US beer giant Pabst Brewing, which is famed for its low-cost Pabst Blue Ribbon beer brand – known by fans as simply PBR – has launched a new craft beer brand, complete with a flagship beer ‘Seabird IPA’.

Unlike most of the big brewers which do all they can to hide their ownership of a “craft beer”, Pabst is taking the complete opposite approach, although its Captain Captain Pabst, a nautical-themed craft beer label, is completely separate from PBR.

Captain Pabst’s flagship offering, Seabird IPA, is a 4.5 percent ABV session beer, brewed with Magnum, Citra, Cascade, and Mosaic hops. For the time being, the 16 ounce canned beer will be sold exclusively in Illinois and Wisconsin.

As part of the launch, Pabst is also transforming its Milwaukee taproom and rebranding it as Captain Pabst’s Pilot House.

Captain Pabst’s nautical theme is by no means arbitrary. The line pays homage to the company’s namesake, Frederick Pabst, a 19th-century ship captain who ditched sailing for brewing after he married the daughter of a Milwaukee brewer. “Seabird” was the name of the last ship he captained.

“We thought creating something new, based on someone who played such an integral part in pioneering brewing in this country, was a really romantic and deserving story that consumers would be interested in hearing,” Pabst’s general manager Matt Bruhn said in a press release.

Seabird isn’t the first time Pabst has brewed an IPA, but by creating an official offshoot brand, it signals a new direction for Pabst. Besides Captain Pabst, during the last year Pabst has expanded its product line to include whiskey, hard coffee and hard seltzer.