Hagen Dost seemed combinedly possessed by all the waters from heaven: Pilsner by Dovetail Brewery

Tortelvis, the greatest singer of his generation, once confessed, "I've read this damn book 22 times, Charlie, and I still don't understand the thing." This admission, in the classic Dread Zeppelin song, "Moby Dick", is something I can sympathize with. I've never read Moby Dick, truth be told, so it's the sentiment of the statement that hits close to home, not the content. Just wanted to be clear on that point.

I've consumed various types of pilsners and I still don't understand all of the differences. There's Bohemian pilsners, German ones, American, Italian, CBD, French, Keller - who knows what other kinds. India Pale Pilsners are no doubt a thing somewhere. So, Czech pilsners are maltier than German ones, correct? And they are hoppier too with a bold Saaz bite, right? It's unclear to me what French pilsners are exactly. You'd think the French are too busy with wine, baguettes, and Jerry Lewis to brew beer. Are they a distinct style? Or just a German pils brewed with French hops? I drank one recently at Working Draft here in Madison called "Le Pils". I am clueless as to what made it French but I'd bet it's the hops. It had a delectable taste featuring lemon and spicy pepper flavors. Aramis hops, perhaps?

Yes, I just found those on a search.

Now that I think about it, I doubt that I've ever had an Italian pilsner. Certainly not one from Italy but there is an outside chance that an American one has passed my lips. I'm not sure what is particularly Italian about them. One moment...

Jeff Alworth says that there are a few elements that go into an Italian pilsner that give it a distinct Italian quality but that American brewers have basically reduced its uniqueness down to dry hopping. I am shocked - SHOCKED! - that American brewers would do such a thing.

Oh well.

This brings me to Dovetail's Pilsner which, to the best of my knowledge, made its way to Madison for the very first time recently. The can's label says only "PILSNER" and I was forced to go the brewery's website to find more info. There it is described as "a showcase for Czech hops" and the brewery's marketing team go on to boast that it was brewed with "heaven's water", which sounds like Chicago tap water that has had some chemistry voodoo worked upon it so that it was akin to the soft water of the pilsner's hometown, Plzeň, in the Czech Republic.

Man, water chemistry is not my thing and I am thinking I might have to summon the ghost of Robert Boyle to explain this to me.

Let's see if I can get this right. Plzeň's water is soft, i.e. - lacking in bicarbonates and pretty low in calcium too. This makes for water more on the acidic side which favors paler malts and brings out bready flavors. Now, why this should be is yet unknown to me but that sounds like the Bohemian pilsners I've quaffed. My searches yield lots of articles that merely say, "Want to brew a pilsner and have naturally soft water? You're golden." They are short on the details, though, about how x number of moles of some compound dissolved in the water yields a beer that is high in I.B.U.s - International Breadiness Units. As best I can piece it together, acidity levels are key to enzymes being happy and happy enzymes means tasty beer.

The water in Plzeň apparently also lacks sulfates which enhance hop bitterness so I guess Czech brewers have traditionally added more hops, hence the more intense spiciness of their pilsners, perhaps?

Ha! I probably have that all wrong but I am going with it anyway.

If Dovetail is going to go through all the trouble of mimicking the water of a city thousands of miles away, the beer is going to be good, right?

WRONG!

I kid! I kid!

Dovetail's beers are always so pretty. I feel badly because I don't have a good camera that can really capture their alluring beauty. Long before this glass got anywhere near my mouth, I was entranced by the beer that could launch a thousand sips. At least I managed to find a pilsner glass for the occasion. Dovetail's Pilsner is a lovely light gold with a slight haze to it. I poured for the head and got a big one. Lots of firm, white foam was mine, all mine. It smelled as good as it looked with a delicate cracker aroma joined by grass and peppery hops.

The malt tasted like biscuit as a firm fizz made its way to the back of my mouth. That toasty, melanoidiny, bready flavor was here in spades. Yum! As expected, it had a light body. Oh, and the hops tasted spicy to me, just as advertised. (Or was that because I had read the description beforehand?) Upon swallowing, I found that the biscuit taste lingered a while but was eventually overwhelmed by some herbal-peppery hop flavors that were a bit dank and resinous. They were not wanting in bitterness and left things on a fairly dry note. My glass was decorated with some wonderful lacing.

Oh mama! This was an extremely tasty brew. I don't know what kind of hydromancy they performed to get that heavenly water but it paid off. The soft biscuit flavor was simply divine and it melded perfectly with those spicy hops.

Junk food pairing: just as Dovetail used some diablerie to transform ordinary tap water into heaven's water, Utz performed some kind of alchemical chicanery with fried dill pickles so pair your Pilsner with a bag of Utz's Fried Dill Pickle potato chips.