I brewed a “Classic American Pilsner” style beer which is the name of a pre-prohibition recipe—resurrected by a home-brewer named Jeff Renner.
It seems that the barley varieties that grew in America in the 1800s were more of the British kind—6 row, which only work in making ale. The 2 row German and Czech seed, malted and used in lagers, just didn’t do well here. 6 row barley has the wrong chemistry to make good light colored pilsners or helles beers, so the German and Czech immigrants experimented with 6 row barley and found that if they added and adjunct—usually corn then—the chemistry would change just enough to produce a decent tasting approximation of the pilsner from the old country.
Of course everyone knows the post-prohibition beers are adjunct beers too(usually rice, but also corn) but they’ve been dumbed down in taste and hops, and other ways—so much so that those of us that appreciate high quality beer, generally just cannot even drink a Bud or a Miller (or a Coors, or a ...) as it’s like average office coffee compared to Starbucks.
The pre-prohibition recipes though didn’t use as much corn however, and used enough quality malt and hops making the beers hearty.... so that the beers really did approximate normal European all-malt beers.
I liked my pre-prohibition recipe—even though I could taste the corn (a little)...and it sure tasted a LOT better than a Budmillercoorspbr.....
Office coffee is just bland. Starbucks blows.