On October 5, 1842, a gruff Bavarian brewmaster named Josef Groll created the original Pilsner beer using ingredients from the Bohemian countryside: aromatic Saaz hops from the Žatec basin, golden malt from Moravia, and soft local waters. The one exotic introduction was the bottom-fermenting yeast that he carried with him when hired by the town fathers of Pilsen. But unlike the wine regions of Burgundy, Barolo, Champagne, and Chianti, which took shape around the same time through innovative grape-growing and wine-making practices, Pilsner came to be considered not a geographical designation ( , in French), unique to its place of origin, but rather a style ( ) or a quality designation ( ), reproducible anywhere.
These different outcomes resulted in part from the physical nature of the products, since the brewer combined raw materials that shipped more easily and kept longer than the finished beer, while the vintner condensed bulky, perishable grapes into wines that could age for decades. Moreover, the brewers of Pilsen lacked an established reputation and had to struggle for prestige against competitors across Central Europe and around the world. Ultimately, the meaning of Pilsner and other beer styles was a legal construct, determined as much by politicians and judges as by brewers and consumers.
Although named after particular towns such as Pilsen, Budweis, Munich, and Vienna, nineteenth-century beer styles arose from the heightened mobility of a globalizing era. Their dev.