As a brewer who loves to make lager, I often find that folks don’t fully understand the commitment behind well-made lagers. This isn’t shocking as lagers certainly took a backseat for the majority of the craft beer movement, as they were plagued as a representation of what “The Man” makes. However, the gaining popularity of styles that fall underneath the lager umbrella (i.e. pilsner, festbier, helles, etc.) is a breath of fresh air.

The commitment behind well-made lager is multi-faceted. 

There is time. Longer primary fermentations and extended cold conditioning ties up vessels significantly longer than ales. 

There is technique. Whether that is spent carrying out intricate mashing programs and maturation periods or dealing with fragile hopping rates where perfect bitterness is always a moving target. 

There is cost. Using more expensive (and often imported) base malts, less frequent tank turnover, and longer cold conditioning, which means your glycol system is working harder thus driving up your electrical bill.

At Alma Mader we believe that time, technique, and cost are worth it for our lager program. One of my first brewery purchases was a horizontal lagering tank. Our lagering tank was an important purchase because of its versatility as we use it for cold conditioning lager after primary fermentation, and it also stands as a commitment and a reminder that this is what we are passionate about.  We are willing and committed to being patient, which is without a doubt a key ingredient of crafting high quality lager.

Our horizontal lagering tank has become a crucial vessel in our cellar work and helps us to keep our other beers moving along. The beauty of this tank is the increased surface area and shallow depth in comparison to a standard unitank, which helps naturally settle out any protein and yeast to the bottom. This maturation period in the lagering tank also helps us reduce “green” flavors and aromas that are characteristic of primary fermentation.

When our lagers are finally ready to package, we keg the majority and bottle a very small amount. There is something about lager in bottles that is certainly special. The European and nostalgic feel of 500ml bottles is something that I enjoy and it reminds me of the Augustiner Helles that my college teammates from Munich used to bring back to Kansas City after the holidays. It’s equivalent to how many of us Kansas Citians feel about coming home to a Boulevard Wheat.

In our tasting room, we imported a Czech side-pull faucet and our lagers are poured slow and with patience into beautiful 0.5l Rastal glassware. We slow pour so that we can have a hefty cap of foam on top of the beer that lasts the whole glass and protects the delicate aroma. Waiting a little bit longer for your beer is worth the time and effort that we put into giving you lager that we’re proud of. 

Cheers,

Nick Mader