according to some, fails to rise to the level of a formal beer category. Nonetheless, any experienced beer drinker knows immediately and intuitively what the concept intends. The German word “pilsner,” also spelled “pilsener” or abbreviated “pils,” was originally defined as a type of beer that was first brewed, in 1842, in the Bohemian town of Plzen (Pilsen in German) in what is now the Czech Republic. The original pilsner was made only from lightly kilned malted barley, ideally Haná from Moravia, and flavored fairly delicately with Saaz hops. It was conditioned for between 8 and 12 weeks in cold cellars depending on its strength. See haná (barley). It was served clear with white foam and gained success in the middle of the 19th century across central Europe, not least because of the parallel invention of the first affordable forms of clear glassware. It was soon imitated in spades, spreading from central Europe to the rest of the world, shedding quality as it spread.

In 1898, Burghers’ Brewery of Pilsen, therefore, tried to set a precedent for the protection of its brand. It went to court in Munich, seeking an injunction against the local Thomass Brewery, which had come out with a blond lager named “Thomass-Pilsner-Bier.” The landmark verdict that the German court handed down in April 1899, however, went against the plaintiff. The court argued that pilsner was no longer an appellation, but had become a universal style designation.

In short order, therefore, thousands of new beers were introduced all over the world sporting the words “pilsener,” “pilsner,” or “pils” in their names. Although virtually all of these were light blond, crystal clear lagers with white foam that managed to attract premium prices, few were truly made in the original pilsner style, which is to say a malt-only mash, Saaz hops, decoction mashing, bottom- fermentation at a controlled lower temperature and prolonged conditioning at near-iced temperature. Pilsner was bowdlerized into a light blond lager that looked the part. It has gone on to be the most copied beer style in the world, appealing particularly to drinkers who want a beer that is relatively light in alcohol and undemanding on the palate. Light lagers are often the only beers available in countries that have little or no ale-brewing traditions. The reasons for the dominance of this style vary from country to country, but commonly feature the growing concentration in the brewing industry and the tendency toward large-scale industrial brewing to serve a mass market deemed to be undemanding in its preferences.

In the United States, for instance, once the brewing industry was relicensed in 1933, after Prohibition (from 1920 until 1933) had wiped out virtually all commercial breweries and the brewing traditions they represented, the surviving companies produced light-bodied golden lager and little else.

Likewise, in Continental Europe, the destruction wreaked by two World Wars between 1914 and 1945 resulted in a considerable reduction in the number of breweries. What the bombs did not destroy, occupying forces dismantled. Brewing kettles especially became prized loot to be turned into munitions.

Because beer drinkers around the world grew accustomed to consuming less flavorful beers and because economic circumstances favored large companies, the drive toward making simpler beers ever more cheaply and in vast quantities became the dominant focus of the post-war brewing industry everywhere. A typical example is Heineken, whose beers are usually made not far from where they are sold. Some versions had an alcohol by volume of no more than 3.2%, as opposed to the original strength of about 5%, yet remain termed “pilsner.” After a young Albert “Freddie” Heineken had spent 3 years in the United States studying the American beer market, he concluded that what sells beer is advertising. When he returned home to the Netherlands in 1954 to work in the brewery that his family still partly owned, he set about implementing his ardent belief in branding and marketing. This was the beginning of a pioneering, truly effective global marketing policy for beer. In time many other breweries, too, realized that the foreign-sounding but easily pronounceable name “pilsner” could give even a plain beer a suggestion of exotic excellence.

In the late 1960s, therefore, many larger breweries followed Heineken’s suit and embarked on the creation of beer brands that were as easy on the eye and palate as they were easy to make. Rice, corn, corn syrup, glucose, and other cheap sugar sources were often substituted for some of the malted barley in these recipes, the bitterness frequently hovered in the 20 international bittering unit range, and conditioning sometimes took as little as a week, sometimes at room temperature or higher. The result was a wave of cheap, industrial beers that served only to dilute the impact and value of the term “pilsner.”

In recent years fewer of the world’s most successful brands have been termed “pilsner” by their producers. Perhaps it is just that the term is now meaningless to consumers in the target markets of these beers, although it is more comforting to think that it is a nod to the quality of the past and leaves leeway for an eventual return to making all-malt, well-hopped, and properly lagered brands more deserving of the name in the future. Some brewers of international pilsners, including Heineken and Carlsberg, have recently switched to all-barley brewing. These were not flavor-based decisions, but strategic moves to avoid the public relations stain that would result if genetically modified (GMO) corn ever found its way into their brewhouses. Although Americans have largely accepted GMO agricultural products, they are widely rejected by Europeans. Ironically, brewmasters in these situations are often tasked with making all-malt beers taste as neutral as they had when they previously contained corn. Regardless of the makeup, the international blond lager style, still sometimes labeled pilsner, brewed from India to Russia to Belgium to Mexico, is a golden lager beer with a light body, low bitterness (although notably higher nowadays than mass-market American lagers), very little malt flavor, and a clean profile.

Some 2,000 of the world’s estimated 60,000 brews currently include one of the pilsner-derived words in their brand name. Because most of these are mass-market beers, brewers who try to emulate the intentions of the original 19th-century brewmasters of Plzen will have an uphill struggle to differentiate any truly pilsner-style beers in the minds of the consumers, flooded as they are by the images the light lagers of the international pilsner category invoke.