Right, a pilsner named after a fern. Specifically Ponga, the Maori word for the Silver Fern, one of New Zealand's most recognizable national symbols, which is either an enormous amount of pressure to put on a beer or exactly the right amount of confidence. South Lake Brewing Company has gone with confidence.
Built on pilsner malt and hopped judiciously, and I do appreciate a brewery that uses the word judiciously correctly, with Wai-iti and Nectaron, then fermented low and slow with the house lager yeast. The result is bright and refreshing with a crisp, clean finish, but don't let that word "crisp" fool you into thinking this one's boring. Subtle tropical notes of pineapple and passion fruit show up first, playing against juicy peach and apricot, before a genuinely punchy grapefruit and lime flavor takes over at the end like it's overtaking on the final lap.
At 5.0% ABV, this is a pilsner built for repeat laps rather than a single dramatic one, which is really the whole point of the style. South Lake, working out of South Lake Tahoe, has taken a format that a lot of breweries treat as an afterthought and given it genuine New Zealand character instead of just calling it "crushable" and moving on.
Try a pint at the Brewery or the Libation Lodge this weekend.
A pilsner with this much going on under the hood deserves more credit than the category usually gets.