Lager

Lager

A typical Lager - Würzburger Hofbräu

Lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 1800s when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods. This approach was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll who produced Pilsner Urquell. The resulting pale coloured, lean and stable beers were very successful and gradually spread around the globe to become the most common form of beer consumed in the world today.

The main elements of the lagering method used by Sedlmayr and Groll are still used today, and depend on a slow acting yeast that ferments at a low temperature while being stored. Indeed, the German term 'Lager' means 'storage'. While first marketed as 'Lagerbier' in Austria and Germany, the term is now quite uncommon in the German speaking countries where today one would simply ask for 'helles Bier' (Lager), 'dunkles Bier' (dark lager or ale) or specific varieties, particularly those with a distinctive character such as Pilsner or Weizenbier (also called Weissbier). In the English speaking world, however, lager is now a general name for any beer made using the lagering method.

History of Lager

Bavarian brewers in the sixteenth century were required by law to brew beer only during the cooler months of the year. In order to have beer available during the hot summer months, beers would be stored in caves and stone cellars, often under blocks of ice.

In the period 1820-1830, a brewer named Gabriel Sedlmayr II the Younger, whose family was running the Spaten Brewery in Bavaria went around Europe to improve his brewing skills. When he returned, he used what he had learned to get a more stable and consistent lager beer. The Bavarian lager was still different from the widely-known modern lager; due to the hardness of Munich water it was quite dark, representing what is now called dunkel beer or the stronger variety, bock beer.

The new recipe of the improved lager beer spread quickly over Europe. In particular Sedlmayr's friend Anton Dreher used the new lagering technique to improve the Viennese beer in 1840–1841, creating Vienna lager. The Viennese water enabled the use of lighter malts, giving the beer an amber-red rich colour.

Description of Lager

Lagers tend to be dry, lean, clean-tasting and crisp (due to acidity from the forced carbonation). Flavours may be subtle, with no traditional beer ingredient dominating the others. Hop character (bitterness, flavour, and aroma) ranges from negligible to a dry bitterness from noble hops. The main ingredients are water, Pilsener malt and noble hops, though some brewers use adjuncts such as rice or corn to lighten the body of the beer. There tends to be no butterscotch flavour from diacetyl, due to the slow, cold fermentation process.

Variations of Lager

Lager was developed in the mid 1800s when Gabriel Sedlmayr took some British pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany, and started to modernise continental brewing methods. In 1842 Josef Groll of Pilsen, a city in western Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic, used some of these methods to produce Pilsner Urquell, the first known example of a golden lager. This beer proved so successful that other breweries followed the trend, using the name Pilsner. Breweries now use the terms "lager" and "Pilsner" interchangeably, though Lagers from Germany and the Czech Republic with the name Pilsner tend to have more evident noble hop aroma and dry finish than other Lagers.

With the success of Pilsen's golden beer, the town of Dortmund in Germany started brewing Lager in 1873. As Dortmund was a major brewing centre, and the town breweries grouped together to export the beer beyond the town, the brand name Dortmunder Export became known. Nowadays. breweries in Denmark, the Netherlands, and North America brew Lagers labeled as Dortmunder Export.

A little later, in 1894, the Spaten Brewery in Munich recognised the success of these golden lagers and utilised the methods that Sedlmayr had brought home over 50 years earlier to produce their own light lager they named Helles, which is German for 'light coloured', 'bright' or, in beer terms, 'pale'.

The earliest known brewing of Lager in America was in the Old City section of Philadelphia by John Wagner in 1840 using yeast from his native Bavaria. Modern American-style lagers are mass-produced, thirst-quenching beverages, meant to be drunk very cold, which came to dominate U.S. tastes after the end of Prohibition. These are usually made by large breweries such as Anheuser-Busch. Lightness of body is a cardinal virtue, both by design, and since it allows the use of a high percentage of less-expensive adjuncts such as rice or corn. Indeed, light versions of American lagers are very popular in the United States, lower in food energy and even lighter in body and taste. This style defines beer for many North American beer drinkers—the proverbial "cold one". Prominent examples include Budweiser, Miller High Life, Coors, and Molson Golden, which is Canadian.

Though all lagers are well attenuated, a more fully attenuated Lager in Germany goes by the name Diet Pils. A marketing term for a fully attenuated Lager, originally used in Japan by Asahi Breweries in 1987, "karakuchi" or "dry", was taken up by the American brewer Anheuser-Busch in 1988 as "dry beer" for the Michelob brand, Michelob Dry. This was followed by other "dry beer" brands such as Bud Dry, though the marketing concept was not considered a success. In fully attenuated Lagers, nearly all the sugar is converted to alcohol due to the long fermentation period. The resulting clean, lean flavour is referred to as "dry".

Premium lager

Premium lager is a name sometimes used by brewers for products they wish to promote; there is no legal definition for such a product, but it is usually applied to a flagship product. Anheuser-Busch also uses the terms "sub-premium" and "super-premium" to describe the low-end Busch beer and the high-end Michelob.

Some beers referred to in this context are: Stella Artois, Grolsch, Grain Belt, Kronenbourg 1664, Carlsberg Special Brew and Carlsberg Export, Tennent's Super, Hahn Premium and James Boag's.

Spezial is a stronger style of Lager, mostly brewed in Southern Germany, but also found in Austria and Switzerland. Spezial slots in between Helles and Bock in terms of flavour characteristics and strength. Full-bodied and bittersweet, it is delicately spiced with German aroma hops. It has a gravity of between 12.5° and 13.5° Plato and an alcohol content of 5.5 - 5.8% ABV. The style has been in slow decline over the last 30 years, but still accounts for around 10% of beer sales in Bavaria.

Strong lager

Lagers that exceed an abv of around 5.8% are termed Bock, Malt liquor, Märzen and Oktoberfestbier.

Oktoberfestbier

Oktoberfestbier or Oktoberfest beer is a name originally given to beers served at the Oktoberfest event in Munich, but which may now be used by various brewers, especially in the USA, for a Lager around 6% alcohol by volume - which since the 1970s has been the most popular type of beer served at the festival. Münchner Oktoberfestbier is brewed in Munich specifically for the München Oktoberfest.

The Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Landwirtschaft und Forsten suggests a historical background of the style:

Münchner Oktoberfestbier was first served in 1810 at the first Munich Oktoberfest. Prior to the invention of the cooling machine by Carl Linde in 1876, March was the last month in which it was possible the brew bottom-fermented beer before the hot summer. This is because a temperature of 6 to 10°C is necessary for fermentation with bottom-fermenting yeast. This last March beer of the year was always brewed to be somewhat stronger, stored until the autumn and drunk at the festivals. In this way, a beer speciality was created in Munich which is now sold outside of the Oktoberfest, the so-called “Wies’n”, and bottled but which is only sold during the period of the Oktoberfest.

    —Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Landwirtschaft und Forsten, Special Regional Beers


Referred to as "The Big Six," the following breweries sell beer at the Oktoberfest:

    * Augustinerbräu
    * Hacker-Pschorr
    * Hofbräuhaus
    * Löwenbräu
    * Paulaner
    * Spaten

In the past, up to two dozen Munich Breweries brewed this beer.