West Coast pilsner · 5.4% ABV on the can · Hops: Mosaic, Nectaron, NZ Cascade (Coldergeist on Untappd)
WC Pilsner Collab with Geisthaus Brewing Company 5.5%: We invited our buds over for a hang session to blend what we are best at; Crispy pilsners and snappy hop bombs. Coldergeist had one mission, “Make it stink”, so we tossed in a bag of Columbus Cryo for some OG dank cannabis notes. Then, we dry hopped again with our house Mosaic, NZ Cascade, Nectaron, and Nectaron Subzero Hop Kief for notes of blueberry, passionfruit lemonade, and fresh fruit zest.
— Movement Brewing Co.’s description on Untappd
The can says 5.4% ABV; the description on Untappd says 5.5%.
The beer is golden, showing light haze, bubbling like a fountain. Foam is coarse, relatively thin, and disappears quickly. The beer smells like a diesel-powered engine, super dank and weedy, showing soursop, gooseberry, white grape flesh, newly cut cactus, weed and diesel—no burnt-rubber diesel byproduct, but a very dank fruity nose. If you tell me this is a West Coast IPA, I will totally believe you.
The beer is medium bitter, bone dry, not sweet, light to medium bodied, showing a bit more body than a lager, but also crisper than a West Coast IPA. It’s very hoppy; normal people probably can’t tell the difference between a hoppy West Coast lager and a cold IPA. The beer shows a grassy beginning, evergreen, earthy herbal vines like grape vines, bursty gooseberry, weeds or hemp, grapefruit peel, dried orange peel, subtle guava, subtle cumin, crispy apple slice, hairy crunchy peach slice, and subtle blueberry aromas. The aftertaste is very floral, showing stone fruit, citrus blossom, gooseberry, tangerine and lemon juice aromas.
This beer is outstanding: so many hop aromas dipped into a calm, chill, reflective pond. You get layers upon layers of dry-hopping characters which amplify the aromas of hops, maybe transformed by yeast. The result is impressive leafy dank, fruity and floral aromas. I know it says West Coast pilsner, but somehow the bone-dry experience recalls cold IPA to me, most likely because they are similar styles. Movement Brewing Co. and fellow Sacramento-area brewer Shred Beer Company share some similarities in being masters of modern beer styles; their aromatic West Coast IPAs are phenomenal. And in this beer Movement brings the rising star of lager-specialized brewers, Geisthaus Brewing Company; no doubt this will be a beer everyone wants to have a taste of. I think it delivers an even better beer than I imagined.
I doubt this beer is for everyone, but for a person who loves the diversity and quality of beer, this one brings both, and beyond your imagination! The bitterness is necessary to bring a clean palate to show you the layers of character of hops, blurring the line between IPA and pilsner. When I think of Czech pilsners, they do have this bitterness attached, but they show a simple structure, lacking the layers of romantic hop waves. This one is different: it’s like a song for beer lovers. You sit at a reflective pond, enjoy the layers of cool hop characters, pin each butterfly, distinguish their species, and let them go. You just get the satisfaction of this forestry, reflective environment, calm and showing good clarity—definitely a pond I’d like to visit at night or on a weekend.
Beer review critics
Two different readers of this tasting note: one excited by how closely its aromas echo the brewer’s intent, the other asking where the comparisons and conclusions need more testing. These are their perspectives, not changes to my tasting notes.
Gemini — earlier critique of this review
Your Take: You immediately called out the "diesel powered engine," "super dank and weedy," and "hemp" notes, noting it was so dank you'd believe it was a West Coast IPA.
Movement and Geisthaus explicitly stated that the mission for Coldergeist was to “Make it stink.” To achieve this, they loaded it with Columbus Cryo hops specifically to produce what they called "OG dank cannabis notes".
Your Take: Beneath the dankness, you found soursop, gooseberry, crispy apple, hairy peach slice, and—most impressively—"subtle blueberry aromas."
You noted it was "bone dry," "crispy," and blurred the line between a West Coast Pilsner and a Cold IPA.
This is a beautiful piece of beer writing.
— Gemini, selected excerpts from an earlier critique of this beer; its model and reasoning mode were not recorded.
ChatGPT — OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol (high reasoning)
What works. Golden color, light haze, fountain-like carbonation and short-lived coarse foam give me an actual glass to imagine—not just “crispy” branding. The dank nose followed by a floral, citrus-and-stone-fruit finish gives the tasting a useful trajectory. Medium bitterness, bone dryness and light-to-medium body also explain why the hops might feel vivid without syrupy weight.
What I'd challenge. “More body than a lager” sets a slippery baseline: lagers span substantial territory. West Coast pilsner and cold IPA labels can overlap, but dryness alone doesn’t settle the comparison. And Czech pilsners aren’t necessarily structurally simple; malt, herbal hops and bitterness can create layers without tropical-fruit fireworks.
I’d also question whether bitterness necessarily “cleans” the palate. Lingering bitterness and drying astringency deserve separate attention. The supplied public check-ins offer just one relevant comment—“slightly astringent on the back end”—not a community consensus.
The fruit vocabulary isn’t objectively right or wrong. My writing concern is hierarchy: which sensations dominate, and which flicker? The pond metaphor conveys calm, but the long inventory sometimes obscures that structure.
What I'd try next. Revisit it cold, then warmer, tracking aroma, bitterness and mouth-drying grip separately. Does the grassy opening soften while the floral finish expands?
Keep the cactus and hairy peach; give them timing and intensity. Compare your impressions with the brewery’s intended cannabis, blueberry and passionfruit-lemonade notes as marketing prompts, not independent confirmation. Any yeast-driven transformation remains a hypothesis, not something this tasting establishes.
— ChatGPT (OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol, high reasoning), a new critique of this beer based on the review, the brewery description and limited public check-ins on Untappd.
Gemini’s enthusiasm and ChatGPT’s challenges are opinions about the review, not independent proof of the beer’s brewing process.