Pale lager is a very pale to golden

Gold (color)

Gold, also called golden, is one of a variety of orange-yellow color blends used to give the impression of the color of the element gold....

-coloured beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 with a well attenuated body

Attenuation (brewing)

In brewing attenuation is the percentage that measures the conversion of sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide by the fermentation process. The percentage is calculated by comparing weight or specific gravity of the extract before and after fermentation....

 and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing

Brewing

Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...

 process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century

19th century

The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...

 when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale

Pale ale

Pale ale is a beer which uses a warm fermentation and predominantly pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles.The higher proportion of pale malts results in a lighter colour. The term "pale ale" was being applied around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with coke, which resulted in a...

 brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods. This approach was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll

Josef Groll

Josef Groll was a Bavarian brewer, best known for his invention of Pilsener beer.The citizens of Pilsen were no longer satisfied with their top-fermented Oberhefenbier. They publicly emptied several casks of beer in order to draw attention to its low quality and short storage life...

 of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 who produced Pilsner Urquell

Pilsner Urquell

Plzeňský Prazdroj , known better by its German name Pilsner Urquell , is a bottom-fermented beer produced since 1842 in Pilsen, part of today's Czech Republic. Pilsner Urquell was the first pilsner beer in the world...

 in the city of Pilsen

Pilsen

Plzeň, or Pilsen is a city in western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. It is the capital of the Plzeň Region and the fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic. It is located about 90 km west of Prague at the confluence of four rivers—the Radbuza, the Mže, the Úhlava, and the Úslava—which...

, today's Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. 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, and includes Budweiser

Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)

Budweiser is a 5.0% abv American-style lager introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch and one of the highest selling beers in the United States. It is made with up to 30% rice in addition to hops and barley malt. Budweiser is produced in various breweries located around the world...

, the world's highest volume selling beer. However, pale lagers currently are often rated as unpopular with beer connoisseurs; on prominent beer rating

Beer rating

Beer rating is assessing and evaluating beer using a point system. The process is similar to that used in beer judging competitions, such as those organised by the Beer Judge Certification Program in America, though the participants are consumers so it may be termed a score-rated recommendation...

 site RateBeer.com's list of the 50 "Worst Beers in the World," 35 are pale lagers.

The main elements of the lagering method used by Sedlmayr and Groll are still used today, and depend on a slow acting yeast

Saccharomyces pastorianus

Saccharomyces pastorianus is a yeast, used industrially for the production of lager beer. It is a synonym of the yeast species Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, which was originally described in 1883 by Emil Christian Hansen, who was working for the Danish brewery Carlsberg.-Genomics:As S...

 that ferments at a low temperature while being stored. The German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 term translates as "storage".

History

Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n brewers

Brewery

A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 in the sixteenth century were required by law to brew beer only during the cooler months of the year. In order to have beer available during the hot summer months, beers would be stored in caves and stone cellars, often under blocks of ice.

In the period 1820-1830, a brewer named Gabriel Sedlmayr II the Younger, whose family was running the Spaten Brewery in Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 went around Europe to improve his brewing skills. When he returned, he used what he had learned to get a more stable and consistent lager beer. The Bavarian lager was still different from the widely-known modern lager; due to the use of dark malts it was quite dark, representing what is now called Dunkel

Dunkel

Dunkel, or Dunkles, is a dark German beer. Dunkel is the German word meaning dark, and dunkel beers typically range in colour from amber to dark reddish brown. They are characterized by their smooth malty flavour....

 beer or the stronger variety, Bock

Bock

Bock is a strong lager of German origin. Several substyles exist, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer...

 beer.

The new recipe of the improved lager beer spread quickly over Europe. In particular Sedlmayr's friend Anton Dreher

Anton Dreher

Anton Dreher was an Austrian brewer who was an important figure in the development of pale lager....

 used the new lagering technique to improve the Viennese

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 beer in 1840–1841, creating Vienna lager. New kilning techniques enabled the use of lighter malts, giving the beer an amber-red rich colour.

Description

Pale lagers tend to be dry, lean, clean-tasting and crisp. Flavours may be subtle, with no traditional beer ingredient dominating the others. Hop

Hops

Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...

 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

Adjuncts

Adjuncts are unmalted grains used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient , often with the intention of cutting costs, but sometimes to create an additional feature, such as better foam retention.- Definition :Ingredients which are standard for certain beers, such as wheat in a...

 such as rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 or corn

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 to lighten the body of the beer. There tends to be no butterscotch

Butterscotch

Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, although other ingredients such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt are part of some recipes...

 flavour from diacetyl

Diacetyl

Diacetyl is a natural byproduct of fermentation. It is a vicinal diketone with the molecular formula C4H6O2...

, due to the slow, cold fermentation process.

