Munich’s answer to the Bohemian pilsner boom — a pale gold lager that emphasizes soft, bready, slightly sweet Munich-style malt over hop character. Less bitter and more malt-rounded than a German pilsner. Typically 4.7–5.4% ABV. The everyday beer of Bavaria.
In the glass
Origin
Helles (German for “pale”) was developed by Munich’s Spaten Brewery as a response to the encroachment of Bohemian pilsners on the Bavarian market. Spaten had been moving toward paler lagers for half a century — its 1841 märzenbier was Munich’s first “paler-than-dunkel” lager, and by 1872 Franziskaner-Leist-Brauerei’s “Helles Export Bier” (not actually a helles by modern standards) and by 1893 Hacker-Bräu’s Münchner Gold (a direct Pilsner imitation) had further primed Munich’s market for pale lager. Spaten brewed the first “real” helles on March 21, 1894 and sent it to Hamburg for initial market testing, where it was a hit. Munich’s own drinkers did not taste it until June 20, 1895, under the label “Helles Lagerbier”; the German Imperial Patent Office granted a registered trademark that same year.
Helles was not welcomed by all of Munich’s brewers. On November 7, 1895 the Verein Münchener Brauereien (Association of Munich Breweries) held a stormy meeting at which several of the largest owners declared they would not make pale lagers, and drafted a resolution proposing an anti-pale-lager cartel to protect the dunkel market. The meeting failed to reach agreement — brewers who wanted to make helles simply proceeded, and those who did not held out. Paulaner, among the more conservative, did not introduce a helles until 1928. Today helles and pilsner are roughly equally popular in Bavaria (each around one-quarter of the local market), but helles remains rare outside Bavaria, where pilsner still dominates.
Notes
The best examples of helles have a slightly sulfurous character — a whiff, really, reminiscent of a working brewery fermentation room — that comes from the yeast and is generally treated as a sign of a well-made beer rather than a flaw. You may also run into a “Bavarian Export,” which is simply a stronger version of helles (around 5.5% ABV); don’t confuse it with Dortmunder Export, which is a different, hoppier style from Westphalia in the north.
Defining examples
Augustiner Helles·Paulaner Münchner Hell·Weihenstephaner Original·Spaten Premium Lager·Hofbräu Original