Episode 60 - Pilsner With Tom Acitelli

Colter Wilson: For anyone that’s been listening to this podcast for a while. Do you know that I’m trying really hard to nail the pseudo-Pilsner? Now not being a true to style Pilsner. I am still trying to get a beer. That rep is a good representation of what a Pilsner should be. So today I invited Tom Ellie to the show and he wrote the book on Pilsner. And we’re going to talk to them about it today on homebrewing DIY

And welcome back to home brewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of homebrewing, gadgets, contraptions, and parts. This show covers it all on this week. Show. We’re going to talk to Tom Telly about his new book Pilsner. We’re going to do a deep dive into the history of Pilsner. And we’re going to talk about how he researched and learned about this great beer style.

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Let’s hop into this week show and let’s talk to. Tom and we’re going to talk to him about the wonderful world of pilsner .

I’d like to welcome Tom. the homebrewing DIY. Hi Tom. How are you?

Tom Acitelli: Hi. I’m good. Thank you very much for having me.

Colter Wilson: well, Tom is a author of a new book called Pilsner, and I have to say pilsners probably if we were to say a style of beer or at least a style that people have tried to mimic probably the most popular style of beer in the world. And. Tom has made an attempt to a very good attempted it, it writing a book about the history and the style.

And I, and as anyone who listens to the show knows, I love the history of beer styles and talking about beer styles in general. So, Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about your book.

Tom Acitelli: No problem. Thank you.

Colter Wilson: So let, let’s start a bit with what made you decide to want to write a book about Pilsner?

Tom Acitelli: Well, my, my first foray into. Book writing about beer was the audacity of hops, the history of America’s craft beer revolution. And that came out in 2013 and it was the first history of craft beer in the United States. And I started that book’s timeline in the early 1960s in the San Francisco Bay area.

With the rescue of the anchor brewing company back then. And that’s how we kind of everything’s unschooled from there. As far as craft beer goes, and we allow, I’m sure your listeners know very well, the ubiquity and influence of craft beer. And I thought, well, I updated the audacity of hops again, about four years later in 2017.

Then I thought, what about a prequel? And how would I do a pre-qual would I do a history of beer to the early 1960s? And that, that didn’t seem, that seems like an enormous undertaking and not something for a single volume. So I chose the most popular beer style, which to this day is Pilsner and so much craft beer.

And what we understand as craft beer or micro brewing is a reaction to that popularity. Um, people by the 1960s, homebrewers in particular. In the United States, we’re tired of pilsners and pills or iterations and pills or bastardization and all these kinds of watery, yellow beers. And they wanted to resurrect the styles.

Some of which were almost obsolete. And that’s where we get craft beer. So basically, yes, I decided to write Pilsner because I wanted a prequel to the audacity of hopper.

Colter Wilson: And when we were talking at the beginning of, you know, setting up this call, you, you were very clear. You were like, “Hey, I’m not much of a homebrewer, but you have Homebrew before. Why don’t you tell me a bit about it? You know what your experience like w w what it was like when you did do some home brewing.”

Tom Acitelli: Well, I got really into craft beer with the audacity of hops. Like I was kind of a, you know, gadfly when it came to beer. I really liked Budweiser for a long time and I am old enough to have collected bud points. And I don’t know some of your listeners might be old enough too, but then I got into, you know, I just wanted better tasting beer.

I was living in New York City and I drank a lot of, you know, Sears, Brooklyn lager, Sierra Nevada was very popular, Sam Adams, of course. Some of the, you know, the bigger craft brands. But then I got the idea for audacity of hops and started doing the research there and I realized the influence and the role that homebrewers.

Had played and they really did. It was very much an underground movement as I’m sure. Do you know? And so I did a few forays into home brewing in our Brooklyn apartment and by and large, they were disasters, but I really got into it. And I got into the homebrewing culture as well. Um, yeah, I had a couple of really good batches, to be honest.

And I was very proud of that because back then, even in New York City, it was difficult to find the right supplies. , and to get the right know-how and proportionality, especially if you don’t have sort of a scientific bent or background. , but most of, most of my attempts at home brewer pretty bad.

I made a logger once was the only time I tried to make a lager and, you know, home brewing one Oh one is like, they have to be fermented at a lower temperature. And I knew that and I get to the end and I had to just clear out my fridge and I, it was known this frantic attempt to keep it cool and, it didn’t work.

