Yeast & Fermentation

Is Pils top- or bottom-fermented? Bottom-fermented. The yeast works at low temperatures, usually around ten degrees, and settles to the bottom at the end. This keeps the beer clean, without fruity side notes. An Italian Pils follows this rule, too—only the hops come into play later.

The yeast is Saccharomyces pastorianus. It's a cross between brewer's yeast and a wild yeast that was first described in Patagonia in 2011. Emil Christian Hansen isolated the first pure culture of a bottom-fermenting yeast in 1883 at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen. Since then, lagers can be brewed with consistent results.

After primary fermentation comes lagering. The young beer rests for weeks in cold tanks, the yeast settles out, and rough aromas fade away. It's during this phase that Tipopils undergoes dry hopping, a step Arioli reportedly introduced as early as 1996.

In the hot plains of northern Italy, such cooling is a matter of technology, not nature. Where Bavarian brewers once relied on rock cellars, brewers in Lombardy install jacketed cooling tanks. The result is a Pils that stays clear and fresh despite the summer heat.

For the Milan area, this also means a trade-off in time. A Pils left to lager cold for several weeks turns out calmer on the palate than a young, freshly tapped beer. The brewers' patience is part of the recipe here, even if the drinker never sees it—only tastes it, which is exactly why a second sip is worth taking.