A great helles is delicate—with its light maltiness, restrained sweetness, and gentle hop bitterness, it’s a showcase of soft flavors, always in balance. Arguably, this style is the ultimate test of a brewer’s skill.
As with many traditional European styles, there is a romanticism that swirls around helles, and there is no shortage of strong opinions on how it ought to be made. Some argue that decoction mashing and European malt are necessary for authenticity, or that you need whole-leaf hops to achieve the right profile.
However, the brewers winning gold medals for their golden lagers at the most prestigious beer competitions tend to take a view that’s far more pragmatic than dogmatic. Much more important to the making of a world-class helles, they say, is a detail-oriented approach to process and ingredients.
“This style of beer is driven more by techniques … than by the recipe,” says Danny Kueser, head brewer at Cinder Block in North Kansas City, Missouri.
Looking for insights into what makes a helles truly excel at the highest level, we reached out to five breweries that win on the world stage:
- Cinder Block, which won gold at the 2025 World Beer Cup for a helles brewed in collaboration with Blind Tiger in Topeka, Kansas.
- Von Trapp (Stowe, Vermont), which won gold at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival.
- Glenwood Canyon (Glenwood Springs, Colorado), which won silver for helles as well as gold for festbier at GABF 2024.
- Altstadt (Fredericksburg, Texas), gold-medal winner at GABF in 2019 and 2022 and more recently at the 2025 Texas Craft Brewers Cup.
- Private Landbrauerei Schönram (Schönram, Bavaria), whose Schönramer Hell won European Beer Star gold in 2011, 2017, and 2020.
Their Ingredients
Notably, the brewers at all five of those breweries insist on using German malts in their helles.
Among the four American brewers, all used Weyermann Pilsner for at least 80 percent of the grain bill—usually closer to 90 percent—with additions that included Weyermann Munich, Carafoam, Carapils, Carahell, and/or acidulated malts. With the “Cara” malts, the brewers were typically using two—each comprising no more than 5 percent of the grain bill, with that choice being a matter of preference.
At Schönram, brewmaster Eric Toft sources his malt locally, working with four smaller Bavarian maltings. (For much more about his approach to brewing lager, see Greatest Drinkability: The Bavarian Brewer’s Art.)
German pilsner malt has different specs and subtly different character from North American pilsner or two-row—they’re made from different barleys grown in different places, with slightly different kilning and modification levels. The fact that all five of these winning breweries are using German malts would suggest that it makes a difference, and that judges respond to that difference.
Likewise, each of those breweries is using Noble hop varieties from Germany in its helles. Never mind the romance around whole-cone hops—they’re all using T-90 pellets. However, Toft says he sometimes also uses T-45s, depending on the required hop load—and that’s more a matter of how much hop matter he wants in the wort, rather than an actual preference for T-45s. Kueser at Cinder Block underscores that the hops should be “as fresh as possible.”
“Take a gentle touch with hops,” says Jack Van Paepeghem, quality manager at Von Trapp. “A lot of helles come across as pilsner” because it’s too bitter or hop-forward. Von Trapp uses a “light” bittering addition with restrained doses again at 15 minutes and flameout.
Glenwood Canyon also goes with three hop additions, adding most of them early—the last one with 20 minutes remaining. Cinder Block’s only hop addition is at first wort, capturing some flavor as well as modest IBUs.
The choice of yeast strain varies. Altstadt uses the widely popular 34/70 strain, sourcing it from Imperial, while Schönram’s house lager strain is a close relative of 34/70. Glenwood Canyon uses the Andechs strain. At Von Trapp, Van Paepeghem declines to specify their strain, saying it’s “not 34/70, but of Bavarian heritage and commercially available.” “We like it because it’s different,” he says.
For their winning helles collab with Blind Tiger, Cinder Block pitches the BSI-960 Bavarian Bock strain, a good attenuator and low diacetyl producer.
For their water profile, Kueser says he makes adjustments based on recommendations in the book *Modern Lager, *by Jack Hendler and Joe Connolly of Jack’s Abby in Boston. At Altstadt in Texas, meanwhile, Craig Rowan says that they’ve experimented with higher ratios, but they like the results they get from a chloride-sulfate ratio that’s close to 1.6:1.
Their Kit and How It’s Shaped
Traditional open fermentation is beautiful—theatrical, even. But does it make better helles? Schönram’s fermentors are open, and “vessel geometry matters,” Toft says—their wide vats are slightly wider than they are deep. Geometry also affects conditioning, and Schönram’s horizontal lagering tanks aren’t quite twice as long as they are deep.
All four of those medal-winning American breweries, meanwhile, are using cylindroconical fermentors. Cinder Block has one horizontal tank, which it uses to lager the helles. At Glenwood Canyon, brewers Robin Reed and Jake Lancaster say they transfer to a lagering tank that has more of a dish-shaped bottom.
All five breweries are using spunding valves to capture a creamier, finer natural carbonation for their lagers, typically when the beer is 1–3°P north of terminal. That’s no surprise at Schönram—German brewers regard force-carbonation with external CO2 as a violation of the Reinheitsgebot. Toft and his team also use fresh kräusen to charge their fermentations. Glenwood Canyon occasionally kräusens its lagers.
Each brewery targets between 2.6 and 2.7 volumes of CO2. While Glenwood Canyon might adjust with a carbonation stone, if necessary, something like that would be verboten at Schönram.
Their Process Choices
Surely the best helles requires a complex decoction mash, right? Not necessarily.
