safe to say you wouldn't have great beers. These are two of the extreme examples however, and the majority of us probably will have a water profile somewhere in the middle, perhaps leaning one way or the other. 

In part two of this post, I will look at my own water, in an attempt to determine what style of beer it would be most suited to, and how I can alter my water profile to suit a different style. It is more technical than my other posts, but I urge you to stay with it, if you are a new comer to brewing or a seasoned beer maker that hasn't got around to looking into water, I'm confident it can help clear a few things up. 

Firstly, I need to find out what the make-up of my water is. To do this, I will consult my water report and use a Salifert Alkalinity test kit. I want to find out the levels of following;

Alkalinity, Calcium, Magnesium, Sulphate, Chloride and Sodium. 

With this information, I can consult the water calculator found here, to tell me what I'm working with and it's relevance.

Please read my next post; Getting to know you ingredients – Water (part two) to find out more.