History of lager brewing

Expand: date=December 2007

While cold storage of beer, "lagering", in caves for example, was a common practice throughout the medieval period, lager yeast seems to have emerged as a spontaneous mutation or hybridization somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire.

As a new variety of beer its production faced opposition from established brewers as well as the Catholic church. Private brewers of lager were often required to produce their beer outside city walls; more traditional brewers produced beer which evolved into the Altbier and Kölsch styles of German ale.

The first lager brewery in the United Kingdom, the Anglo-Bavarian Brewery, was established in Shepton Mallet in Somerset, England in 1864.

Lager dominates the marketplace

In 1953, New Zealander Morton W. Coutts developed a process known as continuous fermentation. Continuous fermentation allowed the production of lager at a much faster pace, albeit with a reduction in flavor development. This development made possible the mass production of lager beer at a rate competitive with ales. As this technology was adopted worldwide, the light lager style emerged, quickly becoming the most popular style of beer in much of the industrialized world.

Since 1950, lager has displaced ale as the type of beer most consumed in the United Kingdom, and also constitutes the overwhelming majority of beer produced and sold in the United States, China, Japan, France, Italy, Russia and most, if not all, countries where beer is made and consumed.

Definition and characteristics of lager

As one of the modern definition of lager relates only to the method of fermentation, lager beers' characteristics are varied.

The average lager in worldwide production is light in color and usually represents the helles, pale lager or Pilsener styles. The flavor of these lighter lagers is usually mild and the producers often recommend that the beers be served refrigerated. However, the examples of lager beers produced worldwide vary greatly in flavor, color, and composition.

In colour, helles and pale lager represent the lightest lagers at as pale a colour as 6 EBC. The darkest are Baltic porters, which can be as dark as 400 EBC; darker German lagers are often referred to as Dunkel lagers.

Lager is distinguished from ale by its yeast. Lager yeast ferments at lower temperatures and flocculates on the bottom of the fermenting vessel, while ale yeast ferments at higher temperatures and settles on the tops of fermentation tanks. The organism most often associated with lager brewing is Saccharomyces pastorianus, a close relative of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The flavour of a lager can be quite simple, with the most mild being light lagers. Lagers with the most complex flavors are typically the darkest, although few lagers feature strong hop flavoring compared to ales of similar alcohol by volume. In general, however, lagers display less fruitiness and spiciness than ales, simply because the lower fermentation temperatures associated with lager brewing cause the yeast to produce fewer of the esters and phenols associated with those flavours.