It’s All Good for Good Line Beer Co. with Rahr North Star Pils™
They say good things come in small packages. That’s certainly true at Good Line Beer Co. in Lubbock, Texas, where one of the Lone Star State’s smallest breweries is making amazing beer across many styles. Good Line recently won Small Brewery of the Year (Under 620 bbl) at the 2025 Texas Craft Brewers Cup Awards, a competition where over the past three years it’s won nine medals for German and Czech Lager, Barleywine and Strong Ale, Hazy IPA, American IPA, and Strong Hoppy Beer categories. The secret to their success? Many of these beers are built on a base of Rahr North Star Pils™, which owner-brewer Chris Troutman calls a key malt in the brewhouse.
Troutman joins us on the blog to share why he shifted from other base malts to North Star Pils. He also offers his advice for brewing with it, and talks about how Fermentis active dry yeast strains play a crucial role in maintaining consistency and quality when brewing in the remote Texas Panhandle.
RahrBSG: Tell us a little bit about your journey to opening Good Line Beer Co. and how you landed in Lubbock.
Chris Troutman: I started brewing at home in 2006. I was involved in beer media in Austin with the Austin Beer Guide until about 2018, when I made the decision to move to Lubbock to open Good Line rather than trying to start a brewery in the well-saturated market in Austin. At the time there was only one brewery in Lubbock, so it felt like a perfect place to grow. We opened in a unique commercial-residential zone right next to Texas Tech University, surrounded by small businesses.
RahrBSG: Good Line Beer Co. focuses largely on lagers and IPAs. How did you come to incorporate Rahr North Star Pils™ into your recipes?
Chris: We were first turned on to North Star Pils by a good buddy, Niko Tonks [now head brewer at Little Thistle Brewing Co.]. He helped us set up the brewery and did some collaborative brews with us. He suggested we try North Star Pils in a hoppy wheat beer with 50% North Star Pils, 50% Rahr White Wheat, and a bunch of crazy juicy hops. We fell in love with that beer and that malt. The malt was versatile, and we noticed it worked well with our hoppy beers. I had already started shifting from 2-row to Pilsner malt in some of our hazy IPAs, and North Star Pils fit that shift perfectly. Being a domestic malt, the price point is nice too.
RahrBSG: How does Rahr North Star Pils™ compare to 2-Row? What made you make the switch?
Chris: A few years ago the industry started moving towards Pilsner malt in place of 2-Row for certain styles. Just as far as the idea of not letting the malt get in the way. Having something where the malt can prop up a huge amount of hops, but also works well with Rahr White Wheat and oats for haze. It’s a no brainer. North Star Pils provides a more neutral base that doesn’t interfere with the hops, but it still has enough character to support them. I tend to get a bit of cracker or small bready notes from the malt. It is just as consistent as any Pils malt I’ve used and provides a much cleaner finish. It works particularly well in our hazy beers, holding haze stability, but it also works for clearer beers like West Coast Pilsners. The malt is perfect for a range of beers.
I do still use Rahr Standard 2-Row for specific beers like Bitter Buffalo, our American IPA that got bronze this year at Texas Craft Brewers Cup. That’s Rahr Standard 2-Row, Rahr Red Wheat, Vienna, and a touch of Weyermann® CARAAMBER®. I’m still using 2-Row on that one because I want that beer to express a little more traditionally.
RahrBSG: It’s awesome to see a brewer as passionate as we are about North Star Pils. In what beer styles do you use it most?
Chris: We use North Star Pils in a variety of beers, from hazy IPAs to West Coast Pilsners and even American light lagers. I love how it adapts to different styles, whether it’s providing a solid foundation for hops or helping retain a creamy mouthfeel in conjunction with flaked wheat and oats in hazy beers. It’s a key ingredient in our award-winning hazy beers, like Floating in Space and Clouds of Fog. Most of our beers, especially the new school hoppy styles, start with North Star Pils as the base.
We do a series of West Coast DIPAs, and I have switched all of those over North Star Pils from 2-Row. Again, the same thing as a West Coast Pilsners, they clear up nicely. It’s almost a bridge between West Coast Pils and hazy IPAs. It does its job of attenuating well, converting sugars, and providing a nice, clean alcohol without any graininess. There’s really nothing that’s getting in the way of delivering a ton of hops.
