How old is lager beer

Most of that historical beer brewing relied on the common yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or earlier versions of it. This species of yeast sits at the top of the beverage and ferments sugar into alcohol at room temperature, producing a beer that is called ale. In the s, however, a new strain of yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus , found its way into the brewing world. That type of yeast sits at the bottom of the beer and ferments best at temperatures between 40 and 50 degree Fahrenheit, like the icy caves the Bavarian monks stored the beer in.

That product is called lager, the crisp, translucent beer category that many of the world's most popular beer brands, including Budweiser, Miller, Coors and Heineken are based on.

As Miller reports, since the s, researchers understood that S. In , however, researchers compiling a genetic directory of Saccharomyces yeasts discovered one wild variety that lives in the beech forests of chilly Patagonia, in southern South America, that was a This produced a fairly dark and smoky malt as a result of combustion products of the fire coming into direct contact with both wet and drying malt—and the beer reflected the characteristics of the malt.

The dunkel style of beer was the most popular style of lager beer for a few hundred years. Dunkel lagers are described as deep copper to dark brown with a tan creamy head. The aroma is malty with notes of toast and bread and sometimes nut, caramel and toffee.

Taste should be malt forward with a touch of sweetness but never cloying. Finish is clean and dry with little to no lingering bitterness. While dunkel lager held sway as the dominant lager beer style a couple of other beer styles emerged, including the bock beer and the doppelbock.

The lager version of bock beer originated in Munich in the early s. Bock beer began as an ale in the city of Einbeck where it emerged sometime in the early s. Due to its strength and long shelf life it was traded throughout Germany.

A lager brewmaster in Munich was ordered to copy the Einbeck beer. Early bock beers were essentially stronger, maltier, sweeter versions of dunkels and were a seasonal beer being served starting May 1st. Interestingly bock beer was not served in the evening as it was traditionally considered a breakfast drink!

Doppelbocks evolved a few decades later by the Benedictine monks of the Paulaner Order near Munich in This beer was a seasonal beer served for only six days a year starting at the beginning of April. Originally this strong malty beer was developed to sustain the monks who were required to forego solid food during Lent. Nevertheless, they are significantly heftier beers being characterized as very malty, sweet but still held in check by just enough hop bitterness.

Due to its high strength and malty richness, a doppelbock is a luxury beer. The next notable development in the evolution of lager beer is considered to be the biggest of all. The emergence of the industrial revolution about largely impacted the evolution of beer. Perhaps one of the greatest influences was the malt used in brewing. In British inventor Daniel Wheeler created and patented a rotating iron drum for drying or roasting malt after being inspired by drum coffee roasters of the time.

The drum was heated by clean, hot air instead of dirty, smoky exhaust fumes from wood fueled fires as was the custom up until then. This had several advantages: the malt was clean tasting without smoky aromas, it was more consistent within and between batches, and it had more dependability and could be produced in a wide variety of colors from very pale to pitch black.

Back in Europe at their breweries they began making and using pale malts to lighten and clean up their brews. In addition to this they embarked on making new styles of lighter, paler beers. In Spaten, using a new lighter colored malt eventually called Munich, brewed a new beer style, the amber Marzen or Oktoberfest in March, which was introduced at the Munich Oktoberfest that fall.

In the same year, Dreher released their new Vienna lager using the paler Vienna malt. What was to arguably become the first legitimately pale lager was brewed the following year in However, it was not in Bavaria, Germany, or even Austria.

The townspeople had at one point dumped some 36 barrels of unacceptable beer into streets in front of town hall and watched it flow into the nearby river.

In , the town commissioned two Bavarians, an architect-builder Martin Stelzer and a head brewer Josef Groll , to build a brand-new state-of-the-art brewery and brew a beer along the lines of the renowned lagers of Bavaria. From the very beginning the beer was a sensation. Never had such a golden, bright, brilliantly clear beer been seen before! In addition to its appearance, the beer had a pronounced hop aroma and flavor that nearly perfectly balanced the clean grainy, bready malt flavors held in check by the snappy hop bitterness.

The malt was perhaps the most important or at least the newest innovation. First Groll selected local Bohemian barley from nearby Morovia. Barley from this region had been carefully cultivated over time and developed to be a high quality barley for brewing beer. Groll then malted this barley using techniques and processes that he had learned from a visit to England; however, he took it even a step further making his malt even lighter than what England, Sedlmayr, and Dreher had produced.

During that period there was also a major migration of Germans and other Northern Europeans to America. It should be noted here that Germanic emigrants as a whole were arguably the most successful ethnic group in America at that time. They established cities, schools, industries, and maintained much of their cultural roots for generations, and among their industries and culture was, of course, beer and brewing. Even the most casual perusal of brewing history in America turns up German names at every glance — many of them still familiar today.

And not just America. The German diaspora of the 19th century, of which my ancestors were a part, also took brewing to Mexico, South America, and even China. And what were they brewing? The history of Anchor Brewing Company is the story of German emigrants and lager beer. Being an organized and industrious lot, Germans built major industries.

They organized cold transportation for their products, modernized their production techniques, and developed the first practical mechanical refrigeration plants — all for lager. Refrigeration was the big one here. It made year-round brewing a practical reality. Ice production made cold rail transport possible in an age preceding refrigerated rail cars.

Lager from the large breweries in the Midwest could be shipped to the South. West coast breweries shipped east. Lager was the beer of the day. An early refrigerator car design.

Hatches in the roof provided access to the ice tanks at each end. Source: wikipedia. The availability of transportation brought about a homogenization of styles as regional breweries were able to compete outside of their home markets. Smaller regional breweries still had a bit of local loyalty, but the beer was mostly all the same.

When prohibition came about it actually benefitted the larger breweries in the end, partly because they were better able to wait it out with their size and resources, allowing them to diversify.

WWII sealed the deal for lager brewery operations. Young men from all over the country were thrown together and drank whatever was available, wherever they were sent, and in virtually all locales, that meant pale American lager.

Note: The term "Lager" in English is used in a much broader meaning than in German. In some publications one can read, that the very existence of Lager yeast is based on the cooling technology invention, but that is a myth. Before artifical cooling it was common to brew bottom fermenting lagers in the winter and top fermenting ales in the summer.

Only brewers who had access to natural cool storage, e. And these lagers were often favoured over ales, as they were considered to be better digestable even some modern studies suggest that ale yeast produces more esthers and hence increases the risk of headaches for the drinker.

This favourism can be seen in old court records from the city of Nuremberg dating back to the 14th century, in which brewers without rock cellars sued other brewers with rock cellars for illegally selling "cold" i. Another legend found in many texts around beer is, that brewers in the past did not know yeast and that all beer was fermented spontaneously. This might have been the case around the time of invention of beer some But with the arrival of monastery-breweries and hence a scientific and hand-craft approach to brewing in the 8th century A.