I think the yeast died after a couple of days, but anyway,

Colter Wilson: Well, you know, any good homebrewer has lots of stories like that. I think that that’s part of the learning curve is you have to make, you have to make mistakes and you have to, and you have to learn from those mistakes to make better beer.

Tom Acitelli: It’s interesting. You say that color. I mean, there’s some, I mean, I’ve, I interviewed a lot of figures in the early craft beer movement and they said the same thing and they all have their stories about, I mean, people like Ken Grossmans here in Nevada, uh, Steve Hindi at Brooklyn brewing, you know, they have their own stories about how they started as home brewers and screwed up so much.

But it taught them about the brewing process and they were able to take that into, you know, PR professional basically on that, on that sort of trial and error knowledge. So, yeah.

Colter Wilson: well, to me, that’s kind of the cool thing about. Brewing beer in general. When you think about the fact that it really is trial and error, and if you go back all the way back into history, which we’re probably about to do. We’re going to talk about how people discovered different tricks to making different styles of beer, but that was done through trial and error.

It wasn’t there, there was no scientist sitting there going, Hey, this is going to be the best way to ferment this because no, it was done because somebody did something, it tasted good. They tried to repeat it and they continued to do it over and over again until it was consistent. And so let’s, let’s dive back a bit because.

I I’d love to hear about how Pilsner started as a style.

Tom Acitelli: sure. , it’s it sort of gets to what you were just saying. , essentially you have these, these aristocrats or these town elders in a, in a, in a city that’s now in, , the Western Czech Republic. And back then was part of the Austrian empire and it’s called Pilsen and the burgers or the aristocrats who had the right to brew beer and to sell beer in Pilsen. We’re starting to look over their shoulder at these Bavarian imports right over the border. And what was then an independent Bavaria now as part of Southern Germany. And these were very embarrassed, were, you know, crisper and cleaner and better tasting and more in demand. So the burgers of pills and we’re losing business, basically.

So in a bit to sort of mimic these Bavarian beers in the late 1830s, Very early 1840s. They hire a Bavarian brewmaster named Yoseph Grohl. They who imports Bavarian techniques of Bavaria know-how. And in many cases were very ingredients and he sets about trying to basically replicate the Bavarian loggers that are so popular in Pilsen.

And it’s not entirely clear what happened or how it happened. But due to the local ingredients, the water rolls own quirks. He was apparently a very cervic kind of rude, mad genius type, the beer that he produced. And that was first released publicly in November of 1842. Is this golden colored, super crisp, super effervescent.

, lager that was named after the city. So become pills, becomes Pilsner and it’s the color in particular is what shocks people and what sort of set it on its way to this sort of cultural and business hedge money is because nobody had seen beer that. Light before they’re there where the head is it’s it’s inaccurate.

You see this a lot that it was the first light-colored beer or, or, you know, golden-hued beer. That’s not the case. There were parallels, there were lighter colored lagers, but nothing was quite as bright as Pilsner. You know, they grow, hit it and then he hit it again and again and again, and was able to replicate it.

And within a few years, it’s very popular in the Austrian empire a few years after that, it’s very popular in Europe and the big change comes. Of course, when there is a wave of German immigration to the United States in the 1850s. They take Pilsner to the US long story, very long and interesting story short, the German American brewers export.

It’s the rest of the world. And we’re still living in that world. So,

Colter Wilson: it’s one of those things that when we talk about beer history, obviously beer history goes. Thousands of years back. But when we talk about the style of Pilsner, we’re only talking the last couple hundred years, maybe a hundred and fitness, probably about 170 years. Yeah. And when we look at that style specifically, there are certain aspects of, of the style that really stand out to me.

First of all, is the quality of the water of a Pilsner. It’s very, very soft. It’s light you there. There’s almost no. Salts in it in any way and that is a really difficult thing. I’m in Denver, Colorado. , I used to live in Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City was even worse to try to mimic a really soft water profile when making a, like a Czech style Pilsner or an Austrian style Pilsner.

Right. And so for me, what was it that, that w. When they were trying to export it to the United States. W was it the water that they were first trying to mimic? Was it the light color? They were first trying to mimic. What, what, in those early iterations, what, what do you think they were trying to mimic essentially from a Pilsner?

Tom Acitelli: I think, well, I think the, the color had to be what. What it was in Europe. I mean, that, that was the main selling point because Pilzer came along at a time too, when there was mass production flash for the first time. And it looked fantastic that this particular style looked fantastic in a glass. It looked very modern, it looks very clean and clear, and it also looked good and bottles and know there’s sort of mass bottling at this time, too.

