Craft brewers have taken lagers back - Marin Independent Journal

Lagers are tightening their hold on chalkboard beer menus nationwide, and most of us are finally cool with it.

For a long time, craft beer brewers and consumers shied away from lagers, which had become the favored flavor of big brands like Coors, Bud, Corona, Miller and Heineken. This categorical blackout led craft brewers to focus entirely on ales while almost completely ignoring a wealth of unique beer styles. By the early 2000s, as the American craft brewery population boomed, the division was as clear as a pilsner: lagers were for the big companies, and ales were for the little ones.

There were always a few craft lagers on hand — Lagunitas, for example, has brewed one from its early days in West Marin, as has Anchor with its classic Steam beer — but it was only several years ago that craft brewers everywhere began to give lagers a real chance. It was a big deal for a while, and each year, craft beer analysts marveled at the growing focus on lagers and the increasingly warm reception by consumers.

This year, as in recent ones, lagers have been cited by writers as one of the main craft beer trends that will shape the industry in the next 12 months, and they’re back again in force by consumer demand.

At Marin Brewing, customers are still pining for the Heimlicher Pils, a traditional north German lager.

Pond Farm released the Daily Brot, a German-style dunkel, two weeks ago, and this week is introducing the San Rafael Lager, a Mexican-style lager. Also coming out this week is Pond Farm’s Cali Common, a sort of lager-ale hybrid.

Adobe Creek also has three lagers on tap right now.

Across the bay, East Brother Beer is now pouring a Baltic porter — a lager that drinks like a hearty ale.

Lagers are not a style, per se, of beer. More than that, they represent the categorical counterpart to the ale. In each of these two main categories of beer, there are many, many styles. The IPA, or India pale ale, is a style of ale (obviously). So are stouts, porters, hefeweizens, saisons and the classic Belgian ales. Among lagers, the pilsner, the bock, the Vienna lager and the dunkel are just a few distinct styles.

The key difference between lagers and ales is the yeast species used to ferment the beers. Saccharomyces pastorianus is used to make lagers, while S. cerevisiae is used to make ales. The former thrives at cool, wintry temperatures and can take weeks to turn a vat of dissolved grain sugar into alcoholic beer, making lagers the brews of patience. Ale yeast, on the other hand, works best at around 70 degrees and can complete primary fermentation in just a few days.

Some beer styles are lager-ale hybrids. The California Common ale is made with a lager yeast but is fermented at high temperatures. Conversely, the kolsch is brewed with ale yeast but at a low temperature. Every porter is an ale — except for the Baltic porter. Rich and sweet, with roasty, toasty flavors of charred barley and molasses, as we expect from porters, the Baltic porter is brewed at low temperatures with a lager yeast.

As Rob Lightner, owner of East Brother Beer, says of his own Baltic porter, “It has all the beauty of a porter — dark fruit, licorice, etc., but with a snappy lager finish.”

Many lagers have a distinct taste, and for many years I — and I assume many, many others — associated that pilsnery flavor with Budweiser, Coors and their kin. So, when craft breweries first began releasing lagers, I ignored them and hoped they would go away.

They didn’t go away. While I drank stouts, IPAs, goses and other ales, more adventurous drinkers went all in; they bought craft pilsners, maerzens, rotbiers and helles. I have since followed along, and while I still prefer a hoppy IPA redolent of citrus and pineapple, I reach for craft lagers about 20% of the time now.

Expect more craft brewers to make more lagers. Indeed, the trend will almost certainly snowball, and though the big global beer brands essentially coopted lagers and made them their own the last century, craft brewers have finally taken them back.

Alastair Bland’s Through the Hopvine runs every week in Zest. Contact him at allybland79@gmail.com.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"craft" - Google News
February 03, 2021 at 03:03AM
https://ift.tt/2YEcoL2

Craft brewers have taken lagers back - Marin Independent Journal
"craft" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YrY2MS
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini