The Versatility of North Star Pils™ in Four Beers
When life gives you a hot, sunny beer fest – brew summer crushers using Rahr North Star Pils™!
The Rahr Eagle Brewery, our pilot facility in the Rahr Technical Center (RTC), recently had a unique opportunity to brew and serve our beer at the All Pints North beer festival in Duluth, Minnesota, on scenic Lake Superior. When developing beer recipes for the occasion, RTC brewers Sean Tynan and Jake Thompson thought it would be cool to present four different beers using the same base malt of Rahr North Star Pils™ (or as we lovingly refer to it: NSP) as at least 80% of the grist – but also pour beers that brewers and fest-goers alike would appreciate outdoors on a hot summer day (sorry, no barleywine, Triple IPA, or barrel-aged stouts here).
“The concept was to showcase the versatility of NSP across four beers that brewers specifically want to drink,” said Thompson. “We came up with recipes that include classic styles (German Pilsner, Czech Pale Lager), something that’s not really bitter and is more of a lawnmower beer (Tropical Rice Lager), and something bigger for the hopheads (West Coast IPA). This was exciting for us because we’ve used a decent amount of NSP in the past, but not in this breadth of styles and in such a short period of time due to the nature of our regular research-based work.”
Following the festival, a handful of coworkers from RahrBSG met up in the Rahr Technical Center (RTC) to taste through the beers, learn more about them from Sean and Jake, and give our feedback. We’re excited to share those notes below, and hope it inspires you to bring Rahr North Star Pils™ into your brewhouse.
What is Rahr North Star Pils™?
Before we serve up a sampler flight, here’s a quick 101 on Rahr North Star Pils™ in case you’ve never met. NSP is a domestic North American pilsner malt with low color and low modification that brings overtones of honey and sweet bread with supporting flavor and aroma notes of hay and nutty character. It is a traditional pilsner malt suitable for any beer style, but particularly classic lager styles.
Now, let’s have some beer!
Danger Eagle Pilsner – 4.9% ABV | 25 IBU | 2.6 SRM
Malt: 97% NSP, 3% Rahr Dextrin Malt (Single decoction with 20% of grist)
Hops: German Hallertau Mittelfruh, German Select, German Saphir
Yeast: Fermentis SafLager™ W-34/70 (at 56F)
This German-style Pilsner was a collaboration project between our brewers and Castle Danger Brewery in Two Harbors, Minnesota. One version was brewed at Castle Danger, and one here at the RTC, then both were served at All Pints North. For the brew day at RTC, Castle Danger head brewer Patrick McMahon and brewer Joel Fidler joined Sean and Jake on the brew deck and were also treated to a tour of several malthouses on the Rahr campus by Chris Wilhelmi, senior manager of malt production. Patrick and Joel also brought with them a keg of fabulous rice lager they brewed with Terra Fonio with which to toast the brew day. Such nice folks!
Immediately we were struck by how crushably light and dry the beer finished. It started with a nice, quick bitter swipe across the palate, and was followed by a malty yet effervescent finish. Danger Eagle Pils had honey and light Graham cracker malt notes with lemon-y and spicy hop flavors. It was definitely very easy to come back for another sip and another and another.
“My favorite part about this one is that it’s crisp, but just how smooth the bitterness is,” said Tynan. “There’s a nice end to the finish with not too much bitterness, and it doesn’t linger. We’ve had trouble matching the flavors that we want in Continental lagers – in this case, a German Pils – using North American barley. I feel like this malt produced a really great variation of it.”
Brewers from Castle Danger Brewery tour Rahr Malting Co. facilities with Senior Manager of Malt Production Chris Wilhelmi.
Tropical Rice Lager – 5.9% ABV | 20 IBU | 1.9 SRM
Malt: 80% NSP, 20% Crisp Torrefied Flaked Rice | (Mashed at 147F)
Hops: Cascade, Mosaic®, Cashmere, El Dorado®
Yeast: Fermentis SafLager™ E-30 (60F)
One taster noted that this beer was probably the most hop-forward rice lager they’d ever had, in a very good way, with major notes of stone fruit, ripe apricot, and passionfruit, and a pleasant underlying dankness as it warms. In the kettle, the beer had a bittering charge of Cascade hops with “a whisper of Mosaic at the end.” It was dry-hopped at 1.75 lbs/barrel with Cashmere and El Dorado® at 4.5 days. The flaked rice helped lighten the body and paved the way for hops to stand out more boldly without necessarily being more bitter.
