Jack’s Abby, Warsteiner launch Maifest lager collaboration, Fest of Both Worlds

Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers and Warsteiner did not treat Fest of Both Worlds like a one-off novelty. They built it as a Maifest lager with real shelf reach, pairing German brewing heritage with a spring seasonal release that is already moving into retailers and will still be available as the season turns.

The collaboration brings together two family-run breweries with very different geography and remarkably similar instincts. Jack’s Abby was founded in 2011 by Jack, Eric, and Sam Hendler, and has long staked its identity on lager-first brewing rooted in traditional technique and modern innovation. Warsteiner traces its brewing history to 1753 in Warstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, and says the Cramer family has been tied to the brewery since then, with the business now in its ninth generation.

That lineage shows up in the beer itself. Fest of Both Worlds is a 5.9% ABV lager brewed with Pilsner malt, noble hops, a decoction mash, and Steffi malt. The beer is described as light, floral, malty, and deep golden, with the Steffi malt adding a rustic edge that recalls baked bread and honeyed biscuit notes. It is the kind of recipe that signals intent immediately: this is not a hazy-seasonal detour, but a deliberate nod to classic lager structure and process.

Jack’s Abby has slotted the beer into its specialty and seasonal lineup as a Maifest lager, a style meant to mark the transition from winter to spring. That timing matters. Instead of asking drinkers to chase it only in a taproom, the collaboration is rolling out in April to most Trader Joe’s locations across 25 states, giving the beer a national footprint unusual for a lager project built around tradition and provenance. It is also set to arrive in June at most Whole Foods locations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Jack’s Abby marked the launch with a March 13 event at Craft Food Hall in Lexington, Massachusetts, underscoring how the beer was presented as both a retail release and a community beer moment. For lager fans, that is the larger point of Fest of Both Worlds: it shows how a carefully made seasonal lager can carry story, technique, and distribution all at once, while it is still on shelves.