, but so I think the color number one was the thing that had to just, the brewers had to nail it. , The other thing was, you know, the, the type of bar, at least in the United States, , there was, , a dearth, you know, sort of lack of supply of two row barley. , and so to make up for that in the U S they had, they had access to six row barley, but that could kind of get gummy.

It was hard to, you know, it could get clumpy in the brewing process. So to break that down, they would use what we call now, adjuncts like rice and corn. And so to, to get that sort of smoother, clearer consistency, but I think it all came back to. Mimicking the color. It couldn’t do that sort. The definitional thing from Pilzer from the beginning and it’s still is, and it’s still a difficult thing to do at a homebrewing level.

And, , you know, a lot of smaller brewers, professional brewers are sort of trepidatious about undertaking it because I I’ve, I’ve heard of, I forget who said it it’s in the book, but you know, among brewers, Pilsner is often described as naked beer. Because there’s no room for any detritus or mistakes kind of hide, you know, when I made ales and I made, like I said earlier, when I home-brewed ales and I made them terribly, I could at least cover up some of it with a lot of hops and a lot of bitterness.

So you can’t necessarily do that with a Pilsner.

Colter Wilson: , I think that the Pilsner is a style of beer that, like you said, it’s naked. You, you, you can’t make any mistakes, any flaws that you make are going to come out of it immediately. And whenever anybody says to me, what do you think of American light lager? We’ll use that as an example. I always say, Hey.

It is probably the least flavorful beer you’re going to make, but it’s probably one of the hardest beers to make out there is. As far as the process goes, you’re, we’re talking temp, temperature control. That is on a level that. You could barely do it, a home scale all the way through the entire process, the amount of ingredients and the entire process is completely repeatable and done over and over again at a massive scale.

And when we look at it, that American light lager style, yes, it is probably still the most popular style of beer in the world and probably the most flavorless book style of beer. But on the other hand of it is, it is. I have never been able to make a good American light lager. And I’ve made a few attempts and it is a very difficult beer to me.

Tom Acitelli: And I think once, once brewers, especially the 19th century were able to seize on it. When they had the recipe down there, the techniques down and they had the equipment down, it really was off to the races as far as scaling up. Because the guys who could nail it, it was, it was fast becoming the most popular beer style in the U S and then the rest of the world.

If you could nail it, if you were, if you were an Anheuser Busch, a paps, a Heineken and lady, you know, Miller Schlitz, Strose you, you, you were set, you know what? One of the salient features of Pilsner’s rise is how it didn’t just rise. It didn’t just become popular. It. Became pie because it was, you know, it looked good in a glass.

It tasted great! And it could be re reproduced and shipped further and farther. It also succeeded and also Rose because it just swept aside all these other styles, you know, as, as your listeners know, I mean, you know, there are hundreds, there are potentially dozens, some would say hundreds of beer styles out there and they were all distinct and they were all competing for the same market share.

And sheriff wrote in the late 19th century, early 20th. But they couldn’t compete with this, the popularity of this particular style. And so you have IPA and Porter, et cetera, et cetera, start to disappear for decades.

they’re only brought back by homebrewers basically.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And one of the crazy parts that when you think about it, think of like the 1950 sixties and seventies in the United States. If you said I want a beer, the only beer that people thought about was the pale yellow lager, right there w there was no, there was no other style of beer. And only in the late eighties and early nineties, do you start to see that change?

And like you said, with the, the Boston Bruins of the world, the Sierra Nevada is of the world here in Colorado. Wine coopering was, was the late eighties one that’s now hopefully going to be our new Senator Hickenlooper. Cause he opened that. And you, you kind of think about those styles and how they changed and went back and people started to.

B because beer came a monolith, right? It became a, it was, this was this one style though, as I have progressed as a brewer, when we look at the classes, examples of Pilsner and the European examples of pilsners, they, they are a lot different than that American light lager. And if you were to compare the two, so take an American light lager, and we know that it has.

Heavily adjunct in it. It’s, it’s got some hops, but it’s not a lot. And it lacks a lot of flavor. That’s that’s that is in contrast to Pilsner from Europe. Right.