“To me this is similar to some other rice beers in that it is mouth-coating, but not in an abrasive way,” said Thompson. “It makes it feel more full than it is – because this is a very dry beer, but it’s not like a palate-wrecking dryness. And it also has something I’ve described as almost a light coconut flavor and mouthfeel from the rice.”
Crisp Torrefied Flaked Rice is very clean and neutral. What’s even better is it’s pregelatinized and easy to use: just throw it right into the mash tun. It, alongside the NSP, made for a wonderfully light-drinking beer that drank like a dialed down Cold IPA.
Czech Pale Lager – 5.1% ABV | 28 IBU | 3.1 SRM
Malt: 100% NSP (Single decoction with 40% of grist)
Hops: Czech Saaz
Yeast: Fermentis SafLager™ W-34/70 (at 60F)
This beer was another more classic style where the RTC crew wanted to gauge the performance of North Star Pils in place of a more traditional Continental malt. Once again, NSP flexed a fairly Germanic, almost rustic, pilsner malt flavor. The single hop, Czech Saaz, provided pleasant floral and woodsy character. Although it’s nearly the same IBU as Danger Eagle Pils, the perceived bitterness was much higher in the Czech Pale Lager. It also drank more medium bodied, which was intentional. Also intentional, the use of Kerry Biomatex L ALDC enzyme to prevent diacetyl from forming. Although a low level of diacetyl is considered appropriate for the style, both Sean and Jake agree that they prefer their Czech Pale Lagers clean. Fun fact: the worts of all four of these beers were treated with the enzyme.
West Coast Pils – 7.5% ABV | 40 IBU | 3.6 SRM
Malt: 92% NSP, 3% Extra Pale White Wheat
Other Fermentable: 5% Dextrose
Hops: Simcoe®, Cryo Simcoe®, Cryo Mosaic®, Krush™
Yeast: Fermentis SafAle™ US-05 (at 68°F)
Holy hops! The nose on this West Coast IPA was super pungent with big juicy tropical fruit, citrus, and ripe red berry notes. And a hop oil finish gave the beer a perception of sticky, almost syrupy, nectar, even though it’s an extremely dry beer by the numbers (FG: 1.3°P)
The beer is mostly NSP with a small percentage of Extra Pale White Wheat (for head retention and mouthfeel) mashed at 147°F, plus dextrose to help further dry it out. Hopped in the kettle with Simcoe, Cryo Simcoe®, and Cryo Mosaic®, then dry-hopped with an even split of Simcoe®, Mosaic®, and Krush® at a rate of 2 lbs/bbl. In a beer so powerfully hoppy, a great base malt is key, and NSP is the perfect canvas from which to start.
“The main takeaway from NSP in a West Coast IPA is that it’s a great light color base,” said Thompson. “Seems to me that true West Coast-style IPAs are trying to get as light as possible with very little distraction in order to show off your chosen hops, which NSP does. Contrast that with the Danger Eagle Pils where NSP adds a light honey maltiness that drinks nicely with the floral characteristics in noble hops.”
Tynan agreed, “NSP is a great base malt for Pale Ale, IPAs, any style to showcase the hops depending how you want to use it. And even though we didn’t use many speciality malts as part of this project, we know from working with NSP in the past that it does work well with a full range of speciality malts.”
Keep Your Eyes on the North Star (Pils)!
To wrap up our taste panel at the RTC’s Rahr Eagle Brewery, we ask both brewers for their final thoughts on this project and the performance of Rahr North Star Pils™ across the beers.
“For me, this was fun just to see what NSP can do,” said Thompson, “and how the color was slightly different across them. With the West Coast IPA coming in at 3.6 SRM and Tropical Rice Lager at 1.9 SRM, it definitely seems like a great malt choice for anyone with a goal of getting an extremely light-colored beer. Now I’m eager to use NSP in even more beers here at the RTC.”
“The other thing that was cool was getting out and talking with brewers,” said Tynan. “Customers were coming up to us all day at All Pints North, asking us what we were doing to get certain flavors in our beers – especially the two more classic styles: German Pils and Czech Pale. It was nice to have a lot of face-to-face interactions with fellow brewers and share our beer with them.”
Contact your RahrBSG sales rep to add Rahr North Star Pils™ to your next order, and tell us what kind of beers you are brewing with it. Please share your experiences with us by tagging @RahrBSG in your brew day photos and video. Happy brewing!
Go Farther North:
- It’s All Good for Good Line Beer Co. with Rahr North Star Pils™
- Into the Pizza Oven with Rahr North Star Pils™
- Rahr North Star Pils™ in the Brewhouse: Revolution Brewing Rev Pils
