A Kiwi on the Label, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin in the Pilsner

Motueka and Nelson Sauvin, the two hops that define the New Zealand pilsner, over a clean 5.0 percent lager. Great Lakes describes lime zest, gooseberry and white grape, and put a flightless bird on the can to make the point.

• Style: New Zealand Pilsner
• Release Date: 2026-09-25
• ABV: 5.0%
• Great Lakes Brewery (Etobicoke, ON)

The bird on the can is the joke and the thesis at once. Great Lakes Brewery describes its new pilsner as "just as flightless and charming as our little pal on the label," which is a kiwi, and the beer underneath is built almost entirely out of New Zealand hops.

The New Zealand pilsner is a style defined by that geography. Take a clean, dry continental lager and hop it with southern-hemisphere varieties instead of the noble German ones, and the result keeps the crispness while swapping herbal and floral notes for something closer to citrus and white wine. Great Lakes has gone with the two varieties most associated with the style: Motueka and Nelson Sauvin.

Both are worth knowing. Motueka carries lime and lemon, with a background note often compared to a mojito. Nelson Sauvin is the more distinctive of the pair, named for its resemblance to sauvignon blanc, and it genuinely does deliver gooseberry and white grape rather than merely being marketed that way. Putting the two together is the standard-issue approach for the style, and it is standard because it works.

The beer runs 5.0 percent ABV at 28 IBU. Great Lakes describes bright lime zest, white grape and a hint of tropical swagger, with a finish it calls clean, dry and "wicked refreshing." The product page adds gooseberry to that list.

For food, the brewery points at fish tacos, Korean pork cutlet, coconut shrimp, and a goat cheese and beet salad. That is a sensible set for a beer working in this register, and the acidity-and-brine logic behind them would extend to a plate of raw oysters just as easily. Great Lakes recommends serving it cold, at 1 to 3 degrees Celsius.

The brewery also notes, for the record, that no kiwi birds were harmed in the making of the beer, though a few may have been mildly offended.

New Zealand Pilsner arrives Thursday, September 25, at the Etobicoke brewery, the GLB Brewpub in Toronto, and the online shop, in 473ml cans at $3.35 or $65 a case.