Pale lager
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Pale lager is a family of very pale to golden coloured beers with well attentuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer family developed in the mid 1800s when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and this technique was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll who produced Pilsner Urquell.
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[edit] Description
Pale lagers tend to be very clean tasting, crisp (due to acidity from the CO2) and firmly carbonated. 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. There tends to be no butterscotch flavour from diacetyl, due to the slow cold fermentation process.
[edit] Variations
There are several types of pale lager, including:
- Pilsner—The original pale lager; most pale lagers with the name Pilsner have an evident noble hop bitterness.
- Dortmunder Export—A softly hopped variation originally brewed in Dortmund in 1873.
- American-style Lager—The first American Lager was brewed 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 U.S. beer drinkers—the proverbial "cold one". Prominent examples include Budweiser, Miller High Life, Coors, and Molson Golden, which is Canadian.
[edit] References
- Noonan, Gregory J., Mikel Redman and Scott Russell. Seven Barrel Brewery Brewers' Handbook. Ypsilanti, Michigan: G.W. Kent, Inc., 1996. ISBN 1-887167-00-5.