Tom Acitelli: Yes. Yes. And I would also say the pillars that are coming into Vogue now, uh, mrs. Enjoying kind of a voguish Renaissance for a long time in homebrewing circles and craft beer circles. , Pilzer was the style that you avoided? Not necessarily just not just because it was difficult to replicate, but also it represented, you know, your uncle’s beer.

You didn’t want to make a Budweiser. You didn’t want to make him a little light. , but now, you know, they’re coming around to it and making these sort of, , Fe flavorful and richer crisper tasting, , pilsners. But you’re absolutely right. I mean, the, the pills that would be available in the U S and in Europe, even today, I don’t know what it is, but they, they taste, you know, fuller than what you find in the U S I think that’s also because the, the American based companies, and they’re not entirely American based anymore, of course, but are brewing on such a scale and export against such a scale that only like really Heineken compares in Europe to, to what, you know, Anheuser Busch is doing or Miller cores or something like that.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. With Heineken, you get the green bottles. So then it still has that kind of it’s it’s not. And for me, if, if a Heineken is brewed and made here in the United States, it’s going to have a different flavor than if it were brewed in Europe, sat on a boat for a while. Got here in that green bottle, it’s going to skunk up real

Tom Acitelli: They’re really. Yeah, but they are supposedly they want that to happen. I don’t know if that’s the case, but.

Colter Wilson: yeah, it, it, it could be something that they want to happen. It could be something that they want to happen, but for me, it just tastes light struck. And to me, it’s, it’s not a, a flavor of beer that you would like, but then. The other piece about logger or specifically the Pilsner style lager is that that’s now been exported globally.

Right? So for example, if you go to Japan and you think of like a Sapporo and sushi it’s, even though it’s, it’s a lot more rice in the mix, or probably the same amount as like an American rice in the mix, the idea is it’s still trying to mimic that lager style, right?

Tom Acitelli: Yes. And the best selling beer in the world is snow out of China. It’s not, and it’s not exported anywhere outside of China is still the best selling beer in. It is definitely based on Pilzer.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, I’ve never had a smell.

Tom Acitelli: I’ve never had a snow, but I’ve seen it. And it’s, , I mean, you know, it’s, it’s almost translucent. It’s, it’s very light colored.

Colter Wilson: So if I were going to want to make, but let’s say I wanted to make a classic. Style of Pilsner and I’m a, I’m a brewer. What would be the characteristics that I’m really looking for? And I don’t need you to give me a recipe or anything, but more of like, what would be the characteristics I would look for.

If I were going to make a classic, let’s say a, an Austrian style or Bavarian style Pilsner.

Tom Acitelli: Well, that’s a fantastic question. I would say the water soft water, , , SaaS hops. , . The malt. I mean, you know, obviously the lighter malt. But interestingly enough, , I don’t think the original pilsners there wasn’t like a pills pills in malt or something like that. , they, they use what they had available.

They were trying to mimic, you know, doom, KOLs from Bavaria. So they weren’t, you know, initially going for lighter colored right off the bat. We don’t know how that happened or, you know, that, that was kind of, I don’t want to say an accident of the brewing process early on, but. It’s as close to an accident as you can get without it being accidental.

But yeah, so I would, you, you would want a hue light, you would want a Hugh crisp and you want, you would want a huge toward an effort, you know, sort of effervescent, , appearance, you know, very bubbly. , but that’s a really good question.

Colter Wilson: yeah. You want to give it a little more? You want to give it a little bit more carbonation than you would in, in like an ale you want to get that thick foamy, white head, right? That, that is something. So to me is so indicative of the Pilsner style. At least those are the things I think of when I think of, , a Pilsner that I would like to enjoy that it’s thinking of that classic style of Pilsner.

Tom Acitelli: I like the richness of the taste. I don’t know. I can’t even describe it, like sort of lemony, , , Fuller. It’s difficult for me to describe, but I actually liked, you know, the pills are Kell, which is still brewed on the side of the original pills and brewery. It’s not the original brewery, but it’s, it’s on the same site, , in pills.

And then you can, you know, after this pandemic is over, I would encourage your listeners to maybe make a, you know, a bucket list, beer trip out there. It’s fantastical town, a little city,

I, I can’t describe. Yeah, I can’t describe the taste, but I, it’s kind of like a lemony, you know, full it’s a, it’s a thinner beer than, than your typical ales say, but it’s the taste of a Weldon pills in Pilsner is, is full.

I mean, it’s, it’s rich.

