BREWERY BEHIND THE SCENES: Tradition vs. Innovation

The forces of innovation and tradition are at play in every beer we make, and no style illustrates this better than our Pilsners! Clever Kiwi and Pistil are our core examples of this style and are born out of the exploration of history, time, progress, and creativity. With both now freshly packed into cans in time for hot summer temps, we'd like to shine the spotlight onto these pilsners and why brewing them is so important to our mission.

Pistil is our German Pils brewed with German yeast, hops, and malts, perfectly embodying the rich history and tradition that are trademark of the Pilsner style. Its crisp, refreshing body paired with incredibly clean aromatics make it ideal for summer sipping. We trialed different German yeasts on Pistil over the last two years until we found the perfect profile, and over time it's become extremely popular on draft in our taproom and across San Diego. Due to its lagering period of at least 6 weeks, which is almost double the amount of time needed to ferment and clean up ales, for example, we haven't had the brewhouse capacity to regularly can Pistil — until now! With the recent additions to our arsenal of tanks and equipment, we knew the time had come to put this delicious beer back in cans.

When you open a can of Pistil, look for delicious, floral-lemon-spice aromatics and delicate ester nuances indicative of German lager yeast.

Clever Kiwi embraces the same malts and Saphir hops as Pistil with significant and creative twists, including multiple additions of our hand-selected @freestylehops Nelson Sauvin. Not only does it receive a whirlpool addition of this distinctive southern hemisphere hop, we further provide an innovative approach by utilizing Nelson in the dry-hop: an envelope-pushing and non-traditional technique for the style. Clever Kiwi is our approach to kellerpils, a German-style pilsner that historically undergoes a shorter lagering period and no filtration, resulting in its slightly hazy appearance.

Drinking Clever Kiwi is a soft, multi-layered experience, where Nelson hop aromas billow out of the can and expressively bright lemon-citrus notes transport you to a place you'd never expect a lager to take you.

We believe that there is a beer for everybody. It's our goal to create options that exceed the expectations of those who know what they're looking for in a style they love and to also build bridges to new and exciting beers that folks might not typically gravitate to.  Clever Kiwi is an innovative beer born out of our access to incredible crops of Nelson and matched with our passion to explore hops beyond just making killer IPAs. Pistil was developed with traditional craft at the forefront of our minds, perfectly embodying the rich history and authentic European ingredients that are trademark of the German Pilsner style. Try them side-by-side to taste what we're talking about!