2022 Trend I'd Like to See: American Lager
Ben Howe and Karolina Lobrow tapping kellerbier.
Since we designate December as that hinge in the annual calendar between the past and future, I’d like to talk about an idea that took root over the summer and has been growing in my mind for months. I can’t be certain it points to the future, but as 2022 beckons, I hope so. It came from Ben Howe, brewer and co-owner of Bellingham’s Otherlands Brewing. Ben has developed an avid fan base of lager traditionalists who come for his Franconian specialties, sometimes dispensed from a gravity keg on the bar.
I visited this summer, and as we sat and sipped pints of that very Franconian kellerbier poured from a gravity keg. In the course of his brewing journey, he once interned at a small brewery in Franconia, so he comes by his appreciation of these beers through firsthand experience. He caught me by surprise with a question he’s been considering as he, an American making lagers, continues to hone his craft. For breweries like Notch and Dovetail, perfecting European lager is a full life’s journey, but Ben wonders if there’s a way to translate the lessons of those countries into something a bit more local. “I love these beers and this tradition,” Ben told me (I didn’t take notes and I’m paraphrasing.) “But it feels a bit strange to be making a perfect recreation of a German beer. I wonder what an American lager would look like if we developed a tradition as rich as Franconia’s.”
It’s such a wonderful question, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Of course, there is an old tradition of lager-brewing in the United States. In order to deal with the intersection of the popularity of pale lagers coming out of Central Europe in the mid-19th century and the chunky, high protein barley Americans grew, brewers invented a workaround. They included corn or rice in their grist so their beers would clear up and show that gorgeous, sparkling golden hue that transfixed Austrians and Czechs. But this wasn’t really a new tradition. It was the German tradition adapting to a bump in the road. For the next century, lager-brewing was almost exclusively the purview of Germans or their descendants. They may have used local ingredients out of necessity, but they consulted German brewing manuals and made beer the way they were taught in the old country.
What would American lager look like in the 21st century, one that was genuinely responding to local tastes and preferences? I have this inkling that we’re already on the brink of such a development.
The German influence in American brewing was ultimately refracted through the lens of mass production. Farmers grew plump barley seeds rich in starch, not necessarily flavor. Brewers used local hops to bitter, but imported European hops for flavor their lagers. Brewing methods followed industrial-scale innovations like mash filters and high-gravity brewing.
When breweries want to make full flavored lagers now, they often use European ingredients like Weyermann malts and Czech or German hops. In my experience, one of the hallmarks of “craft lager” (a highly problematic term, but a useful one here) is tasting like Weyermann pilsner malt. It’s a wonderful malt, but it’s distinctly German.
A native brewing style, by contrast, must begin with local ingredients. IPAs started tasting American when brewers dumped the Target and Challenger hops and started using Cascade and Chinook. An American lager tradition would begin with ingredients that tasted American.
Craft malting (again with the “craft!”) hints at a possible way forward. Volume is the biggest barrier now—small malthouses can’t make enough pale and pilsner malt for even small breweries to shift to these as their house base malt. If that changes, we might start to see lagers appear with unusual, unfamiliar flavors.
Hops have become synonymous with IPAs, but that doesn’t mean breeders aren’t introducing spicy, herbal, crisp-tasting new varieties. Contessa, Adeena, Lórien, and Triumph are a few that spring to mind. These hops excite not just because they’re new and lager-friendly, but because they have a more modern (read: American) palate. They promise the elegance and delicacy of European hops but with the zip and electricity of new-world varieties.
When we think about native styles, local ingredients are necessary but not entirely sufficient: brewers must also make them differently. Beer is really a beverage of process. Ingredients matter a lot, but the way a brewer uses them ultimately makes the beer local. (Think about how Spanish and French chefs use a pig differently.) When Ben posed his question, this was where my mind turned. Czechs decoct and use first-wort hopping, while Germans acidify their worts naturally, recapture their CO2, and mostly use step-mashing. What would Americans do?
One technique is already becoming common: whirlpool hopping. It’s become so ubiquitous among ale styles Americans just seem to use the technique reflexively. Hop schedules are also deviating from the ones Europeans use. Even when adding Mittelfrüh to make 20 BU lagers, Americans are far more likely to use flavor additions to saturate their lagers. It’s a subtle but noticeable shift. And what about dry-hopping? Typically, Americans call their dry-hopped lagers “Italian,” but that may give way to a more routine use across the spectrum of a brewery’s lagers. And why not? Dry-hopping need not be used to create a juice bomb—it can just as easily help layer aroma on top of that saturated flavor palate, even in those 20 BU “German” lagers.
Even before hazy IPAs came along, Americans were less insistent about clarity. Americans see no reason to filter their lagers as a result, and that, too can affect flavor. Finally, a few breweries in the US have even begun aging lagers on unpitched oak. Although it’s a controversial practice, it’s a novel one, and it certainly affects flavor.
At the moment these are the only Americanisms I’ve observed, but they’re already pointing toward something new. What I would love to see in 2022 are more intentional explorations. Imagine lagers like this: made with base malts from barley grown and malted locally, a more American hop schedule with local lager hops (soft bitter charge, late kettle additions, whirlpool additions, and small dry-hop additions), aged in a Brett-free oak foeder, served unfiltered and lively with the flavors of all those ingredients. That’s a pretty unusual, pretty American beer.
Starting with a similar template and watching how the ingredients express themselves, brewers would no doubt begin to tinker with other processes like mash schedules and boil lengths. Techniques tend to follow ingredients, so working with local hops and malt might require new approaches. It wouldn’t happen overnight, and we wouldn’t necessarily know what process changes are afoot. Instead, the evolution would be evident in the glass. We wouldn’t be tasting excellent examples of German or Czech styles anymore. They’d present differently, have different flavors, textures, and aromas. They’d taste … American.
I can’t wait.