Pour me a pilsner

I bellied up to the bar at Midnight Sun Brewing Company to see what was pouring. There's always something new at Midnight Sun. I go there a often because of the ever-changing lineup. Variety is a big differentiator in my sudsy world - life's too short to drink the same thing all the time, although I do have my favorites.

Wolf Pack - a modern craft pilsner - is pouring in the Loft at the brewery and I'm happy to find it. It's been a long time in coming.

"Our head brewer, Lee Ellis, is a big fan of pilsners," says Midnight Sun co-owner Barb Miller. "He's a main inspiration for Wolf Pack. We've been working on this for a long time."

Pilsners aren't to be taken lightly - if you can excuse the pun - they're expensive to make, not only in cost, but because of the extended fermentation and conditioning times, which hog valuable space in tanks that churn out ales in shorter times. Making a true lager or pilsner is an investment. They are also finicky because they're delicate beers that take just the right touch to deliver to the style's and the brewer's specifications.

"With a pilsner, you can't hide anything," says Midnight Sun Beer Ambassador Darcy Kniefel. "Brewing a pilsner is the true test of what I brewery can do in terms of perfecting the process and making a solid, flavorful, clean light beer - not once, but again and again," she says.

"We've been working on a pilsner since late last summer and into the fall," says Miller. "We started dabbling with the recipes and came out with a few that actually had names and that we served in the Loft. We had Possible 1, then Possible 2. Eventually, we came up with Possible 3, which was the result of the best of the first two. That's the one that stuck," she says.

"Actually, over the last two or three years, we've had almost 10 different pilsners in house, but Possible 1, Possible 2 and Otro Mas, or "another one," - the name for number 3 - were part of our focused effort to produce a year round style for distribution," says Kniefel. "When our brewer Lee first tasted it, he knew we'd nailed it, and so did our patrons in the Loft."

And by "sticking," Miller's not just talking about the technical and inspirational aspects of the beer from the brewery's point of view. "The cool thing about this Pilsner is that we spent the time and asked for a lot of feedback. We put on each of the pilsners - Possible 1 and 2 - and encouraged our drinkers to be a part of the process. When Possible 3 went on in the Loft, it came out as the clear choice," she says.

Getting feedback about a brewery's beer is an ongoing process, but it's mostly informal. What sells, sells, and the brewery makes more. What doesn't fades to the background. Not much fades into the background at Midnight Sun. "We mostly do what represents us," says Miller. "We normally do way bigger beers," she says, pointing to Sockeye Red, a big IPA as the brewery's biggest seller. "Wolf Pack is so different, we took our time. It's out of our mainstream, but it's going to be in it, so our audience had to have a say," she says of the critical, focused feedback that created the beer.

Wolf Pack is going into cans. Packaging a beer in cans is no small undertaking. Getting "blank" cans with labels on them requires a minimum order and the ability to store those blanks throughout the process.

I had Kniefel check with the brewer about the cans. According to Miller, "The minimum order is 22 pallets of empty cans, or 190,000 of them," she says. In terms of space, a single order fills about two 40 foot connexes.

"The labels are at the TTB right now waiting for approval," says Miller. "It's draft only right now. Wolf Pack will be in cans by the end of summer. It will be our fifth canned beer behind Pleasure Town IPA, Sockeye Red, Kodiak Brown, Panty Peeler, and Snowshoes White, which we discontinued."

"We've been on the fence about putting a pilsner in cans. We decided it's what people want to drink and we made our own version of it," says Miller. "It's 5 percent alcohol and it's 'sessionable,' although we don't like to use that word."

Sessionable beers are those that I can drink more than one of and still function. I enjoy these beers because they fit my active lifestyle and I can drink a number of them and still stay engaged. Wolf Pack is another one for my mix.

According to Miller, “The hops really shine in Wolf Pack. The hops bring everything in the beer together. It's got that nice roundness; it's not just bitter and it's got some nice body. It's all the things we've been looking for in a Pilsner."

My discovery at Midnight Sun provided me with the same experience. In Wolf Pack, I find a highly respectable interpretation of the classic style, but with the same unique twist Miller describes. The beer comes across soft in the nose and across the palate. The bitterness is just a touch beyond balancing, but far from obtrusive. Instead, the distinct, noble hop spiciness pushes through with distinction. The New Zealand Galaxy and Hursbrucker hops keep the beer from being too American, but there's a lot of local Midnight Sun character in the beer. The center of the beer is soft and sweet, and the draft version I enjoyed has ample carbonation that makes the beer ring crisp and refreshing. The 5 percent alcohol by volume is buried in the mix and the beer dries out in the finish and just begs for another sip.

If you want to enjoy a pint, you'll have to search it out on draft lines at the brewery or around town. "We keep running out in the Loft. We never order enough of our own beer for upstairs," says Miller. "It's crazy popular and already in high demand."

"It's the perfect combination of everything we've been looking for in this style of beer. It's out there though; we've brewed our third batch and right now I know it's at Table 6, Hearth, Pangea, Pizza Man in Eagle River and Chair 5 in Girdwood, to name a few places," says Kniefel.

Wolf Pack is perfect for me. I'm looking forward to running with the wolves now and when it comes out in cans sometime in October. Get yours on tap somewhere while we wait out cans of this great stuff to take with us on our next Alaska adventure.