"Pilsners" in NEIPA-focused breweries taprooms

I have had the total opposite experience.

A brewery local to me that is renowned for their ‘NEIPA’ type beers is Tired Hands. They do indeed produce high quality Juicy/Hazy hoppy beers but their lagers are top notch too. The Pilsner they produce on a rotating basis (and also can) is Trendler Pils and that beer is very good! The BA score for this beer is 3.98 (Very Good).

There are a number of other high quality lagers that Tired Hands makes:

· Helles Other People (a Munich Hells)

· Trendler Schwarzbier

· Prayer Group (American Lager)

· Etc.

Despite the high quality of their lager beers, Tired Hands does not sell a lot of them compared to their other beers. Needless to say but that is because these beers lack the ‘magical’ letters of IPA in their brand names.

Cheers!

 

Yeah... if you want a traditional pilsner at those sorts of places it can be very hit-or-miss. Some IPA-focused brewers respect the pilsner style guidelines and make really good ones [edit: like Tired Hands mentioned above]; while others are just using lager yeast to make another hazy hoppy beer. Be cautious of beers labeled as Kolsch *cough*, Blonde ale, or Cream Ale as well, if you prefer the traditional style/flavors. Unfortunately, more hazy and hoppy is what many customers want, so it's hard to blame the brewer who gives it to them.

 

How is this even possible? Lager/pilsner and hazy aren't almost from the same planet.

 

I am not completely certain what your question is here.

Breweries that are primarily know for producing Juicy/Hazy hoppy beers can produce other beer styles too. It is not an either/or proposition. I discussed the case of Tired Hands Brewing which predominantly produces Juicy/Hazy hoppy beers but also produce lagers (which I listed above) too. In additions they also make other high quality beer styles:

• Saisons (of numerous brands)
• Stouts
• Altbier
• etc.

Cheers!

 

Laziness and ignoring the "rules."

Or else they're just labeling it "Zwickel," but that's sort of lazy too -- "Aw heck, our Pilsner didn't clear." "S'okay, we'll call it Zwickel."

 

Easy to screw up a pils. Lager too cold and it's got a chill haze. Too warm and it's got undesirable flavors. Basically, a true Pils (or Kolsch, lager in general) is a testament to ones brewing ability, IMO.

Oh, Trilliums Pils is absolutely horrid. Blech.

 

Did you participate in this thread?

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/judging-the-qualities-of-a-brewer.608783/

Because of this would advocate that Trillium is not a high quality brewery?

Cheers!

 

Read it but no, the beer is just bad, period. Other than that, I could not care less about anything Trillium. I stopped seeking it out when the old bottles had 1/4 of sludge in the bottles. Not my thing, never was.

 

Personal observation - very few places are able to produce high quality traditional lagers (aka. something I'd call a Pilsner instead of a random lager or IPL) and a variety of other beers.

There 100% absolutely are some that can, but I'd say there are far more that can't or at least don't. It doesn't mean some of those lagers aren't damn good. It also has no bearing on their ability to produce a hazy IPA or a truffle cheesecake blonde either.

I think most places do it to appease current/former macro drinkers. Even in a town like Denver I still see tons of people asking for the closest thing to Bud on the menu.

 

Have you been following the Night Shift Nite Light thread by any chance?

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...disrupt-the-light-beer-category.564110/page-6

Interestingly Rob Burns (President – Night Shift Brewing) provided the background for why they started brewing an AAL light lager beer a few years ago:

“It came from internally wanted to drink an easy lite beer after a long shift. We started brewing this beer back in 2016, just on a smaller scale.”

They decided last year to produce this AAL light lager as a year round product (May 2018) and now it is their number three selling beer:

“Whirlpool, our pale ale, Santilli, our IPA, and Nite Lite, our light lager all round out our top 3 beers.”

So, even for breweries best known for producing hazy/hoppy beers they can produce quality lagers and those lagers can even (surprisingly) sell well. An interesting story IMO.

