The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid-19th century, when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied them to existing lagering methods. This approach was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll of Bavaria, who produced Pilsner Urquell in the city of Pilsen, Austria-Hungary (now Plzeň in the Czech Republic). The resulting Pilsner beers—pale-colored, lean and stable—gradually spread around the globe to become the most common form of beer consumed in the world today.