Double Elbow - Edel-Pils
Little Thistle Brewing Co.

When I finally got the chance to put a collaboration with my brewing neighbor Austin at Forager on the schedule, we pretty quickly agreed that it'd be fun to make an homage to one of our shared favorite Northern German Pilsners. It's a special beer because it defies lots of modern German norms - it's quite dry, assertively bitter, and uses lots of hops throughout.

"Edel-Pils" means "Noble Pils" and is a title often affixed to a brewery's finest effort at making a Pilsner beer strongly accented by so-called "noble" hops, itself a loose term of uncertain origin that refers to the classic landrace varieties of the most important growing regions in Germany and Czechia.

My opening aim was to directly emulate European styles with American ingredients. As we continue onwards, I find myself deepening my commitment to exploring process tweaks to further that goal, but also expanding my definition of "homage," and embracing the nuance and particularity of American-grown ingredients. How, then, to best to re-interpret our inspiration with American ingredients and brewers. We landed on a simple answer: a couple of classic noble varieties grown by St. Croix Valley Hops in Wisconsin. They aren't the most agronomically advantageous hops, they bring a distinct character all their own to the beer, and for both of those reasons they seem to fit perfectly in the confines of the Double Elbow project.