257: West Coast Pilsner Roundtable With Firestone Walker, Highland Park, and Humble Sea

West Coast pilsner is the subject of this month’s roundtable, and we’ve assembled a talented cast of brewers to further the discussion. From the Firestone Walker Propagator brewhouse in Venice, California, Sam Tierney returns to the podcast. Highland Park Brewery founder Bob Kunz joins from their location in Los Angeles. And from Santa Cruz, California’s Humble Sea Brewery, cofounder Nick Pavlina rounds out the panel. The topic is West Coast pilsner, and each make excellent examples the style, from Highland Park’s award-winning Timbo Pils to Firestone Walker’s Welcome to LA and Humble Sea’s Santa Cruz Pils. Here, the brewers discuss: the challenge in building body and structure to balance hop loads in the lean beer simplifying malt bills and using domestic pilsner malt for higher attenuation finding better hop expression through restraint in the dry hop avoiding excessive malt complexity to allow the hops to shine layering in lower-alpha hops to build texture and support the fruitier modern hop notes selecting aroma hops for cohesion managing hop creep distinguishing West Coast pilsner from cold IPA and Italian-style pilsner And more. This episode is brought to you by: Accubrew ( https://accubrew.io ) : AccuBrew is an analytical tool designed to collect and compare the information brewers need to produce consistent results and continuously improve the process of fermentation. AccuBrew is more than a progress bar and early warning system. It is an ever evolving piece of technology tailored to you and your process. Save time and turn tanks faster. Monitor and compare batch progress in real-time. Enter notes, set custom reminders and temperature alerts. And detect process issues before a batch is ruined. Quality, consistency, and confidence. That is what AccuBrew delivers! Visit accubrew.io today, for a no obligation 90 day trial! BSG ( https://bsgcraftbrewing.com ) Brought to you by CanCraft and BSG. Whether you need a full-service packaging experience, from design to delivery, or you just need some aluminum cans, CanCraft can do. CanCraft’s design & aluminum specialists are here to support your business every step of the way. Visit bsgcraftbrewing.com/CanCraft to learn how CanCraft can help realize your brand potential. G&D Chillers ( https://gdchillers.com ) : What if you could chill your beer with a more efficient chiller? The Answer? G&D Chillers new Micro Channel Condensers! G&D’s Micro Channel Condensers are highly efficient in hotter regions, use a fraction of the refrigerant over traditional chillers which provides less opportunity for leaks along with lower global warming potential. G&D Chillers’ Engineers are committed to green technology design, while developing a more energy efficient chiller for the brewing industry. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast