Occidental Brewing Company and Kulshan Brewing Company collaborate to release Northwest Pilsner

It's a classic case of North and South, Portland and Bellingham, Washington and Oregon, Kulshan Brewery and Occidental Brewing Company. Inspired after barely losing to Bellingham's Kulshan, Occidental negotiated a proper congratulations for the boys and girls of Bellingham by inviting them down to Portland to brew, you guessed it, a Pilsner.

This collab came about because we ended up going head to head against Kulshan when we both made it to the final round of Peak's and Pints bracket Pilsner Challenge back in April. They ended up beating us, but during our time together in Tacoma at the event, we realized what a wonderful group of people they were and we obviously knew they could brew a great beer, so we wanted to do our next Northwest Pilsner collaboration with them. A few phone calls and emails later they came down from Bellingham and spent a day at Occidental brewing this Pilsner which turned out excellent!

Brewed with sharing ideas in mind, this version of Occidental's Northwest Pilsner has copious amounts of citrus and tropical fruit notes, through the use of Azacca hops and a few nods from Kulshan. In addition to tropical and citrus, the beer also have inspired notes of mango, pine, and oranges before slapping the palate on its backside with some bitterness. At 5% (ABV) and 35 IBU (International Bittering Units), this beer will come in hand when thoughts of lawnmower beer need a visual aid, during these Autumn months.

If you want to be one of the first to try this, you should head over to Pint Defiance on Thursday, October 17th. While there, you can have a chat with the men and women of both breweries, Occidental and Kulshan.

Special thanks to Alex from Occidental for this thumbnail photo of (in order, left to right) Dave,(Kulshan) Wesley, (Kulshan) Sam (Occidental) and Katie (Kulshan).