Colter Wilson: I think Pilsner Kell is a classic example of the pills of the pills in her style. And by far, if you were to say, Hey, go down and buy me one. I love Pilsner Kell. Stephen to this day, been a home brewer for a long time. I drank Pilsner Kell before I was a home brewer and loved the beer. And I also. I love the fact that there are some American breweries that are trying to do those styles of pilsners.

Like for example, here in Colorado, there’s beer stat that does a slow poured pills that all of us, all of us that are in my beer group are always like, Hey, did you bring this little poured pills? It’s really good. It’s an amazing beer,

Tom Acitelli: is that the place? Is that in Denver?

Colter Wilson: It isn’t Denver.

Tom Acitelli: Okay. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I tried to visit there once. It was very crowded.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a very, very busy, busy brewery,

Tom Acitelli: Everybody kept talking about it and.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. And it is a great example of a American iteration, right. Of like classic style. Let’s talk a bit about how you researched for the book. I, that, that’s the part that is always fascinating to me is how did you travel? What kind of stuff did you read?

How did you find out more about the style?

Tom Acitelli: I I traveled and I knew quite a bit about, you know, brewing since the, since world war II, let’s say. And so as brewing and brewing history, and then the business brewing, I had a lot of help from some of the larger breweries have, you know, great. Archives. Uh, it’d be, be wonderful if they digitize them and organize them better, but they do have them and they have some wonderful people who can, , point you in the right direction.

So that helped a great deal. , the American brewery Ana association as digitize some 19th century magazines and journals about brewing. So that was a big help. , there’s a fantastic book by an author named Maureen Ogle called ambitious brew, which covers a lot of, you know, 18 century, 19th century, early 20th century brewing in the United States.

And there were some older books that I, that I, you know, sort of dusted off and, and referenced. And then, yeah, I traveled my two favorite trips during the. The research? Well, three favorite. I went to the core’s brewery brewery out where you live, , in golden, Colorado. I, it was funny because it was the last Saturday of the GABF.

So I spent the morning walking around the Denver or the Colorado convention center in downtown Denver. And then I spent the afternoon at a mostly empty cores brewery on a Saturday and got to see sort of what’s called. Called himself, the largest brewery in the world, physical brewery. And it’s just something else to be in there.

It’s like it’s, it’s ginormous. , and then I also enjoyed visiting Pilsner, , pills and, and Pilsner Kell. And I enjoyed, , I went to the spot and brewery in Munich. And Spartan plays a massive role in the development of brewing and beer in general, and was sort of a evolutionary step along the way to Pilsen what spot and was producing, , the spot and brewery.

It’s, it’s a massive complex in Munich and the spot and part. Is basically, , empty, largely empty. It’s not really producing much so they don’t make much spot anymore. And so a lot of it’s kind of a museum or it’s just a day, you know, dark sellers. The other part is Lowenbrau, which they produce a lot of.

, I didn’t see that part, but I saw a spot. I just enjoyed, you know, the Munich beer called culture in general, a lot of which I recognized coming from the United States because as I soon realized it was the Germans who influenced us beer culture. So.

Colter Wilson: yeah, you just mentioned the Lowenbrau. That’s a beer I have not had in a really long time.

Tom Acitelli: Really long time. Okay.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Yeah, I I’ve I’ve I had one, it was probably in the 1990s. It’s been a really long time and, and speaking of spot and I think spot and has influenced a lot. I recently did a show where I had a gentleman on where we talked about Vienna lager, and specifically when they.

Derive the Vienna malt that ended up becoming the main malt in Vienna lager and specifically a lot of the teachings that that local brewer had in Austria actually came from spot and he ended up sharing how he was brewing loggers because they started off with Vienna malt, brewing ales, and then the brewer of spot, and actually shared how to do lagers.

Then he started doing loggers. And so it’s funny how in that region, which we talk about all these different countries in all reality, they’re probably about the size of a state here in the United States, in the West. And. But in the 17 and 18 hundreds to travel between those countries was far, far, you know, you didn’t have cars and things like that.

But the idea is that they still shared a lot and brewing was dumb at an industrial scale then. And so they, they kind of stole from each other to kind of come up with these or not really still, but shared with each other and made better beers because of it. And it was kind of a really, I would say. A re a very Renaissance time of, of beer in general, because beef, because before that, it was in Germany, specifically, you had, these are the four ingredients of beer and this is all we have.