Cheers!

@robNSB

 

I've followed it loosely. That was the motivation for New Belgium's "Shift" a few years ago. Avery's Joe's Pils was a similar story. Now it seems like lots of places are following suit. Founder's, Firestone Walker, Stone, Odell, Melvin, etc.
The Night Shift lager might be the first light one I've heard of, though. Seems brilliant as long as they can keep the costs down. Most of the others range from "meh" to quite good. The knock on them is that often they're only marginally better than the macros and imports they're pattered after. While great for tasting rooms, I don't know how many people are buying these beers regularly instead of their old faves.

 

Jack, I came here to post the very same.

I made my first trip out to Tired Hands over the weekend for lunch (best "ploughman's lunch" ever btw; the breads, pickles, cheeses and cold cuts were all A++++). I picked up some HopHands, Alien Church, Trendler Schwarzbier, Trendler Pilsner, Helles Other People as well as a couple limited DIPA's from the Fermenteria (Oblivex, Photosynthesizing Tongue [DIPA version of Alien Church]).

Out of all of the beers I picked up, the lagers were the best when looking at it from a "drinking experience" . That's not to say that the hoppy offerings were bad, it's just that the scene is so jam clogged fully of great hoppy beers that they weren't really all that "special" compared to the lagers I enjoyed. Every single lager had that great crisp, dry mouthfeel with clean finish that lagers are known for. Even the Helles, which was canned in January, was a much better overall drinking experience than any of the hoppy beers I purchased. It's really unfortunate that Tired Hands is mostly renowned for their crazy/weird hoppy beers despite brewing some of the best European styles in PA (saison was great, English Mild was outstanding, etc.).

Cheers!

 

Shift was such a great lager and well ahead of it's time, IMO. I'm typically not a big fan of using 'nouveau' hops like Nelson in a traditional lager but that beer really did a fantastic job of highlighting that hop varietal. Wish they'd consider bringing it back.

 

I agree with others that it's not a generalizable phenomenon, but I *have* had a couple of unexpectedly murky beer experiences at such places. Gristhouse in Pittsburgh had a Berliner Weisse* that had the look and feel of a hazy IPA (still tasty though) and a brewery outside of San Diego (can't remember which one) had a very hazy "Mexican" lager which was especially confusing.

I didn't take either case as inability really, just odd choices.

*this was not a hoppy lactose Berliner like those that Grimm makes. It was billed as just a plain old Berliner Weisse.

 

Not sure about NEIPA makers per say, but some of my favorite pilsners have come from the state of Vermont. Foam, HF, Lost Nation and of course Von Trappe. All 4 of these brewers make outstanding pilsners IMO. Must be the water.

 

From my limited experience with NEIPA focused brewers (Tree House, Proclamation), I prefer to enjoy their NEIPAs (and Pale Ales that drink like NEIPAs) and shop for lagers else ware.

There are so many great lager producers to choose from around here.

 

Yeah it wasn't good. And it wasn't like it was an IPL or anything. Somehow it had no Pils malt aroma or flavor.

I have wanted to try it again though, as I only had it once on draft at the new restaurant.

To be fair, they had to remove their Pfaffenheck (their German Pils) from their year round line up because sales had slipped. I felt this was a good Pils too.

So while something like Nite Lite is selling well, a more "traditional" lager like their Pils did not sell well.

 

Monkish's pilsners and more traditional lagered beers have been pretty on point.

Modern Times has been making decent ones too. Polyrythmo comes to mind.

 

Trillium’s Pilsner does taste like an actual Pilsner though, it’s not hoppy and hazy like an IPA.

Tree House’s Pilsner Trail Magic is also not very hoppy and is supposed to taste like a decent lager Pils, but it kind of tasted like apple juice when I had it, and it was hazy.

It all depends on the NE IPA brewery. Hill Farmstead makes some good traditional Pilsners and lagers as well as making hazy IPAs.