Of those five breweries, only Schönram employs a decoction (single) for its helles. The rest are step mashing.
“We reserve decoction for the beers with deeper malt character,” says Van Paepeghem at Von Trapp. At Altstadt, meanwhile, Rowan says they’ve tried decocting theirs, but it added a bit more richness of flavor than they wanted.
Instead, the American breweries are employing step infusions:
- Van Paepeghem says Von Trapp employs three rests: beta, alpha, and mash out.
- Similarly, Altstadt rests at 144°F (62°C), 162°F (72°C), and 170°F (77°C).
- Cinder Block rests at 144°F (62°C), 149°F (65°C), and 158°F (70°C).
- The Glenwood Canyon team starts with a protein rest before a sacch rest at 155°F (68°C).
Reed at Glenwood Canyon says they include a small amount of Munich in the mash to achieve some of the character they might otherwise get through decoction. They also aim for a thicker mash, which—without rakes in their mash tun—leads to an uneven temperature distribution. Reed says those pockets of higher and lower temperatures partially mimic the effects of decoction.
Only one of those breweries, Glenwood Canyon, starts with a protein rest.
“We used to do a 10-minute protein rest at 122°F [50°C],” says Rowan at Altstadt. “But we stopped because we found it killed our head retention.”
Toft’s decoction at Schönram is traditional, but it’s also a way to iron out differences in their malts while achieving consistent attenuation and efficiency. For example: With changes in barley crops and varieties, Toft says he’s seen gelatinization temperatures increase—sometimes higher than the ideal range for amylase activity. Decoction helps to solve that problem because they can keep part of the mash in saccharification range while subjecting another portion to higher gelatinization temperatures.
Schönram boils its wort for 70 minutes; most of the other breweries boil for 90.
“I’ve always done a 90-minute boil,” says Kueser at Cinder Block. “We like our results.”
“We tried to shorten the boil,” says Lancaster at Glenwood Canyon. “But when we do, we get DMS in the finished beer.”
When it’s time to pitch yeast, the usual lager advice is that a big, healthy pitch is best. At Cinder Block, Kueser says he pitches double the amount they would typically use for a 15-barrel batch.
“Pitch a higher cell count than recommended,” says Van Paepeghem at Von Trapp. “This ensures cleanup of diacetyl and acetaldehyde, and the rapid fermentation will get rid of sulfur.”
However, this is an area where Altstadt goes against the grain. Rowan says they intentionally pitch a bit lower, aiming for 1.35 million cells/ml/°P. He says he wants their beer to drop 1.5°P (~0.006) per day rather than the usual 3–4°P, and that he wants the primary fermentation to last between six and seven days. Why? Firstly, because they’ve found they get better flavor stability, malt character, and mouthfeel when they don’t rush it.
“Faster fermentations give us a blander flavor and more sulfur notes,” Rowan says. “I don’t mind a little hint of sulfur, but it borders on abrasive if fermentation lasts only three or four days. Yeast is also easier to manage, and we wind up with better viability and more usable generations. We can typically go through 10 generations now without any noticeable flavor changes.”
The choice of yeast strain, among other factors, also can affect the ideal pitch size for a particular beer.
More Tips from the Medal-Winners
A great helles is easy to drink and simple in composition—but a detail-oriented approach to process and quality is what sets it apart, and the possibilities there are many and complex.
“It’s a simple beer,” says Rowan at Altstadt. “Four ingredients. A lot of it is discipline.”
Here are some additional tips and tricks:
- Clean, purge, and passivate. It should go without saying that ironclad sanitation is critical. Meanwhile, purging tanks and lines with CO2 helps to minimize oxidation for better quality and shelf life. Passivating stainless helps to preserve tanks for consistency over time. “I see it as a cautionary step,” Rowan says.
- Fresh ingredients, fresh beer. “Don’t let fresh grain get too old,” says Van Paepeghem. In helles, even a bit of oxidation can be obvious. Normally, brewers think about minimizing dissolved oxygen (DO)—but grain can oxidize, too. Freshness is obviously important for hops, too, although pellets from previous years can remain excellent if properly stored.
- Healthy yeast. Broadly, these breweries recommend fresh pitches every four to 10 generations. The exact number of generations for repitching can depend on the strain and how it changes over time, among other factors. Monitor yeast health, oxygenate properly, use nutrients that include zinc. (Toft says he’s seen barley production double over the span of his career; that’s good for farmers, but growing twice as much barley from the same amount of soil leads to lower amounts of trace minerals—such as zinc—in the malt.)
- Monitor pH. “Step One to making good beer is, get a pH meter,” Kueser says. “If you’re not paying attention to pH, what else are you not paying attention to?” Cinder Block and Blind Tiger target 5.4 in the mash, 5.1 post-boil, and a final pH of 4.2–4.3.
- Time is an ingredient. By law, Schönram can’t include “time” on its list of ingredients—but it’s important enough that the brewery, right beneath that list, adds, “and above all, time.”
- Get better. Brewing great helles is an asymptotic pursuit—aiming for perfection while knowing you’ll never quite achieve it. Brew. Take notes. Tweak. Repeat. “But,” Toft says, “you’ve got to treat every brew like it’s the only one.”
“There’s nothing sexy about making great helles,” Van Paepeghem says. “Good ingredients. Good process. Keep your eye on everything.”
Correction: In the print edition of the Fall 2025 issue, we incorrectly stated that Glenwood Canyon uses the 34/70 strain for its helles. In fact, they use the Andechs strain. We regret the error.
