Brewing Your Best West Coast Pils
Brewers can now enter a West Coast-Style Pilsener at the World Beer Cup. Get some advice from our brewing team and make your very best West Coast Pils!
For the 2025 Great American Beer Festival, the Brewers Association introduced the “West Coast-Style Pilsener” to the competition guidelines within category 45: Hoppy Lagers. This style is a growing favorite among brewers and consumers for its showcase of hop character without the intense bitterness of an IPA or double IPA, and with the light body and dry finish of a classic pilsner.
This style addition was a great success, bringing category 45 up to a competitive 171 entries (the fifth-most entered category!) and as a result, West Coast-Style Pilsener will be returning for the 2026 edition of the World Beer Cup, of which we are a proud sponsor.
“Crispness and drinkability are at the forefront of the style, but body and structure are needed to balance a significant dry hop load.”
World Beer Cup 2026 guidelines
Our Brewing Solutions team enjoys making and drinking these beers, so they came up with some advice for brewers based on what they think makes a great West Coast Pils, summarized in a brief recipe at the conclusion of this post.
Aim for 60-70% pilsner malt, supplementing with two-row or pale ale malt
Adjuncts don’t have a home in our version of this recipe. We like to keep it simple, light, and with enough body to support strong hop character. Jeff Barnes shares, “don’t go crazy with your malt bill. You don’t need to add any higher kilned malts—think of it as a combination of what pilsner is supposed to be, but also…”
“…use the super flavorful hops and let them shine.”
Get your bittering from a high-efficiency LupoMAX® hop (we like Columbus here) and let your dry hop additions shine. We think Krush® and Galaxy® work great together in a 1:1 ratio for this recipe, or even a 3:1 ratio of Citra® to Galaxy. Krush and Galaxy elevate each other, pushing their unique combinations of tangerine, ripe tropical fruits, and berry to their maximum. Citra and Galaxy make a harmonious partnership, creating an aromatically sweet citrus/stone fruit punch.
High-impact LupoMAX hops can help you hit your efficiency targets when brewing West Coast-Style Pilseners.
Be picky with your yeast strain
Max Snider recommends something like Imperial’s L13 Global lager yeast for its low sulfur production. “I’d want to keep it relatively neutral, much cleaner for a West Coast Pils,” adds Max. “Save the sulfury strains for something like an IPL where you want to enhance thiols or other tropical hop aromas.”
Registration is open until December 12 and beverages are due by mid-March, so the time to act is now! Reach out to our Brewing Solutions team if you want to chat through recipe development, troubleshooting, and any other brewing-related topic you can think of—that’s what we’re here for.
Good luck to all the brewers entering World Beer Cup this year—we hope to see you in the winners circle!
Recipe: The West Coast Pils of our Dreams
Targets:
OG 1.050/12.5°P
4 SRM
35-40 IBU
Procedure:
- Step mash with 70% pilsner malt and 30% 2-row or pale ale malt.
- Add 10 IBUs with Columbus LupoMAX at first wort and another 10 IBUs for 45 minutes.
- Ferment with a low-sulfur lager strain like Imperial L13, and dry hop at 2 lb/bbl (7.6 g/L) with Krush and Galaxy.
- Lager and carbonate to an effervescent, spritzy level for a refreshingly bitter yet pleasantly aromatic beer.
Want even more recipes? Check out our Harvest 2025 recipe book: Brewing for the Future.