Right. And then you have in, in England where they’re making porters and stouts and those style of beers, and they were really. Bulking up in the amount of industrial capacity that they could export beer. I think Porter was like the first real industrial beer and it’s just kind of cool how all of these things were happening around the same time.

Tom Acitelli: Right. A big part of my book. Pilzer is the big part of the start of it is Anton Dreyer and Gabriel settle Meyer who were, , up and coming brewers in, , what became Germany and what was then the Austrian empire they traveled around in the 1830s, tried particularly in England. Trying to soak up as much information as they could, so they could bring it back to the continent, to these dramatic areas that had sort of limited knowledge and a limited scope to little limited sandbox to play in.

So to speak, you know, they had those four ingredients they had to adhere to, , by and large. And so you’re right. A lot of it was about sharing information, sometimes stealing information. , Dreyer and settle Meyer traveled with a hollowed out walking stick, if you can believe it and would extract when they could, when they didn’t think anyone was looking, they would actually extract beer to take back and sort of dissect and parse through the sample, but they got the knowledge and the know-how and then they turned around and developed and refined it even more.

And then, you know, a few years later you have people like Yosef Grohl. Taking that knowledge and creating Pilsner. And we go from there basically, they’d be sort of Genesis of modern brewing is on, is on European continent in that in the 1830s and 1840s, I think. And you can sort of, it just sort of goes from there.

, up until that point for thousands of years, with only a few exceptions beer hadn’t changed much. I mean, it’s hard to believe in, but it really is the case. And then it started to change a lot and very quickly,

Colter Wilson: Yeah, I think we’re kind of now modern wise, we’re in a new Renaissance of beer where it went from, Hey, we’re going to really refine it down to the most light. Crisp beer. We could possibly make this an easy drinker. That is his beer for the masses. You could give it to anyone. Yeah. And if you don’t like beer, you’re probably going to like a American light lager or that style of beer.

It’s easy to drink, but then we’re now in a place where. We have more styles and new styles being made new England IPA always comes to mind for me. That’s, it’s kind of been crazy to watch an entire style just up here and become a real thing. Right? Whether you like that beer or not, that is where it is.

Right. And, the other part is to kind of see new things and new ingredients that aren’t really so new, like cupcakes and those styles of yeast that are coming out that, I and my friends have some projects that we’re doing where we’re trying to make pseudo pilsners, essentially with that were fermenting in the eighties.

Then they’re like, Oh man, do you still get them clean at 90? And,

Tom Acitelli: How’s it going?

Colter Wilson: great, we, we can get. Crystal clear golden straw colored beer that is crisp and clean, like you would from a lager yet. Fermented it around anywhere between 78 and 90 degrees and also done in about two days, three days.

Tom Acitelli: Wait, this is a longer fermented at

Colter Wilson: It’s not really a log of we’re calling them pseudo loggers.

So yeah, we call them the pseudo logger because in the end. There’s still the, the process of logging, which is the. You you make a lager, it gets done with fermentation. There’s still that bulk aging piece where you really clear out the beer and get this like crisp golden colored beer.

The thing with the is that we can turn the bulk fermentation around really quickly, but you still need it. Or two for it to flock out. It has to happen or you’re, or you’re going to have a hazy beer, but, but for the most part, you can get a really clean, crisp, clean beer with these cupcakes at really, really warm temperatures.

And it’s just. But the point I’m trying to make is those are, it’s a Norwegian farmhouse ale that’s been used for yeast. That’s been used for hundreds of years. And the second some modern brewers got their hands on it. It’s becoming this huge thing. And it’s kind of cool to watch all of these new styles and trends kind of come out.

So it, and I just, I’m more curious when you look at history and you look at what’s going, going on with beer now, and obviously we don’t know what the future’s going to bring, but. I wonder what beer going to look like in 20 years?

Tom Acitelli: Oh yeah, I have a theory. I mean, I’ll share it. I, I think so. Pilzer is, you know, the rise it’s sort of the rise and rise and rise of Pilzer, , and beers based on it, inspired by it and trying to capture the market share. But I think. That in the next 20 to 25 years, at least I think IPA will overtake it as the number one style.

And what I mean by that is that I don’t necessarily, the beers will not necessarily call themselves an IPA. Or the brands will not call themselves an IPA, but they will be sort of hoppier bitter ales. They will not be the lighter crisper loggers. I really think that’s going to be the case. Is that the trend in business right now in the brewing industry is this sort of consolidation and acquisition a wave.