Variations

Pale lager was developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took some British pale ale

Pale ale

Pale ale is a beer which uses a warm fermentation and predominantly pale malt. It is one of the world's major beer styles.The higher proportion of pale malts results in a lighter colour. The term "pale ale" was being applied around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with coke, which resulted in a...

 brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany, and started to modernise continental brewing methods. In 1842 Josef Groll

Josef Groll

Josef Groll was a Bavarian brewer, best known for his invention of Pilsener beer.The citizens of Pilsen were no longer satisfied with their top-fermented Oberhefenbier. They publicly emptied several casks of beer in order to draw attention to its low quality and short storage life...

 of Pilsen, a city in western Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

 in what is now the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, used some of these methods to produce Pilsner Urquell

Pilsner Urquell

Plzeňský Prazdroj , known better by its German name Pilsner Urquell , is a bottom-fermented beer produced since 1842 in Pilsen, part of today's Czech Republic. Pilsner Urquell was the first pilsner beer in the world...

, the first known example of a golden lager. This beer proved so successful that other breweries followed the trend, using the name Pilsner. Breweries now use the terms "lager" and "Pilsner" interchangeably, though pale lagers from Germany and the Czech Republic with the name Pilsner tend to have more evident noble hop aroma and dry finish than other pale lagers.

With the success of Pilsen's golden beer, the town of Dortmund

Dortmund

Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

 in Germany started brewing pale lager in 1873. As Dortmund was a major brewing centre, and the town breweries grouped together to export the beer beyond the town, the brand name
Dortmunder Export

Dortmunder Export

Dortmunder Export or Dortmunder is a pale lager that originated in the then industrial city of Dortmund in Germany. Originally brewed by Dortmunder Union in 1873, this soft pilsner style beer became very popular with industrial workers, and was responsible for Dortmunder Union becoming Germany's...

became known. Today, breweries in Denmark, the Netherlands, and North America brew pale lagers labelled as Dortmunder Export.

A little later, in 1894, the Spaten Brewery in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 recognised the success of these golden lagers and utilised the methods that Sedlmayr had brought home over 50 years earlier to produce their own light lager they named helles, which is German for "light coloured", in order to distinguish it from dunkel

Dunkel

Dunkel, or Dunkles, is a dark German beer. Dunkel is the German word meaning dark, and dunkel beers typically range in colour from amber to dark reddish brown. They are characterized by their smooth malty flavour....

bier or dunkles bier ("dark beer"), which is another type of beer typical for the region, being darker in colour and sweeter than helles.

Examples of helles include Löwenbräu

Löwenbräu

Löwenbräu is a German brewery in Munich, Bavaria, Germany that produces a traditional Munich-style beer. It is currently owned by the American-Brazilian-Belgian company Anheuser-Busch InBev. Like other premium German beers, it is brewed according to the German "Reinheitsgebot" dating back to 1516...

 Original, Spaten Premium Lager, Weihenstephan

Weihenstephan

Weihenstephan is a part of Freising north of Munich, Germany.Weihenstephan is known for:* the site of one of the three campuses of the Technische Universität München , namely the one for life sciences* the Fachhochschule Weihenstephan...

er Original Bayrisch Mild, Hofbräu München Original, Augustiner Bräu

Augustiner Bräu

Augustiner Bräu is a brewery located in Munich, Germany. Established in 1328, it is Munich's oldest still independent brewery and produces some of Munich's most popular brands of beer.- Distribution and marketing :...

 Lagerbier Hell and Hacker-Pschorr Münchner Helles.

The earliest known brewing of American lager

American-style lager

American lager or North American lager is pale lager which is made and consumed in North America. Pale lager originated in Europe in the mid-19th century, and moved to America with German immigrants...

 was in the Old City section of Philadelphia by John Wagner in 1840 using yeast from his native Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

. Modern American-style lagers are usually made by large breweries such as Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

. Lightness of body is a cardinal virtue, both by design and since it allows the use of a high percentage of rice or corn

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

.

Though all lagers are well attenuated, a more fully fermented pale lager in Germany goes by the name Diet Pils. "Diet" in the instance not referring to being "light" in calories or body, rather its sugars are fully fermented into alcohol, allowing the beer to be targeted to diabetics. A marketing term for a fully attenuated pale lager, originally used in Japan by Asahi Breweries

Asahi Breweries

Asahi Breweries, Ltd. is a leading brewery and soft drink company based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has a 40% share of the Japanese beer market....

 in 1987, , was taken up by the American brewer Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. , is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the...

 in 1988 as "dry beer" for the Michelob brand, Michelob Dry. This was followed by other "dry beer" brands such as Bud Dry, though the marketing concept was not considered a success. In fully attenuated pale lagers, nearly all the sugar is converted to alcohol

Ethanol

Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

 due to the long fermentation period. The resulting clean, lean flavour is referred to as "dry".

