Back in the day, talking late 70's early 80's, the old silver bullet was a pretty good drop. Unfortunately the brewery got wiped out by a fairly obscure infection that they couldn't control. The product bearing the same name now isn't really a patch on the original.
The Resch brothers started out making a very faithful German Pilsner with a bit of Hallertau Mittlefruh in the tail.
If I was looking to make something similar I would go with something like
95% German Pilsner Malt - I would choose the Weyermann Premium Pilsner
5% Carrapillis/Carrafoam - Again the Weyermann
Mash a little on the cooler side if you aren't step mashing, go for a fairly highly attenuative wort.
Target an OG of around 12.5oP or 1.050
Use a very soft water, especially avoid Sulphate.
Bitter to 30-35 IBU with a good German noble hop - Probably use Hallertau Mittlefruh throughout, A good German grown duel purpose hop like Perl, Magnum or Northern Brewer could work and save a few dollars.
Late kettle hop with a bit more Mittlefruh - Just go fairly easy say 0.5g/L max
Use a lot of a good Lager yeast and ferment cool 8-10oC - Saf 34/70 would do if you wanted a dry yeast
Then Lager, Lager, Lager… at least 3-4 weeks at -1oC at a minimum.
If you are bottle conditioning, I would think seriously of adding a bit of re-hydrated yeast and bulk priming, there is a very good chance that a long and hard enough Lager to do the job properly would drop out all your primary yeast.
Bringing back some very fond memories.
Mark
