10 Cast Net: Strong Lager

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Strong Lager

Strong lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering methods. This approach was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll of Bavaria who produced Pilsner Urquell in the city of Pilsen, now in the Czech Republic. The resulting pale coloured, lean and stable beers were very successful and gradually spread around the globe to become the most common form of beer consumed in the world today.Pale lagers tend to be dry, lean, clean-tasting and crisp. Flavours may be subtle, with no traditional beer ingredient dominating the others. Hop character (bitterness, flavour, and aroma) ranges from negligible to a dry bitterness from noble hops. The main ingredients are water, Pilsner malt and noble hops, though some brewers use adjuncts such as rice or corn to lighten the body of the beer. There tends to be no butterscotch flavour from diacetyl, due to the slow, cold fermentation process.