“We like that it’s easy drinking like a lager but has the bold flavour profile of an IPA”
And they do love Lagers. Since founding Hargreaves Hill in Victoria’s Yarra Valley in 2004, Simon Walkenhorst and Beth Williams’s brewery has explored many classic styles, and more experimental expressions via the Beatnik range, but one beer has remained a best seller.
While Hargreaves softer, core range Dortmund Lager is beloved, it’s more forward style sibling provided the inspiration for September 2021’s exclusive Hops To Home collaboration.
Pilsner lays claim to being the original hoppy Lager. The style was created in 1842 by Josef Groll in Pilsen, Czech Republic and carries a slightly fuller body than its German sibling which arrived shortly after – both are synonymous with Hallertau, Saaz, Spalt, and Tettnang ‘Noble’ hops.
In recent years, the craft beer world has been largely occupied with hoppy IPAs and Hazy beers, however there has been a quiet resurgence of well-made Lagers, including the Italian Pilsener movement, essentially a heavy Noble hopped Pilsner.
The collaborators have taken this idea and applied a modern Citra hop extension as Hargreaves Hill’s Andrew Pretty explains.
