Lager diversity: Beyond pilsner and ‘lite’

The drumbeat supporting lager as the new new thing seems to be getting louder, but I’m pretty certain I heard such chatter before anybody suggested Juicy or Hazy IPA would become a defined style. And certainly before glitter beer began to glitter. Patience seems necessary. Nonetheless there is evidence of change almost hourly on my Twitter feed. For example (click on “talking about this” to read the conversations that followed):

Listen. No one predicted the 'lager' trend we all just kept repeating it as something that would be cool if it happened until it actually happened and now we don't know what to do with it.

— Carla Jean Lauter (@beerbabe) April 4, 2018

Defend Pilsner.

— Andy Crouch (@BeerScribe) April 4, 2018

But what comes after pilsners and light/lite beers? Burial Beer’s Ambient Terrain series looks encouraging. And there will be plenty of ideas to repurpose on display at the Urban Chestnut Brewing LagerFest in St. Louis.

Recipes for most of the beers that will be on offer came from Ron Pattinson’s wish list.

Firestone Walker Brewing, which you will recall makes a very popular pilsner (Pivo) and recently began shipping an all-malt lager (Firestone Lager) that is basically a helles, picked 1896 Munich Lagerbier. The only malt in the grist is Munich.

“Looking through the list of recipes that Florian (Kuplent, UCBC brewmaster) provided and thinking about the lager beers that we brew, the Munich Lagerbier appealed to us largely because we have never brewed a beer like this before,” Matt Brynildson wrote via email. “I played around with 100% Munich malt recipes as a home brewer many moons ago, so I knew there was some potential to make a nice malt forward beer.”

Evan Partridge, Firestone Walker’s Venice Beach R&D brewery manager who did much of the development work for FW Lager, made the beer. He also brews a schwarzbier that is is in regular pub rotation. “A dark, old world Munich lager sounded like something, that if it worked, might be nice to add to our pub offerings,” Brynildson wrote.

I suspect that if it hadn’t worked we wouldn’t be getting a chance to taste in St. Louis it a couple of weeks.

(Matt Brynildson since tweeted a photo of the beer. Feel free to drink with your eyes.)