Beer Baron: A quest for perfection and a new landmark pilsner

We won’t be seeing Kid Kölsch this summer.

It was probably my favorite beer introduced during the now 12-year run of this column, debuting in 2019 and returning each of the last three years as a summer seasonal. It will surely return at some point, but I will miss Kid until then.

But Dan Carey and his team at New Glarus Brewing did me a solid by replacing it with probably my favorite style. And there’s no brewer I trust more to execute perfection in a lager (or just about any traditional style) than Carey.

So when New Glarus announced Pilsner a couple of weeks ago, it did so with a flourish, noting in social media posts and right there on the beer’s label that it represents a quest for perfection, that the ideal pilsner is Carey’s “holy grail.”

And for him, the ideal pilsner is a hybrid of the Czech and German variants. It uses primarily a blend of German-grown hops anchored by Diamant, a variety Carey had a hand in restoring to commercial production. It uses double decoction mashing, traditional open fermentation and was lagered for more than six weeks. It’s a close iteration from 22 Pils, released last summer only at the brewery.

“This is kind of a blend of both styles because I think there’s merits in both,” Carey said on a recent episode of “New Glarus Brewing Podcast.” “I tried to make a beer that’s aromatic, malty and has enough bitterness that people know that it’s a pilsner.”

Carey stops short of saying he’s achieved that perfection; that’s just not how brewers think. But it’s also clear he’s made exactly the pilsner he wants, and between the lines of his comments and the archetypal, no-frills name, it’s fairly obvious we’ll be seeing this beer regularly from New Glarus.

“Perfection is never achieved, and certainly, every time we brew, we learn a little bit, so there are maybe little subtle tweaks that I might make, like change the mash temperature a little bit or change the hopping rate, or when we add the hops,” he said. “But the basic structure will be recognizable.”

New Glarus Pilsner

What it’s like: Pilsner has a wide range of expressions, and New Glarus’ is somewhat more bitter (“crisp” is the term breweries often use) than most, with a distinctly German hop expression. It’s a tough comp, but fans of North Coast Scrimshaw and Victory’s Prima Pils should find it well met.

Where, how much: This year Pilsner is a seasonal release listed on the brewery’s brand calendar through June in 12-packs of cans (around $16, you won’t have a problem getting through that package) and six-packs of bottles ($9). Reports of very brisk early sales and the long lead time for Pilsner (vs. the quicker-turn Kid Kölsch) have me wondering if we might see bare shelves where this beer used to be.

Booze factor: New Glarus hasn’t disclosed Pilsner’s ABV, but it’s likely between 4% and 5%.

Up close: The cool thing about pilsner is that it’s relatable to everyone on the planet. It looks and smells like what everyone knew for basically a century as plain ol’ beer: pale gold, white head, fizzy, smells like beer. More specifically, Pilsner’s aroma is bright and herbal, with just a touch of spiciness down deep. A sip — or, let’s be honest, a nice, big gulp — is met with assertive hop character and moderate bitterness up front. Carey calls it “intense”: It’s herbal, again, with a little bit of citrus and cracked pepper before a wave of malt comes in to reset the palate. There’s a richness here — I’m guessing that’s the decoction mash technique manifesting — but not a heaviness. A touch of bitterness snaps back in the dry finish, the crispness that so often defines this style and plays here perfectly with the light effervescence. It all invites another pull from the glass, and another.

It is Dan Carey’s perfect pilsner, and I can see many nodding along, because it is a great beer. I am going to drink a lot of this beer this summer, but it is not my perfect pilsner. I will devour aggressive, bitter IPAs and stouts, but it’s taken me several years to realize that when it comes to pilsners and other lighter, pale beers, I value delicate hop character above all else, even if that’s not entirely true to style. I’ve found that attribute in beers like Crooked Stave’s Von Pils, Dovetail Kölsch and Helles, New Glarus’ own Kid Kölsch, and even the early batches of Ale Asylum’s 12 oz. Curl. There’s a complexity in New Glarus Pilsner, but it’s not a delicate beer. And this is the beauty of beer: Even if one is (nearly) perfectly executed, it’s not going to be perfect for everyone.

Bottom line: 4½ stars (out of 5)