RahrBSG: On the other end of the spectrum from West Coast DIPAs is your new American light lager, Friendo – obviously a great Texas-y No Country for Old Men reference.
Chris: For sure! We recently released Friendo, our American light lager, which is built around North Star Pils. It’s North Star Pils with some Crisp Torrefied Flaked Rice to help dry it out. Hopped with a little bit of Columbus, and a kiss of Czech Saaz in the whirlpool to give it some herbal essence. I think the Saaz hops are just for me to feel like it’s more of a traditional lager. [laughs] Our staff describes the flavor profile of Friendo as “cold bubbles” – carbonated to hell and served super cold. It’s just amazingly easy to drink.
The story behind the beer is simple. Feedback we’ve gotten is that people want the option of a good, cheap cold beer. On my brew schedule the beer is still named Five Dollar Lager. That’s the idea behind that beer: a $5 lager. We serve it in a 14-ounce glass with a 12-ounce pour plus foam. It allows us to have an affordable, COGS-friendly, consumer-friendly, daily driver lager beer.
RahrBSG: You don’t hear about it a lot, but it makes complete sense to build a beer from the ground-up with cost per pint in mind. It is a business after all.
Chris: Exactly. We built Friendo based on COGS and demographics. We opened a second taproom outside of town connected to a really popular barbecue place, Evie Mae’s Pit Barbeque. We took over their private event space and put a taproom in there. Initially, I sent out all the hoppy beers we were making. They were just dying out there. The beers were not moving, and the kegs were collecting dust. We talked to the bartenders, talked to some of the people who go out there, and realized they just want a $5 lager. We built that beer to help prop up that taproom. It’s done really well there as well as here at our main location, alongside more aggressively hopped beers. It’s very cool to see.
RahrBSG: Any technical brewing advice for using North Star Pils in the brewhouse?
Chris: I mean, I’m not a real technical brewer. We’re a single infusion system. Most of my mash is about 30 minutes in the 149-151°F; I don’t get too warm on it. Typically when I’m using North Star Pils it’s for something I want to be pretty crisp and clean. I get up to about 154°F for the bigger hazy stuff. But typically, lower temp mashes. Ninety-minute boil on all lagers. However, we use the Kerry Biomatex L ALDC enzyme at pitch, so typically diacetyl is not really an issue for us either way.
RahrBSG: Fermentis yeast also seems important to your brewing process and end product.
Chris: I’ve been using Fermentis yeast for years. It was a practical decision at first, but now it’s a matter of consistency. When you’re out here in Lubbock, it’s not like in Austin where you can just swing by one of dozens of breweries to grab yeast. With Fermentis dry yeast, I don’t have to worry about it sitting on a hot truck or paying the higher cost for a liquid pitch. It’s reliable, and the yeast strains like Fermentis SafLager™ 34/70 and Fermentis SafAle™ US-05 work great in our beers. We’ve never had a failed pitch with dry yeast. We’ve won nine medals and the Best Small Brewery trophy over the past three years, all with 100% dry yeast.
RahrBSG: What are your go-to Fermentis yeast strains?
Chris: Most of our American and European style lagers use Fermentis SafLager™ 34/70. I also like Fermentis SafLager™ S-189 – the Swiss dry lager yeast – specifically for the Pilsner. Seems like it flocculates and drops out a little better. It’s snappier, and the beer really pops. For our American and West Coast IPAs, I use the Fermentis SafAle™ US-05, which is great for a clean fermentation with a nice hop character.
RahrBSG: Being located in the Texas Panhandle, how do you manage logistics when it comes to sourcing ingredients and getting them to the brewery?
Chris: I really have to plan ahead. I’ve got a project manager background. I thought that when I quit to start brewing, I’d be done with spreadsheets. But, I use spreadsheets every day to make sure I have what I need because I know that everything is going to take an extra day to get out here. Raw materials are a challenge, but I’ve got a great partner in RahrBSG and I trust them to get me the good stuff. When I place my order with RahrBSG I max out my pallets to get enough for a few brews, knowing that I can spread that out over a week or two. And, of course, about half of that is usually North Star Pils!
RahrBSG is proud to provide Rahr North Star Pils™ and the full line of Fermentis yeast strains for your brewhouse. Contact your sales rep to have them included on your next order – no matter how remote your brewery is!
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