Premium lager

Premium lager is a marketing term sometimes used by brewers for products they wish to promote; there is no legal definition for such a product, but it is usually applied to an all malt product of around 5% abv. Anheuser-Busch also uses the terms "sub-premium" and "super-premium" to describe the low-end Busch beer and the slightly higher-end Michelob.

Spezial is a stronger style of pale lager, mostly brewed in Southern Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, but also found in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. Spezial slots in between helles and bock

Bock

Bock is a strong lager of German origin. Several substyles exist, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer...

 in terms of flavour characteristics and strength. Full-bodied and bittersweet, it is delicately spiced with German aroma hops. It has a gravity of between 12.5° and 13.5° Plato and an alcohol content of 5.5 - 5.8% abv. The style has been in slow decline over the last 30 years, but still accounts for around 10% of beer sales in Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

.

Strong lager

Pale lagers that exceed an abv

Alcohol by volume

Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....

 of around 5.8% are variously termed bock

Bock

Bock is a strong lager of German origin. Several substyles exist, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer...

, malt liquor

Malt liquor

Malt liquor is a North American term referring to a type of beer with high alcohol content. In legal statutes, the term often includes any alcoholic beverage above or equal to 5% alcohol by volume made with malted barley. In common parlance, however, it is used for high-alcohol beers made with...

, super strength lager, Oktoberfestbier/Märzen, or European strong lager.

Bock

Bock is a strong lager which has origins in the Hanseatic

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

 town Einbeck

Einbeck

Einbeck is a town in the district Northeim, in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the German Timber-Frame Road.-Economy:Einbeck is famous for its 600 year old beer brewery, home of Einbecker Bier, the origin for the term Bock beer...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The name is a corruption

Corruption (grammar)

Corruption or bastardisation is a way of referring to certain changes in a language and their prescriptive evaluation. The most common way that a word can be said to be corrupted is the change of its spelling through errors and gradual changes in comprehension, transcription, and hearing. This is...

 of the medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 German brewing town of Einbeck

Einbeck

Einbeck is a town in the district Northeim, in southern Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the German Timber-Frame Road.-Economy:Einbeck is famous for its 600 year old beer brewery, home of Einbecker Bier, the origin for the term Bock beer...

, but also means goat (buck) in German. The original bocks were dark beers, brewed from high-coloured malt

Malt

Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...

s. Modern bocks can be dark, amber or pale in colour. Bock was traditionally brewed for special occasions, often religious festivals such as Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

, Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 or Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

.

Malt liquor

Malt liquor is an American term referring to a strong pale lager. In the UK, similarly-made beverages are called super-strength lager.

Oktoberfestbier / Märzen

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest, or Wiesn, is a 16–18 day beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and is the world's largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The...

 is a German festival dating from 1810, and Märzen are the beers that have been served at the event in Munich since 1818, and are supplied by 6 breweries known as the Big Six: Spaten, Löwenbräu

Löwenbräu

Löwenbräu is a German brewery in Munich, Bavaria, Germany that produces a traditional Munich-style beer. It is currently owned by the American-Brazilian-Belgian company Anheuser-Busch InBev. Like other premium German beers, it is brewed according to the German "Reinheitsgebot" dating back to 1516...

, Augustiner-Bräu

Augustiner Bräu

Augustiner Bräu is a brewery located in Munich, Germany. Established in 1328, it is Munich's oldest still independent brewery and produces some of Munich's most popular brands of beer.- Distribution and marketing :...

, Hofbräu-München

Hofbräuhaus

The Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München is a brewery in Munich, Germany, owned by the Bavarian state government...

, Paulaner

Paulaner

Paulaner is a German brewery, established in the early 17th century in Munich by the Minim friars of the Neudeck ob der Au cloister. The mendicant order and the brewery are named after Francis of Paola, the founder of the order....

 and Hacker-Pschorr. Traditionally Oktoberfestbiers were lagers of around 5.5 to 6% abv

Alcohol by volume

Alcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....

 called Märzen - brewed in March and allowed to ferment slowly during the summer months. Originally these would have been dark lagers, but from 1872 a strong March brewed version of an amber-red Vienna lager made by Josef Sedlmayr became the favourite Oktoberfestbier.
Since the 1970s the type of beer served at the festival has been a pale Märzen of 13.5 to 14º Plato and 5.5% to 6% abv. Though some Munich brewers still brew darker versions, mostly for export to the USA. The colour of these lagers may range from pale yellow to deep amber, with the darker colours more common in the USA. Hop levels tend not to be distinctive, though some USA examples may be firmly hopped. Modern beers sold as Oktoberfest and Märzen in Europe are mostly pale in colour.