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Let’s Celebrate National Lager Day

December 10 is National Lager Day, and we want to share the many ways you can enjoy this often-overlooked style of beer.

Libby Murphy Dec 8, 2016 - 7 min read

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With all the hops bombs, imperials, and sours out there garnering the majority of beer-lovers’ attention, a lot of people might ask why somebody would order a lager—a “simple” beer—when you can have fruit and flavor and tartness and hops and imperial ABV and all the visceral reactions that result (you know what I’m talking about) in the 9,000 other styles out there? What many may not realize is how many styles of lagers there actually are, how versatile they are when it comes to food pairings (and cooking with them), and how much fun they can be to brew.

So what makes a lager a lager? While most ales are fermented at room temperature-ish (or even warm), lagers are fermented and conditioned cold (a.k.a. lagered). Traditionally, they were lagered for several months in cellars or caves, but recently, technology has allowed for a month-long production cycle for breweries (and the point goes to science for this round). However, within the lager style are several types of recipes and processes, and once you dig deeper into the nitty gritty of it, you’ll hopefully come to appreciate lager as not just a “simple” beer, but as a beer whose end product is by no means super fancy even though it conversely has a more complex production process.

Styles of Lager

For a moment now, I’m going to get all Forrest Gump on everyone because there just are so many styles of lager to appreciate. There’s the Pilsner, which has “sub” styles: European, German, Czech, and some American variations. There’s Kölsch, which is cloudy, a bit fruity but a lot hoppy and starts out with a warm fermentation (as opposed to a cool one, which is typical of the style) before it’s lagered at cold temperatures. There’s also the international pale lager, which you’ll typically find in a clear or green bottle. There’s American pale lager, which many lovingly refer to as “old man beer.” (Fun fact: at my last family reunion, which had some “old men” in attendance, we had our first annual Old Man Beer Tasting so we “young folk” could become acquainted with the classics—and we loved them! Mostly.) Hoppy lagers, also known as IPL, are, as the name suggests, very hoppy versions of the lager. And then there are the darker versions of the style, which include dark and amber lagers, altbier, Schwarzbier, Munich Dunkel, Oktoberfest/Marzen, Baltic porter, Bock, and Doppelbock. And within all those styles are even more variations!

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