Saaz is a "noble" variety of hops. It was named after the Czech town of Žatec (German : Saaz). This hop is used extensively in Bohemia to flavor beer as the Czech pilsner.
Saaz hops accounted for more than +2⁄3 of total 2009 hop production in the Czech Republic. [1] It is the main hop variety used in the production of global beer Stella Artois, a Belgian pilsner.
Saaz has a distinctive flavour. When used in beer, the resultant aroma is very mild, earthy, herbal and spicy. Despite its popularity and noble pedigree, Saaz generally has a very low Alpha acid level and is not very effective as a bittering hop. This hop is generally used for Bohemian style lagers and pilseners. [2]
Another variety of Saaz hops has been propagated in the United States of America. The US variety has a higher Alpha acid content than the original Czech variety. [3]
| Property | Czech variety [3] | US variety [4] |
|---|---|---|
| Yield (kg/ha) | 800–1,200 | N/A |
| Alpha acids (%) | 2.5–4.0 | 6.3–7.0 [5] |
| Beta acids (%) | 4.6–6.0 | N/A |
| Alpha/beta ratio | 0.6–0.9 | N/A |
| Cohumulone (% of alpha acids): | 23–26 | N/A |
| Colupulone (% of alpha acids): | 39–43 | N/A |
| Total oils (mls. per 100 grams dried hops) | 0.4–1.0 | 0.6 |
| Myrcene (as % of total oils) | 25–40 | 37 |
| Linalool (as % of total oils) | 0.4–0.8 | N/A |
| Caryophyllene (as % of total oils) | 6–9 | 7 |
| Humulene (as % of total oils) | 15–25 | 23 |
| Farnesene (as % of total oils) | 14–20 | N/A |
| Selinenes (as % of total oils) | 0.5–1.5 | N/A |
| Possible substitutions | Centennial, Amarillo, Motueka, Stirling, Summer | |
Hops are the flowers of the hop plant Humulus lupulus, a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas. Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hops plants have separate female and male plants, and only female plants are used for commercial production. The hop plant is a vigorous, climbing, herbaceous perennial, usually trained to grow up strings in a field called a hopfield, hop garden, or hop yard when grown commercially. Many different varieties of hops are grown by farmers around the world, with different types used for particular styles of beer.
Pilsner is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň, where the world's first pale lager was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewery.
Plzeň, also known in English and German as Pilsen, is a city in the Czech Republic. About 78 kilometres west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 186,000 inhabitants, and about 323,184 people in its urban area.
Wheat beer is a top-fermented beer which is brewed with a large proportion of wheat relative to the amount of malted barley. The two main varieties are German Weizenbier and Belgian witbier; other types include Lambic, Berliner Weisse, and Gose.
Pale lager is a pale-to-golden lager beer with a well-attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
Pilsner Urquell is a lager beer brewed by the Pilsner Urquell Brewery in Plzeň, Czech Republic. Pilsner Urquell was the world's first pale lager, and its popularity meant it was much copied, and named pils, pilsner or pilsener. It is hopped with Saaz hops, a noble hop variety that is a key element in its flavour profile, as is the use of soft water. It is available in 330 ml, 355 ml and 500 ml aluminium cans and green or brown bottles.
Beer has a long history in what is now the Czech Republic, with brewing taking place in Břevnov Monastery in 993. The city of Brno had the right to brew beer from the 12th century, while Plzeň and České Budějovice, had breweries in the 13th century.
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
Saison is a pale-colored ale that is highly carbonated, dry, fruity, spicy, and often bottle conditioned. It was historically brewed with low alcohol levels, but modern productions of the style have moderate to high levels of alcohol. Along with several other varieties, it is generally classified as a farmhouse ale.
Mash ingredients, mash bill, mashbill, or grain bill are the materials that brewers use to produce the wort that they then ferment into alcohol. Mashing is the act of creating and extracting fermentable and non-fermentable sugars and flavor components from grain by steeping it in hot water, and then letting it rest at specific temperature ranges to activate naturally occurring enzymes in the grain that convert starches to sugars. The sugars separate from the mash ingredients, and then yeast in the brewing process converts them to alcohol and other fermentation products.
Joseph Groll was a Bavarian brewer, best known for being the first brewer of Pilsner beer. He is sometimes called "the Father of the Pilsner". The world's first-ever pale lager, Pilsner Urquell was highly successful, and served as the inspiration for more than two-thirds of the beer produced in the world today.
Budweiser Budvar is a brewery in the Czech city of České Budějovice, best known for its original Budweiser or Budweiser Budvar pale lager brewed using artesian water, Moravian barley and Saaz hops. Budweiser Budvar is the fourth largest beer producer in the Czech Republic and the second largest exporter of beer abroad.
Alpha acids are a class of chemical compounds primarily of importance to the production of beer. They are found in the resin glands of the flowers of the hop plant and are the source of hop bitterness.
Brasserie Thiriez is a small craft brewery located in Esquelbecq, a town in the Arrondissement of Dunkirk in the Nord département, in the Hauts-de-France région of France, quite close to the Belgian border. It is situated on the grounds that formerly housed the Poitevin farm brewery, which was active and served the local area until 1945. The current brewery was founded in 1996 by Daniel Thiriez, who had become interested in homebrewing as a college student, and later left his career as a "human resources professional for a large supermarket chain" in the interest of reviving the tradition of the small village brewery. It exports beers in Europe, and the USA.
Alvinne is a small brewery in the hamlet of Moen near the Belgian city of Zwevegem, founded in 2002.
Lager is a type of beer brewed and conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be pale, amber, or dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term "lager" comes from the German word for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.
Cascade is one of the many cultivars of hops. Cascade hops are one of the most widely used hops by craft breweries in the United States. Cascade was the most widely planted hop by growers in the US for many years, before being surpassed by Citra hops in 2018.
The American lager or North American lager is a style of pale lager produced in the United States and Canada. Pale lagers originated in Europe in the mid-19th century and were brought to North America by German immigrants. While the Bavarian and Czech variants of this style may be firmly hopped, pale lager has developed into a modestly hopped beer in the rest of the world and sometimes uses adjuncts such as rice or corn – this is also true in the US and Canada.
Žatec Brewery is a brewery in Žatec in the Czech Republic. The firm continues the traditions of industrial brewing beer in the region dating back to 1801.
