Lager Lucidity (Summer 2023)

Whether you’ve got hop fatigue or are hunting some crowd-pleasing flavors—for autumn weather, holiday fare, or any time of year—this dark wheat beer in the German style need not be challenging to brew.

The beating hearts of a brewery aren’t glamorous and won’t impress casual visitors, but they can do a great deal to improve how brewers do their jobs. They can also make a lot of noise.

Amarillo and Simcoe lead the way in this session IPA recipe from Josh Weikert’s Make Your Best series.

With its soft wheat canvas and punchy additions of mango and guava, this quencher became a seasonal taproom favorite in Gainesville, Florida—and won Swamp Head a gold medal at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival.

Fruit beers—they ain’t all thick smoothie sours. Out of Gainesville, Florida, Swamp Head’s Tropical Vibes is a bright, sunshiny, highly drinkable example of excellence in the form of a fruited wheat beer. We asked them what makes it tick.

This extract-based ode to American malt liquor—and to an old friend—gets appropriately large portions of adjuncts and enzyme to boost attenuation. Serve it cold!

Since adjunct lagers are cool again, it may be time to give American malt liquor a fresh look. Lean and strong, this adjunct-laden product of the post-Prohibition era has the power to evoke simpler times.

The lager-brewing tradition is full of received wisdom and rules of thumb about how long it’s supposed to take to condition a beer. In reality, however, there’s no magic formula.

Great to brew or drink at any time of year, the too-often-overlooked Bavarian-style dark wheat beer offers crowd-pleasing flavors and looks impressive in the glass.

Originally inspired by the white beers of Pierre Celis, Allagash White has risen to become a widely recognized pillar of American craft as well as one of the most awarded beers in the genre—with a combined 14 Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup medals over the years.

One of Belgium’s most broadly appealing styles is a reincarnation and a reinvention, inspired by a tradition that disappeared more than 60 years ago. Today it’s enjoyed around the world and ubiquitous in its home country—and in Maine.

This recipe includes guidelines on fermenting a lager under pressure—and you can apply the same guidelines to your own favorite lager recipe.

Fermenting under pressure to make beer faster is an old industrial trick—and it works just as well on a small scale. Here’s what to know about a method that can help you brew more lagers in less time, honing your technique along the way.

This crispy, spicy catfish sandwich deserves a cold lager—with a spash in the breading and the rest to cool off your palate. Special occasion not required.

Jacob Sembrano, head brewer at Chicago’s Cruz Blanca brewpub, shares this recipe for their American lager—a showcase of Bloody Butcher red corn, grown and malted at Sugar Creek Malt in Lebanon, Indiana.

Corn has long held an important place in brewing across the Americas, from chicha in the Andes to Mexican and American adjunct lagers. Today, craft maltsters and brewers are seeking more flavorful heirloom varieties to see how far they can push those flavors.

From Good Word Brewing & Public House in Duluth, Georgia, owner and brewer Todd DiMatteo shares the recipe for their subtly roasty, highly drinkable dark lager that can be served from cask or stichfass (or keg, can, bucket, whatever you have handy).

Bottom-fermented beer, served in the British ale tradition? There’s precedent for it—and the rise in lager interest may be just what’s needed to stoke drinkers’ curiosity.

From our Love Handles files on our favorite beer bars around the world: The Toronto headquarters of the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies is open to all.

Based on authentic gammeltøl recipes from the 1800s, here’s a recipe for the strong, smoky Danish farmhouse ale—including some suggestions for traditional twists worth trying.

Typically, gammeltøl was brewed in March for drinking in the autumn, but the Danish tradition of brewing this strong, smoky raw ale has virtually died out. You can help revive it.

From Misfit Outpost in Cypress, Texas, this beer celebrates South Asian flavor in the form of sweet, creamy jackfruit, which adds its tropical accent to a light, crisp, rice-lager frame.

Popular in South Asia, this hulking tropical fruit with a sweet, creamy flavor may have something unique to add to the conversation.

Whether you want to brew a more convincing Czech-style lager, or you simply want to borrow a few tricks to shape the kind of beer that seems impossible to stop drinking, here are some elements to consider.

This reverently Czech-style lager is triple-decocted and brewed with imported Moravian malt and whole-leaf Bohemian Saaz. Green Bench cofounder and head brewer Khris Johnson says the beer “was inspired by a life-changing week spent in the Czech Republic with an incredible group of people.”

From New Year’s Eve to breakfast to making new best friends, New Belgium’s Lauren Woods Limbach guides us through six beloved beers that represent excellence as well as those moments that remind you what it’s all about.

These crispy, moderately spicy quesadillas are delicious and easy to make, while a splash of Mexican-style lager adds subtle sweetness to the adobo dipping sauce.

This dark German-style lager took home gold from the 2023 World Beer Cup in Nashville, Tennessee, and then went on to impress our blind-review panel. Smooth and easy-drinking, it offers subtly complex roasted malt character and a dry finish.

When the team at Incendiary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, gave brewer and QC manager Adam Goetz the chance to design a recipe, he knew what he wanted to make. Then it won gold at the 2023 World Beer Cup, and it scored a stellar 99/100 with our blind-review panel. So, we asked Adam what makes it tick.

The processes that change beer’s flavor over time are complex, but by understanding them, we can better brew beers built to last—and we can better appreciate them when fresh.

From our Love Handles files on the world’s great watering holes: Locals rule at this warm, comfortable, and family-friendly bar in Deer Lodge, Montana.

Much-awarded and much-acclaimed, from Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland, Ohio, here is a homebrew-scale recipe for the robust yet smooth-drinking American porter that has inspired many others.

In looking for insights on brewing a great porter in the modern American style, Josh Weikert talks to Cleveland’s Great Lakes about the inner workings of the beloved and enduring Edmund Fitzgerald.

From cofounder and head brewer Kevin Stafford and the team at Finback in Queens, New York, comes their take on the contemporary hoppy pilsner—“a nice balance of new and old school.” (It was also a hit with our blind-review panel, tops in its class at 98/100.)

Hop-forward lagers are nothing new, but a new thread is emerging that more intentionally marries the great drinkability of a pilsner with the expressive hopping of a West Coast IPA. Could it be the best of both worlds?

Crack a craft-brewed light lager and embrace some unconventional fall flavors in your kitchen via this fish dish with bacon-studded sweet-potato succotash and savory corn puree.

From our Love Handles files on the world’s top beer bars: In Zurich, Switzerland, the Fork & Bottle welcomes locals and travelers with brunches, barbecues, and plenty of Swiss and European craft beers.

Brewers have warm hearts for cold-fermented beers, and we asked these five brewers to share the objects of their greatest affection.

In these excerpts from one of our most popular podcast episodes, a few of the best IPA brewers in the business talk about adjusting the mash for dryness, evolving their recipes to keep drinkers (and themselves) happy, defeating the hop creep, maximizing aroma, and more.

For homebrewers looking to up their game—and for anyone looking to share their enthusiasm with beer-curious people—here are five picks from our editors

In this yearly update, we plot the moves in the Brewers Association’s top 50 craft brewers by production volume, from 2007 to the present. To simplify the data and make it easier to follow, we fast-forward from 2007 to 2017 and pick up from there.