The Rebirth of Cool: Inside the Lager Evolution (June-July 2021)

The style parameters here are actually pretty simple: high bitterness, intense hop aroma and flavor, and just enough malt character to provide some background.

A new brewing appliance, no-measure PBW. and more.

Great lager depends upon exacting attention to details—and not only when it comes to fermentation, and conditioning. Here, we climb the decks of brewhouses specifically designed with lager in mind to better appreciate what makes them different.

Pale lager adds a soft, bready sweetness to a bright fish preparation and piquant, Mediterranean-inspired sauce.

C’est quoi? First there was “Italian-style” pils, and now there’s a French one? Chris Lohring, founder and head brewer at lager-centric Notch in Salem, Massachusetts, describes the background and elements of their Bière d’Alsace.

In this pick from our Love Handles department for beer bars we love, here’s a classic Belgian pub experience—on the American West Coast.

Light, gently tart, and smoked—lichtenhainer is an unusual beer, yet surprisingly good for all seasons and one you’ll want to brew and enjoy often.

Here are five of our favorite examples of this unassuming and elegant style, each managing ample character in addition to supreme balance and drinkability.

Your favorite tart beer joins with cherries for a tangy compote, giving a bright lift to this hearty pâté.

Courtesy of Josh Pfriem, cofounder and brewmaster of pFriem Family Brewers, here is a homebrew-scale version of the beer that won gold at the 2020 Great American Beer Festival.

This no-frills pub/café near the Vatican features Italian craft, Franconian lager, and unique street food.

Tom and Wim Jacobs of Antidoot Wilde Fermenten in Kortenaken, Belgium, share this elegant homebrew recipe based on their early experiments with mixed fermentation and brewing with bog myrtle.

Also known as Myrica gale, this mud-loving shrub was once a key ingredient in the unhopped ales of medieval Europe—and it has a unique character worth considering for your beers.

Even homebrewers who consistently ace their ales can get intimidated by the prospect of fermenting a lager. Here, Josh Weikert demystifies what makes it different and shares advice from some pros.

Besides a hearty embrace of spicy Saaz hops, this partial-mash recipe for a Czech-style pilsner includes a method for pressurized fermentation in a corny keg.

Die-hards will say you need to go all-grain to brew a great pilsner. They’ll also say you need strict temperature control. That’s fine—we don’t have to share our beer or our tricks with them.

Sam Tierney, head brewer at The Propagator—Firestone Walker’s innovation brewhouse in Venice, California—separates conventional wisdom from cool science when it comes to brewing great lager. Proper technique is the key.

From Browar PINTA in Wieprz, Poland, this rich, big-bodied Baltic porter gets a long boil and tropical accents from dry hopping with Sabro and Strata.

Like many Polish breweries, Browar PINTA embraces its country’s signature beer style—Baltic porter—with high-gravity gusto, going for hefty body and deep malt flavor. Lately, they’ve added a new dimension to these ponderous beasts: expressive dry hops.

Alberta, Canada, is an undersung hotbed of independent brewing. One of the best places to taste what the province has to offer has locations in Lacombe and Red Deer—a homey restaurant that takes locally grown beer as seriously as locally grown ingredients.

Remember double IPAs before they went all soft and hazy on us? This is one of those—bright and bitter, with plenty of oomph.

North Carolina’s Burial Beer calls this recipe a “mash-up of delightful keller-pils with dank West Coast IPA.”

An American beer scene still dominated by IPA is enjoying a renaissance of small-scale lager brewing—the ground is fertile for combining the best of both. We don’t care what you call it—IPL, cold IPA, hoppy pilsner, whatever—as long as we get to drink it.

This homebrew-scale recipe, based on brewer Paul Kaiser’s own notes, is for an authentic pre-war American lager with a high proportion of adjuncts.

From fresh catch to fridge favorite, this bright and flavorful warm-weather dish is a perfect foil for the refreshingly tart beer—your choice—with which it’s made.

While drinkability remains the supreme goal, the dark side of Planet Lager can offer richer delights than the brighter styles. Despite their more exotic look, they can also be surprisingly light and refreshing. Here are five top picks from the pros.

Floodland founder Adam Paysse shares his insights and perspective on collecting and nurturing mixed cultures for rustic, farmhouse-inspired beers.

At Seattle’s Floodland Brewing, Adam Paysse pursues a singular vision: to make beers that reflect his preferences and ideals. Turns out, a lot of other people dig them, too.

Josh Pfriem, brewmaster and cofounder of pFriem Family Brewers in Hood River, Oregon, breaks down their approach to Kölsch-Style Ale—an exercise in precision and a gold-medal winner at last year’s Great American Beer Festival.

Far from ordinary, the unassuming Kölsch is a unique beer with its own history and an identity firmly rooted in its city and rituals. Jeff Alworth has the story, with a fresh glass and a tick for your deckel.

So, you’re a lagerhead. You’ve always got some pils, helles, and tmavý in the fridge, and you mail-ordered that one T-shirt from Halfway Crooks (if you know, you know). But do you have the drinkware to maximize your enjoyment of those classic styles?

For the cofounder of San Diego’s Societe Brewing, beer should be flavorful, easy to find, inexpensive, and beautifully crafted. His six-pack neatly mirrors Societe’s focus, with Belgian inspiration and a nod to the dark, hoppy beers of Southern California.

Lager is made at the cellular level—and at the cultural one. How far can you push lager—with different ingredients, fermentations, sensory profiles—until it becomes something else? Randy Mosher ponders the science, the traditions, and the pragmatism.

Here is a homebrew-scale recipe for Wolf’s Ridge Brewing’s foundational cream ale—Clear Sky—plus directions on how to take it further, to brew a beer inspired by their award-winning coffee vanilla cream ale, Daybreak.

At Wolf’s Ridge in Columbus, Ohio, head brewer Chris Davison leads a flavor-forward beer program with roots in experimental homebrewing and a growing pile of accolades.

Based on notes taken by Paul Kaiser, who brewed at Weger Brothers in Philadelphia, here is a recipe for a bock lager in the early 20th-century American fashion.

There were Munich-style dark lagers, American bocks, and paler, pilsner-like beers. Adjuncts abounded. Here, historian Michael Stein of the research firm Lost Lagers digs into the recipes and methods of the time.

Recent numbers from the Brewers Association paint an interesting picture about the impact of a year of COVID-19 on brewery openings and closings.