AUTUMN 2026 RELEASE

As we tip past the Autumn Equinox into cooler, quieter days, we are happy to announce the release of our Autumn 2026 Hanabi Lager: Francin Pilsner.

This release is a particularly special one for us. Francin was the grain that launched Hanabi Lager six years ago, with our very first seasonal release in Autumn 2020. We loved it then, and perhaps love it even more now.

Like so many of the grains we work with, Francin has a winding story. Originally bred in the Czech Republic, it was never widely embraced commercially and remains a very minor variety today. In 2018, a handful of farmers on the other side of the world began growing it in Washington’s Skagit Valley, where we discovered it and were among the first brewers in North America to work with the grain from this new terroir.

Skagit Valley Malting, one of the pioneering craft maltsters of the early American craft malt movement, helped make Francin available to brewers. As one of their early partners, we sourced our Francin from them in 2020, grown near the Salish Sea, and brewed it into the first ever Hanabi seasonal lager.

Then the story took another turn. The difficult years that followed proved challenging for brewers and maltsters alike, and both Skagit Valley Malting and Skagit-grown Francin disappeared.

But good things have a way of finding their way back.

Today, a handful of growers east of the Cascades in Washington and northern Idaho are bringing this remarkable variety back into cultivation. For this release, we are delighted to have a beautiful, fragrant crop from the Rigger family farm in Nezperce, Idaho.

Tasting Note: Brewed as a Pilsner-style lager, Francin pours a bright golden color with abundant aromas of cereal grain and fresh hay—the beautiful scent of a field at harvest. Its chiseled structure carries layers of fresh whole-grain toast, alfalfa honey, and spicy mint, with a long, savory finish.

Grains have been at the foundation of human civilization for thousands of years, providing sustenance, culture, and continuity from one generation to the next. At Hanabi, we seek out grains with distinctive stories, farming traditions, and flavors—varieties that have something meaningful to say in a beer. We believe that by choosing these plants and giving them the time and attention they deserve, we can make beers that are more expressive, more delicious, and more connected to where they come from. Francin is a beautiful example of why we believe this is worth doing.

Thank you for joining us on this journey.

May this autumn bring a little space to draw inward—to finish the expansive work of summer, to be creative, to dream, and to quietly plant the seeds of what might emerge next spring.

Here’s to the harvest.