The India pale ale (IPA) is easily the world’s most popular beer style, skyrocketing to the top of the craft beer canon in the late 20th century. By the mid-2010s, the style was virtually inescapable in taprooms and bottle shops, with offerings dominated by the New England (or hazy) IPA subcategory. The hazy’s popularity naturally led beer drinkers down a further path of discovery, with other substyles also gaining favor, most notably the West Coast IPA, despite the fact that its creation predates that of the NEIPA by a few decades.
While hazy IPAs are characterized by their tropical and citrus fruit flavors as well as their cloudy appearance, West Coast IPAs are notable for their punchy, resinous hop flavors, which are often much more bitter than their pithy East Coast counterparts. But while the term “West Coast” has historically, at least in the context of beers, been tied to IPAs, in recent years, a new style has emerged categorizing brews in a similar fashion: the West Coast pilsner.
But what even is a West Coast pilsner, and how exactly is it different from a West Coast IPA? Is it merely a combination of the two styles? To find out the answers to these questions and more, VinePair tapped Josh Penney, head brewer at Brooklyn’s Threes Brewing.
“Is the West Coast pils a combination? Yes and no. I mean, in a lot of ways, it is that simple,” he explains. “The style was arguably started in L.A. at Highland Park Brewery, where I used to work, and the first time it was made was actually for an IPA festival.”
The beer Penney is referring to is Timbo Pils, which was first brewed in 2015 and is widely regarded as the style’s pioneering beer. As Penney explains, the beer was basically a blend of a German pilsner and an IPA — a West Coast IPA at that. But rather than opting for crystal malt, which was standard for West Coast IPAs at the time and remains a popular choice today, the folks at Highland Park selected traditional German pilsner malt.
“The idea behind the West Coast pilsner is to structure it like a traditional pils, so think clean malts — things like German malts or Canadian malts, like we use here at Threes,” Penney says. “Here, the premise is to let the malt be subtle enough that the hops really shine through. From there, you build out the beer so that it’s refreshing and crisp, like a pilsner, but with the same hop essence and impact of an IPA.”
But how do brewers go about achieving that balance? The use of new-school hops is key. German pilsners are typically made with noble hops, which hail from Germany and the Czech Republic. These beers, as Penney describes, are much more likely to be floral, grassy, and herbal, with less of the punchy citrus aroma expected from an IPA. As such, when crafting West Coast pilsners, brewers typically opt for new-school hop varieties like Mosaic, Citra, and Simcoe as well as those from New Zealand and Australia.
The hop variety used to produce this style of pilsner isn’t the only thing that departs from tradition, though. When hops are incorporated into the brew also distinguishes West Coast pilsners from the customary style. While crafting traditional pilsners, primary hops are typically added at the start of the wort-boiling process; the West Coast pilsner sees hops incorporated mid-boil,
“When you’re boiling the wort before fermenting, you add hops for bitterness, aroma, and flavor. But the amount of physical hops matters as well,” Penney says. “This is where you’re able to ensure the beer coats the palate and has good texture. And most of that comes from these mid-boil hops.”
After the wort has been fermented, West Coast pilsners are then dry-hopped, another departure from the German tradition. This dry-hopping can be done with any new-school hops, with Penney and the team at Threes Brewing often selecting Citria and Mosaic. These varieties have been used to craft some of the West Coast pilsners they’ve produced in the past, like Wink Wink and Across the Board, a collaboration with San Diego’s North Park Beer Co. The brewery has also dry-hopped its West Coast pils with a combination of New Zealand and noble hops, as was the case with the sold-out Don’t Blink.
As for ABV, West Coast pilsners tend to be more aligned with pilsners than IPAs, with Penney describing the sweet spot as somewhere between 4.5 percent and 6 percent ABV. While it’s possible to go lower, he explains that it becomes more and more challenging to make it feel as if you’re not simply drinking water. And if brewers go any higher, the beers are too big-bodied to remain sessionable.
“The West Coast IPA is a style that you can have a few pints’ or cans’ worth and not feel this sticky, resinous coating in your gut the way you might with a higher-ABV, heavily dry-hopped IPA,” Penney says. “The beers are hoppy enough to appease people into IPAs, but not so intense that it turns others away from the style altogether.”
While the West Coast pilsner might not have the same name recognition as the West Coast IPA, its time could certainly be on the horizon. As Penney points out, the pilsner was finally awarded its own subcategory at the Great American Beer Festival in 2025, formalizing the style that previously had to be submitted under India Pale Lager (IPL).
“It’s really cool to now have a style designation through the Beer Judges Certificate Program, who are the ones setting the standard for what a beer should look, smell, and taste like,” he explains. “I think ‘West Coast’ is definitely here to stay, and as we push the style forward, it’s going to gain more recognition. I think it’s just getting started.”
