[image]
[title]In what is quite possibly the greatest pairing since gin and vermouth comes Celebration Pilsner, the lovechild between industry legends Fortunate Son and Young Henrys. A casual little colab hashed out amongst spent pilsner pint glasses over Fortunate Son’s black-butt bar top, Celebration Pilsner is a limited edition homage to Pilsner Urquell in commemoration of Fortunate Son’s third birthday.
Quickly becoming one of Enmore's favourite bars, Fortunate Son is one of the few places in Sydney you can go to get historic Czech Pilsner Urquell on tap.
Described by Young Henry’s head brewer Jesse Searls as “a beer nerd's beer,” recreating this lager was not only an unmissable opportunity to flex a few beer-making muscles, but the obvious choice for bar-owner Dylan Howarth.
“In a world full of modern craft, I wanted to honour what I considered to be a traditional, classic lager. I could have chucked VB on the tap and it would have been ironic, but our entire ethos is luxury in an unexpected setting. I wanted to pour one of the best beers in the world, in Newtown. I really just enjoy the eccentricity of nice things in unexpected places.”
For devoted YH brewers, Fortunate Son was not only the closest bar to Young Henry’s Wilford Street works, but their bar of choice when it came to smashing a few frothies after long, hard days crafting ales.
United in their appreciation for the classic Pils, Dylan asked if they’d "do a beer" for the bar’s third birthday and the group sealed the deal on a yet-to-be-confirmed style with a parting handshake.
It was only at a marginally more ‘official’ meeting a few weeks later that it transpired both Young Henrys and Fortunate Son were on the exact same page – wanting to remake the ancient, world-first pale lager, in line with its original recipe, unchanged since 1842.
“There was then a lot of pressure”, explains Searls, “because Fortunate Son is one of our favourite bars... so we really wanted to nail it. A lot of industry people go there to drink the pilsner, so we really wanted to do it, and do it well.
“Brewers are typically lager drinkers – it’s hard to hide faults in a lager because it's so crisp and so clean. With such a small batch, there’s only one chance – one brew in the brewhouse, which is 2,000 litres. We only had one go to get it right. We call that ferment tank ‘Mom's Spaghetti’ after Eminem's ‘one shot’ [Lose Yourself].”
What followed was a full analysis on Pilsner Urquell, conducted in Young Henry’s state-of-the-art beer lab, which houses some of the most impressive technology in all of Australia for a brewery of its size.
A sample obtained from a bottle of imported Pilsner Urquell was run through the equipment and tested for all its specs; ABV, IBU (international bittering unit) colour, and then a volatile compound called diacetyl. Produced during fermentation, diacetyl is typically judged as a fault, but in Pilsner Urquell it is considered a characteristic.
We mapped all its analytical specifications and broke it down scientifically in order to be able to accurately replicate it. This is something we’ve never done for any other beer before.
Once the brew date was set, what followed was a month of intensive research and planning to ensure that everything ran smoothly.
“Pilsner Urquell is a triple decoction, it’s a time consuming and lengthy process. For us it meant we needed to figure out how to manipulate our equipment in order to be able to do that, so we dedicated a solid month to doing the homework on it, planning everything and figuring out exactly how the process was going to go.
We sourced Czech barley that was malted in Germany, using an ancient technique called floor malting. Saaz hops, which are a Czech hop variety and very famous for being the original Pilsner hop.
We modified our water to be as close to water from Pilsen as possible - Sydney water is already quite soft, but we removed a few more minerals to match the incredible softness of Pilsen water.
We even isolated the same yeast strain that Pilsner Urquell uses and cultured it in the lab up to a pitchable amount.”
By all accounts everything was going swimmingly. Right up until the scheduled brew-date became a public oliday to mourn the Queen, and brewer Searls was flying to America for Hop Selection the very next day…
Everyone just came in anyway, without pay, a total passion project to make the beer happen.
“We couldn’t delay the brew, so three of the Young Henrys brewers and the Fortunate Son team all pitched in to get it done. It was a long day – the brew was eight and a half hours, nearly three times as much as a regular brew on our system. Everyone just came in anyway, without pay, a total passion project to make the beer happen.”
After more than 12 weeks then spent lagering in a fermentation vessel, the analytical data on Celebration Pilsner showed that the collaborative labour of love between the Newtown neighbours met every single marker derived from the real thing. In Searls' sentiment – it’s pretty close to perfect.
“When you drink the beer, it's not a crazy hoppy sour thing that leaps out at you - it’s a really well made beer. A clean lager, structured in its bitterness and a touch maltier than a traditional Australian lager.”
Once filtered and kegged, the final product was loaded onto a trolley and walked the 100m from brewery to bar, making Celebration Pilsner not only the closest thing humanly possible to the original, but inarguably the freshest ‘Pilsner Urquell’ that Australia is ever going to get.
Tapped only at Fortunate Son and the Young Henrys tasting bar, this super-small batch is not going to last long. If you want to try it (and geek out on it) you better be bloody quick.
Happy Birthday, Son!