Beer Lager Styles

The Truth About The Different Beer Lager Styles

Lagers are the most popular sorts of beer styles all around the world. If you dig out the history you will find that they are of Central European origin and have derived their name from the German lagern, which means, “to store”. There are several lager styles but the most popular or chief lager styles are American Lager, Bock, Märzen, Oktoberfest, Pilsner, Schwarzbier and Vienna Lager.

American Lagers

American lagers are American-style lager beer. This is a type of pale lager, quite popular all over the world. American lager has a lighter color and a light body as corn and rice is used in it. Some of the well-known companies producing American-style lager beer are Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser, Coors Brewing Company, SABMiller, Molson (Canada), Corona (Mexico) and the likes.

American-style lager beer is not that popular in warm climates. After a hard slog in the cold the best thing is a glass of American lager beer. You can choose from the wide-ranging American-style lager beer. Choose any from the array of malt liquor, ice beer, light beer and not to mention dry beer.

Below are some styles of American Lager along with commercial examples.

Dark American Lager: Some popular commercial examples are San Miguel Dark, Dixie Blackened Voodoo, Saint Pauli Girl Dark and Dixie Blackened Voodoo.

Lite American Lager: Amstel Light, Bud Light and Miller Lite are some good commercial varieties.

Standard American Lager: Budweiser, Kirin Lager, Molson Golden, Corona Extra and Miller High Life are some nice commercial examples of the style.

Premium American Lager: Coors Extra Gold, Singha and Miller Genuine Draft are some first-rate commercial examples of the style.

European Lagers

The complexion of European lager is quite attractive, from soft light reddish amber to flaming copper. Not only a beautiful complexion there are glow to it with a bright clarity. It comes with moderately rich German malt aroma. Again, a light toasted malt aroma can also be found. It is also seen that these lagers are present with no fruity esters or diacetyl.

As goes for the flavor, be ready to enjoy an exciting combo of softness and bitterness. The elegant softness you will get from malt complexity mixed with firm enough hop bitterness. You will discover that there is no roasted or caramel flavor whatsoever in the European lagers. In fact, noble hop flavor may be low to not a bit. There is a fairly dry finish with both malt and hop bitterness at hand in the aftertaste.

A list of some popular European Lager Style with Commercial examples:

European Amber Lager: Negra Modelo, Vienna Style Lager and Gordon Biersch Vienna Lager are three popular commercial examples of Vienna Lager.

Commercial examples of Oktoberfest/Märzen are Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest, Capital Oktoberfest and Gordon Biersch Märzen.

European Dark Lager: Tabernash Munich Dark, Weeping Radish Dunkel and Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel are some in style commercial examples of Munich Dunkel.

Some super fine commercial examples of Schwarzbier or Black Beer are Ur-Koestritzer Schwarzbier and Kulmbacher Moenchschof Kloster Schwarz-Bier.

German Lagers

Germans celebrate life with beer. So it wont come as a surprise when you will know that Germany is one of the highest per capita consumer of beer. And no surprise that there are 1200 breweries in Germany producing quality beers. In Germany, different beers are meant for different occasions. Thus, there are myriad styles of German beer.

Some Famous German Lager Style with commercial examples

Northern German Pilsner: Jever Pils, Kulmbacher Moenchshof Pils and Bitburger are some fine commercial examples of this style.

Dortmunder Export: Some first rate commercial examples of this style are Dortmunder Union Export, Saratoga Lager and DAB Export.

Munich Helles: Paulaner Premium Lager, Andechser Hell and Stoudt's Gold Lager are some excellent commercial examples of Munich Helles.

Munich Dunkel: Weltenburger Kloster Barock-Dunkel, Alt Münchner Dunkel and Hacker-Pschorr Alt Munich Darkare are some popular commercial examples of this style.

Japanese Lagers

Japanese Lagers with medium bodies and a discernible hop bitterness is popular all over the world. Kirin, Asahi and Sapporo are world famous Japanese beer brands. Some of the major breweries here are in the likes of the No.1 seller Asahi's Super Dry, Sapporo's Black Label and Ebisu, and Kirin's Lager and Ichiban Shibori.

You must also know that there is a high alcohol content and carbonation, which holds out the assaults of pungent wasabi horseradish, red chili garlic paste, and not to mention the Asian spices. The Asahi Breweries in Japan were the ones who introduced dry, a category of beer.

Black or Schwarz beer is a dark beer characterized by bitter chocolate, roasted malt note and a rounded character, which was originally brewed in Thuringia, a state in eastern Germany. This style was picked up by Japanese brewers and was brewed in small quantities by all Japan's major brewers.

Some Japanese Lager Styles along with commercial examples:

Asahi: Asahi Super Dry, Asahi Hon-nama and Asahi Black are some fine commercial examples of this style.

Kirin: Some of the popular commercial examples of this style are Kirin Ichiban shibori, Kirin Tanrei (happoshu) and Kirin Lager Beer.

Sapporo: Yebisu, Hokkaido Nama-shibori (happoshu) and Sapporo Black Label are some of the commercial examples of this style.

Now we have reached the end of the lager style tour.