I guess that I am just not that literal when brewing. The beer is more of a take on Vienna, so are Mexican clones of the Vienna style that are held up as standards; hence, the addition of “ish.” In this instance “ish” means inspired by, but not exactly an attempt to create a true to style beer. What is Vienna? Well, although pale for the period of time in which it was introduced, Vienna could be classified as the original amber lager. This particular beer was an attempt to meet the gravity, bitterness level, and SRM of Vienna while not tasting wildly out of style.
What exactly makes this beer an American amber? As far as to the grist composition, the Pilsner, Munich, and CaraRed malt used in the recipe are continental in origin. If it was an American amber, American 2-row and specialty malts would be employed. The blend I used maximized the use of my stock of ingredients. I do not stock Vienna malt, nor do I use Vienna malt enough to justify purchasing it in bulk at this point (that may change in the future if I decide to use Vienna malt as a replacement for British pale malt, which is basically what Dreher was attempting to create when he brought British kilning technology to Austria). I cannot justify buying base malt at over $2.00 per pound just to make a batch of beer when I can blend what I have on hand at $1.00 (or less) per pound. That is just my frugality showing through. Torrified wheat is something that I like to add to grists. The addition is not about flavor. It is about lace. I consider lace to the beer equivalent of “legs” in wine from an esthetic point of view. Torrified wheat tends to lead to beautiful lace that clings to the sides of a glass. Blackprinz malt? Well, no one is going to meet the SRM range of the BJCP style guide for Vienna without resorting to the use of a coloring malt (or the use/overuse of a dark caramel/crystal malt). We discussed that reality recently.
As far as to the hops, there is no surviving Austrian landrace hop. The closest thing to an Austrain hop is Styrian Goldings, which is a Fuggle selection originally grown in the Austrian state of Styria. Even though I had German Mittelfrüh and Czech Saaz in my freezer, Mt. Hood is considered to be an acceptable interchangeable replacement for landrace noble hops in blends. That is the role for which the cultivar was bred to fill and did so successfully for many years. After all, Mt. Hood is genetically 2/3rds Mittelfrüh and its brewing performance is much closer to that of continental landrace hops than modern American cultivars. If one accepts Magnum as a hop for use in continental styles, then one has to accept Mt. Hood because Mt. Hood is genetically more German landrace than Magnum. While a lot of ale brewers like to capitalize on Cascade’s citrus profile when used generously as a finishing hop (thanks in large part to Anchor choosing Cascade as the hop for Anchor Liberty Ale), it works surprisingly well in noble/noble-derived hop blends, restraint is key. Cascade was also originally bred to be used in this way, albeit with much lower acceptance rate than Mt. Hood.
As far as to yeast, well, where do we start? Dreher was not fermenting with a pure culture. He was fermenting with a mixed culture of Saccharomyces pastorianus and cryotolerant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, as were all brewers employing bottom fermentation techniques at that point in time. Lager pure cultures did not exist until Emil Christian Hansen isolated Carslberg Unterhefe No. 1 in 1883; therefore, using a yeast culture that we classify as “Bohemian” today in fermenting Vienna-style beer is not off of the mark. The reality is that being part of a relatively young species within the Saccharomyces genus, Saccharomyces pastorianus strains have nowhere near the genetic diversity found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. L28 Urkel is one of five different yeast strains that used to be employed in beer production at Pilsner Urquell. It is classified as the “D” strain, which is no longer used by the brewery. Where did Pilsner Urquell obtain its original mixed culture? Well, Josef Groll imported it from Bavaria (some people claim that he smuggled the mixed culture into Bohemia, but evidence points to the culture being acquired legally). It makes sense that Groll started with a Bavarian culture because he was a Bavarian brewer before taking over Pilsner Urquell. The reality is that there is no such thing as a Vienna yeast culture that can be tied to Dreher.
In the end, what qualifies as a Vienna beer let alone a Viennaish beer? Does it require a triple decoction mash and two-plus hour boil? Is Zatec Red (Czech Saaz from the Zatec Region) the only hop cultivar allowed in Vienna-style beer? At that point in time, Zatec Red was still the king of the noble hop cultivars by a large margin. We have no surviving recipe or living example of the beer style, so we are left with more questions than answers. If the only requirement for Vienna-style beer is the use of continental Vienna malt, which may or may not be true to original Dreher spec, then that opens up a world of possibilities.
By the way, I just Googled “Vienna Cascade Mt. Hood” just to see if anyone else was crazy (open-minded?) enough to try the combo in a Vienna-style beer. Surprisingly, here is a commercial beer that is classified as being in the Vienna style that has the same hop bill and a grist that is not wildly different: Brews | Sprecher Brewing Company Is it a Vienna-style beer? It depends on who one asks the question.