Lite American Lagers and their German Heritage

Lite American Lagers and their German Heritage

In the world of micro brewing it hardly seems to be appropriate to discuss Extra Light Lagers.
On the contrary, not discussing extra light lagers in the brewing industry is like not discussing McDonalds in the restaurant industry.
Both products fill a very large market for the respective industries. Unfortunately, there are no commercial examples of the beer being micro brewed. We are restricted to the large production breweries for this particular example.

Lager beer arrived in the United States at with the immigration of Germans to the US during the 1840’s. By that time, German brewers had already perfected the Lager beer style.
I knew that the Mexican beers were styled by the German immigrants that moved to Mexico. When I was visiting in San Antonio Texas last year, I was surprised at the huge influence German immigrants had in the area.
Germans love their beer. It could be said that were there was a German community there would be a German style brewery.
Even backs then, lagers were not considered to be "intoxicating."

Fast forward to 1970: large beer companies were swallowing up smaller beer companies. The large beer companies were offering the same kind of beer. What could the breweries do to make the almost pale, almost flavorless beer more inviting? Shame on us.
The big corporations learned to market their beer so that we would want it even less colorful and less flavorful. Can you believe that we fell for that?!?!!!!!

The target of the market was not only women (because some do watch their figure, unlike myself) but it was also less alcohol. In some cases the ABV would be as low as 3.2 %. Why not just drink soda water. Other marketing tags included, "dry beer" and "ice beer."

The appeal for this style of beer continues to be the mainstay of large corporate breweries.
Budweiser, Miller, and Coors are the largest producers of this style and continue to be a flagship beer for these companies.

I would highly recommend that only cans of the beer be purchased. One may argue that the hop skunking that may occur in the beers would be nil. However, these beers are so delicate that if you are going to spend money then you want to be sure you are getting the best product.
These beers are lagers and therefore are best served cold. I wonder if there is enough alcohol in them to keep them from freezing? Hmmmm. I’ll report back on that one later.

You could serve these in a hefty frosted mug or in a frosted pilsner glass. With this beer, I think it is more about the appearance rather than flavor. Having your taste buds put in deep freeze may not be such a bad idea.

The best thing about this beer style when it comes to pairing it with food is it's neutrality.

You can serve it with just about anything and the clean palate will not obscure the food. It's more like a palate cleanser. With little scrubbing bubbles dancing over your tongue before you take the next bite.

There is a time and a place for all beers, even a Bud Lite. Drink responsibly.

Next Tuesday look for me to write about Standard American Lager.