And I also think that, you know, you have, , one and a half generations now basically raised. On craft and craft is dominated by the IPA. So I, I could definitely see this sort of shift. Nobody could have foreseen 20 years ago happening in the next 20, 25 years. It’s good. It’s going to be interesting.

Colter Wilson: It really is. And I mean, you start to see it. Now you have breweries that have six IPA’s on tap and then one other beer.

Tom Acitelli: Right. But I also see like, if you want. You see, the thing is the larger companies they think in terms of all their product. And so it’s not necessarily beer. So the people who want the lighter colored, lighter tasting, even tasteless alcohol are going to hue towards seltzers orders for like mass produce ciders.

So that, that segment’s going there anyway. And that leaves that then there’s, then there’s beer and the people that are going to stick with beer. Then if they want that less alcohol and no tastes, they’re going to do, they’ve already left. So the people left behind are going to hew toward the bitter stuff.

And I think that’s why, where IPS is his moment kind of,

Colter Wilson: I, I actually totally agree with you on that. And I see it right now, my wife PR and I’ll use my wife as an example. And if you listen to this podcast at all, anyone, you know that I use my wife as an example all the time. Cause she, she never drinks my beer. And not that it’s a, it’s a, she doesn’t like it.

My wife, if I, if I hand her a beer, she can appreciate it for what it is. But it, at one point when we were young and in our twenties, yeah, she would. Drink PBR with the rest of them and shots of whiskey and all that stuff. Right. And then as we got older, she moved more towards drinking wine and now she’s into seltzers.

And if, if I were to make a five gallon batch of hard seltzer, I wouldn’t drink it. My wife would crush it, but the idea is that that is what, and not that I’m saying that it’s that way with girls. The idea is that there are certain people that don’t want to have that heavy beer taste is what she always calls it or, or overly hops.

And they’ve all moved , to seltzers. So many seltzers. It’s crazy.

Tom Acitelli: Those consumers are gonna leave the beer market. I think in the next several years, they’re just going to opt-out. What I mean, I’m old enough to remember Zima and you know that right. I, you know, seltzer, the hard seltzer thing is happening so much faster. And ANSYS showing me so much more durability.

I just really think it’s going to sort of lead all those consumers out who don’t want beer. Don’t want to be your taste. And that’s fine. , And leave behind, you know, the beer drinkers and the beer drinkers are gonna want a heavier, more distinct taste. And I also think too, there’s a larger trend of millennials and gen Z.

They, they’re not going to be drinking as much. So the indications are they’re going to be drinking less. So if they’re going to be drinking at all, they’re going to choose, , very distinctly what they want to have. That’ll break too in IPA’s favor.

Colter Wilson: and also one of the things that they like is things that are. KraftMaid and not mass produced and they want local, they want quality ingredients there. Their entire taste from the younger generation is anything not mass produced is something that they want. And yeah, go ahead.

Tom Acitelli: No. I was going to say all those, some of these, , IPS I think are going to be very much mass produced, but they’re going to seem the labeling and the packaging is going to make it seem like they’re, you know, yield brewery down the street, but

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re starting to see that with, with Anheuser-Busch or I guess in Bev purchasing local breweries in and not changing their brands. Right. And not, and not closing them down and only just pushing them out further into the, into the ether and pushing those brands. It’s kind of funny is here in Colorado, just this year we changed the beer market.

I guess, yeah, it did happen at the beginning of 2020, where they were, you used to only be able to sell beer in a liquor store here in Colorado, and they changed it to where you could go to a grocery store. So I can now walk into, you know, King supers or whatever Kroger, and they now have an actual beer aisle.

That’s not just, you know, Keystone light. That’s what they had before was all three, two. And. One thing that I noticed is that second that happened all there. There were a few key local brands that were able to make those shelves that, like, for example, some of the, I would say the mid-sized breweries that had good distribution themselves and it had partnered with like local distributors already got that shelf space as well.

But what I also saw was that. The majority of that shelf space got taken up by the InBev brands and the, in the Miller cores brands that they had purchased because they were able to make those deals with banner brands like Kroger, Kroger. And so it’s really funny to see how there’s still a really large business when it comes to beer.

And when we talk about beer and home brewing and craft beer people, don’t like to talk about the business, even though the business is so important.

