What is a New Zealand Pilsner?

It looks like a lager. It smells like a glass of sauvignon blanc.

That's the whole trick.

A New Zealand Pilsner is a pilsner built the traditional way, with pilsner malt, a clean cold fermentation and a dry finish, then hopped entirely with New Zealand varieties instead of the European noble hops the style grew up with. Same skeleton. Completely different personality.

Pale gold in the glass. Crisp, dry, properly bitter. And an aroma that goes tropical fruit, white wine and crushed citrus, which is not what your brain expects from something that looks like a lager.

Where it came from

New Zealand, in the mid-nineties.

The style is usually traced back to Emerson's in Dunedin, who took a European pilsner recipe and hopped it with what was growing locally instead of importing the traditional stuff. What came out didn't taste like any pilsner anyone had had before, and it was better for it.

Three decades on it's a style in its own right, brewed well beyond New Zealand, and one of very few genuinely new lager styles to come out of anywhere in that time.

Why New Zealand hops taste like that

Isolation, mostly.

Almost all New Zealand hops are grown at the top of the South Island, around Nelson and Motueka. It's a long way from anywhere, and the hop industry there developed its own breeding programme rather than planting European varieties and hoping.

That distance turned out to be an advantage. New Zealand's hop gardens have historically been free of the diseases that plague growing regions elsewhere, which meant breeders could chase aroma instead of resilience. Decades of selecting for flavour rather than survival, on the other side of the world from everyone else.

The results don't taste like anything in Europe or America.

The hops, by name

Nelson Sauvin is the famous one, and the name is not subtle. It was named for its sauvignon blanc character: white wine, gooseberry, crushed grape. Nothing else smells like it.

Riwaka is grapefruit and passionfruit at full volume. Intense, and in short supply most years.

Motueka brings lime and lemon with a tropical edge underneath.

Wai-iti is softer, stone fruit and mandarin.

Kohatu leans tropical and floral.

Put any of those over a clean lager base and you get something that drinks like a pilsner and smells like a fruit bowl.

NZ Pilsner vs German vs Czech

Same family, three different arguments.

German pilsner is the dry one. Noble hops like Hallertau and Tettnang give it floral, herbal, faintly spicy character, and the finish is crisp and short. Restrained, in the best sense.

Czech pilsner is softer and rounder. More malt sweetness, Saaz hops, a fuller body and a golden colour that comes from a longer, more involved brewing process.

New Zealand pilsner keeps the German dryness and throws the restraint out. The malt stays quiet, the finish stays clean, and the hops do something that would get you thrown out of a brewery in Bavaria.

If you like pilsner but wish it smelled like an IPA, this is the one.

What to expect in the glass

Most sit between 5% and 5.5%, though the style stretches at both ends.

Pale straw to light gold. A firm bitterness that arrives late and doesn't hang around. Very little malt sweetness getting in the way. And aroma doing most of the talking, which is unusual for a lager and the entire point of this one.

Serve it cold but not ice cold. Too cold and you lose the aroma, which is the bit you came for.

Drink it fresh, too. Hop aroma is the first thing to fade in any beer, and in a style that depends on it, a tired can is a waste of everyone's time.

Ours

We brew two.

So True is our Imperial NZ Pilsner at 6.9%. A crisp pilsner, supercharged, with a hop intensity that usually belongs to something twice as heavy. Brewed with Riwaka, Motueka & Superdelic for lush fruitiness. 

Fresh Drop is our fresh hop NZ Pilsner at 5.5%, brewed with Double Vision in Wellington N.Z
We were so excited they could access fresh Nelson Sauvin & Superdelic hops straight from the vine and even more stoked to hear they were chartering a small plane to fly its precious hop cargo from the fields to the brewery within a couple of hours.
When it's gone, it's gone….. well until next hop season.

Shop SURE lagers and pilsners. Delivered anywhere in Australia.