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“STiVO is everything Vinnie and I love about a new-age craft pilsner. “It’s a true passion project.” – Firestone Walker Brewmaster Matt Brynildson.
There’s very few beer-styles more difficult to pull off than a true pilsner. So it got our attention to learn that two important California breweries just returned an award-winning small batch classic that they did together.
But given this beer’s cult status it won’t around for long.
A brilliantly conceived mashup of the breweries’ flagship pilsners, STS and Pivo, STiVO was once released only in draft but last year it was canned for the very first time, and this year they’ve smartly done the same.
It’s the end result of a long term friendship between Russian River Co-Owner/Brewer Vinnie Cilurzo and Firestone Walker Brewmaster Matt Brynildson, two of the nation’s leading brewers, both serious pilsner fans.
But it wasn’t until 2016 that Brynildson and Cilurzo decided to brew their first official collaboration beer, and there was no question as to what they would brew: a pilsner. Russian River had made its mark with its STS pilsner, and Firestone Walker had created a similar buzz with its Pivo pilsner.
(Matt Brynildson and Vinnie Cilurzo)
“When I made my first batch of STS Pils, I was inspired by a few European pilsners and one pivotal modern U.S. pilsner in particular—Matt’s Pivo Pils,” Cilurzo said. “Of course, Matt and I were friends long before that, and when he later asked me if we wanted to make a collaborative mashup of our two pilsners, how could I say no? STiVO has evolved a little over the years, but it has always stayed hop forward and super drinkable.”
“We’re both mad about pilsner brewing,” Brynildson says. “We just love these types of beers and the simple recipes surrounding them.”
After that initial collaboration in 2016, they perfected the recipe over a few additional batches, bringing down the ABV to 5.3 percent and brewing it in the unfiltered “Keller pils” style.
Brewed at Firestone Walker’s Propagator R&D brewhouse in Venice, California, this latest batch of STiVO builds upon the original recipe with some evolutionary tweaks that take it to another level.
Whereas the original STiVO featured all German Weyermann pilsner malts, the new edition is composed of 50 percent Dingemans pilsner malts—a reflection of STS’s own shift toward this Belgian maltster in recent years.
The hops are once again split down the middle between Pivo’s German Saphir hops and STS’s French Aramis hops. However, the Aramis hops in the dry hopping portion come via a cutting-edge hop extract known as Aramis Quantum Brite, which was custom-made for Russian River.
“The extract just makes the hop aromas all the more vivid,” said Propagator Brewery Manager Sam Tierney. “These changes are subtle, and the beer will still be familiar for those who had it in the past, but the collaborative tradition of exchanging ideas continues to push us in new directions.”
“STiVO is everything Vinnie and I love about a new-age craft pilsner—clean and aromatic, with a subtle hop imprint,” Brynildson added. “It’s a true passion project.”
STiVO is available for a limited time at all Firestone Walker locations, but it won’t be forever, so you know what to di.
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(All image credits: Firestone Walker Brewing)