Tom Acitelli: Especially now, I think there’s a lot of smaller brewers. I mean, I don’t think, I mean, there are a lot of smaller brewers sort of on the cusp of going out of business. I mean, the pandemic has just taken such a toll.

Colter Wilson: Oh, so this is one of those things where I E the local brewery down the street. This is the time. And I’m going to say, I’ve said this a few times on the show. This is the time when you need to go down to your local brewery and get a growler, go, go buy some cans of beer from them. Even if you don’t feel, I’m not going to say, if you don’t feel safe, don’t go there.

But I am going to say that if you, if you feel safe, getting something to go, go get something to go, bring it home and, and have a beer. Because if you like that, the big guys are going to survive. They have plenty of money. They they’ll they’ll they’ll if you’re owned by InBev today, trust me, they have billions of dollars to ride through a couple of years of a downturn.

Tom Acitelli: Or even some, some of the larger crafts are gonna miss, you know?

Colter Wilson: yeah. Yeah. They have, they have a big enough base or they can, they can leverage some technologies, like being able to do ordering online. Things like that. Right? , they did change the laws for the better here in Colorado. We can now do delivery of beer, which we couldn’t do before. And some, some other things like that have definitely the, the pandemic has opened up some of that market.

But for me, it’s, it’s that small brewery. And I always think of, in my mind, there’s one where my home group brew club met called someplace else brewery. And this is a place that is in a. Old industrial, like kind of, kind of parking. It’s like a, it’s like an old warehouse in an industrial part of town.

There, there would be no reason for you to go there other than to go to the brewery. And you know, they’re, they only say, well, beer out of their own taproom. They’re not distributed anywhere. And those are the guys that are really struggling right now. And those are the beers that you should be. You know, if you, if you’re in a local and that’s what you want to do, those are the beers you should be buying today.

Tom Acitelli: Right. Exactly. I was going to say a Boston beer company, you know, the maker of Sam Adams and Dogfish head, the, uh, stock. So the first time ever hit a thousand dollars yesterday, this is early, late October, and it did it on the, on the back of truly hard seltzer, truly hard seltzer brand, funnily enough, not, not every brewery, not every craft brewer can pivot to hard seltzer.

You know,

Colter Wilson: , Boston beer is crushing it with truly.

Tom Acitelli: it’s amazing.

Colter Wilson: Yeah. Well, Hey, let’s talk about if I wanted to learn more about your book, where can I find it? Do I go to Amazon

Tom Acitelli: It’s all over I’m I, you know, I always encourage people to seek out their independent bookstore online or in person, if they can. I it’s all over the U S and Canada, wherever, wherever fine books are sold.

Colter Wilson: Excellent. And do you have a website or anything? If I wanted to do a little bit deeper dive,

Tom Acitelli: , well I have a Twitter feed, , Tommy twitter.com backslash Tom after tele ACI. T E L L I M. And the book is Pilsner. And the first beer book was the audacity of hot.

Colter Wilson: great. And you are on the second edition of that and I think you said that you added 70 new pages because so much changed from 2013 to 2017,

Tom Acitelli: At least. Yeah. A lot has changed and I’m open, updated again at the star later on this decade. So it was so much has changed since 2017. It’s incredible.

Colter Wilson: Yeah, it really is. Well, I want to thank you for coming on homebrewing, DIY, and Hey, if you ever write another beer book, we’d love to have you back on the show. It’s this is a passion for me. I read a lot of your books and I’m very, very excited. I need to read yours.

Tom Acitelli: okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Colter Wilson: I’d like to thank Tom for taking the time to come on this week. Show.

As always when we interview. Beer authors. I feel like I learned so much when it comes to the history and styles and what’s going on in the beer industry. It really is a passion for me. And I, you know, Hey, I. I’m sorry. I like to read books about beer. Yeah, this is just kinda how it is. But if you would like to.

Leave us feedback. You can always email us at. podcast@homebrewingdiy.beer. Also, you should follow us on social media. Head over to. Homebrewing DIY all one word we’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And I’m trying some Tik TOK. I am on Tik TOK. It’s also homebrewing DIY all one word. I’m not the best at that. We’ll we’ll keep trying, but you know, give me a follow on Tik TOK. If you’re listening to this podcast.

Try it out. Well, that’s it for this week. And we’ll talk to you next week. On home brewing. DIY.

Episode 60 – Pilsner With Tom Acitelli

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Episode 60 – Pilsner With Tom Acitelli

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