Plzeň, October 1842
In 1838 the citizens of Plzeň, then Pilsen in the Austrian Empire, tipped dozens of barrels of poor beer into the street in front of the town hall. The brewing rights of the town's burghers had not kept up with the standards of their customers. In 1839 they founded a new Burghers' Brewery and in 1842 hired a young Bavarian, Josef Groll, to run it.
Groll brewed his first batch on 5 October 1842 and it was served for the first time on 11 November. The beer was pale gold, clear and bitter, and it was unlike what most Bohemians drank, which was dark and often cloudy.
What was different
Three things came together. The malt was kilned with indirect heat, which kept it pale. The water of Plzeň is very soft, which allows a clean hop bitterness. And the hops came from Žatec, a few hours away. Groll fermented the beer cold, in the Bavarian way, and stored it in sandstone cellars cut under the town.
Glass mattered too. In earlier decades most beer was drunk from stoneware or pewter, and nobody looked at its colour. As glass became cheaper the clarity of the new beer was part of its appeal. Imitations appeared across Europe, and the word pilsner, or pils, now names a style brewed everywhere.