Lager ( / ˈ l ɑː ɡ ər / ) is a style of beer brewed and conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be pale , amber , or dark . Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term " lager " comes from the German word for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.
28-472: A Fossil-Lagerstätte ( German: [ˈlaːɡɐˌʃtɛtə] , from Lager 'storage, lair' Stätte 'place'; plural Lagerstätten ) is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after
56-753: A Konservat-Lagerstätte may be based on a number of different factors which constitute "exceptional preservation". These may include the completeness of specimens, soft tissue preservation, fine-scale detail, taxonomic richness, distinctive taphonomic pathways (often multiple at the same site), the extent of the fossil layer in time and space, and particular sediment facies encouraging preservation. The world's major Lagerstätten include: Lakhanda Lagerstätte 1030-1000 Ma Uchur-Maya Depression, Russia Bitter Springs 1000–850 Ma South Australia Preserved fossils include cyanobacteria microfossils . Chichkan Lagerstätte 775 Ma Kazakhstan Doushantuo Formation 600–555 Ma Guizhou Province, China Spans
84-467: A copper to reddish-brown colour , low bitterness, low hop profile, a malty aroma, and 4.8–5.4% alcohol by volume . Pale lagers were not common until the later part of the 19th century when the use of lighter roasted malts spread. Dark lagers may be called Dunkel , tmavé or Schwarzbier depending on region, colour or brewing method. Tmavé is Czech for "dark" – beers which are so dark as to be black are termed černé pivo , "black beer". Dunkel
112-471: A death mask . It is a part of the larger Buen Formation , and has a fauna similar to the Maotianshan shales. Sinsk Algal Lens 518 Ma Yakutia , Russia One of the oldest known Cambrian lagerstätten . The fauna of this site is unique, as it seems that they were adapted to living in dysaerobic conditions. Lager As well as maturation in cold storage , most lagers are distinguished by
140-562: A deep tan or amber color. Among the common styles of amber lager are Märzen , traditionally brewed in Munich for the celebration of Oktoberfest , Bock , a higher alcohol-content amber lager originating in Einbeck in central Germany, and the widely distributed Vienna lager. The Vienna lager style was developed by Anton Dreher in the late 1830s. While on a trip to England and Scotland in 1833 with Gabriel Sedlmayr, Dreher gained knowledge of
168-758: A durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. Fossil-Lagerstätten span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present . Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan shales and Burgess Shale , the Ordovician Soom Shale , the Silurian Waukesha Biota , the Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation ,
196-653: A higher strength. The Vienna lager style has survived to this day, mostly thanks to the emerging microbrewing, home-brewing and craft beer scene in the United States of the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the influence of the American craft beer movement, Vienna lager can again be found in Europe, including traditional Austrian breweries like Ottakringer and Schwechater who have made this pale amber beer style part of their range of beers again. A Vienna lager typically has
224-460: A hybridization in the early fifteenth century. In 2011, a team of researchers claimed to have discovered that Saccharomyces eubayanus is responsible for creating the hybrid yeast used to make lager. Based on the numbers of breweries, lager brewing became the main form of brewing in the Kingdom of Bohemia between 1860 and 1870, as shown in the following table: In the 19th century, before
252-537: A more heavily hopped pale lager, is most often known as "Pilsner", "Pilsener", or "Pils". Other lagers are Bock , Märzen , and Schwarzbier . In the United Kingdom , the term commonly refers to pale lagers derived from the Pilsner style. While cold storage of beer, "lagering", in caves for example, was a common practice throughout the medieval period, bottom-fermenting yeast seems to have emerged from
280-662: A pale amber colour. The beer style became well-known internationally, in particular due to the Dreher brewery's restaurant and beer hall at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris, and started getting copied by many of the US-American lager breweries founded by German immigrants. The first amber-coloured Oktoberfest-Märzen brewed by Franziskaner-Leistbräu in 1872 was also a Vienna-style beer brewed to
308-533: A process of cool fermentation , followed by maturation in cold storage. The German word "Lager" means storeroom or warehouse. The yeast generally used with lager brewing is Saccharomyces pastorianus . It is a close relative of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast used for warm fermented ales. While prohibited by the German Reinheitsgebot tradition, lagers in some countries may include
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#1732776506967336-453: A proportion of adjuncts , usually rice or maize. Adjuncts entered United States brewing as a means of thinning out the body of beers, balancing the large quantities of protein introduced by six-row barley . Adjuncts are often used now in beermaking to introduce a large quantity of sugar, and thereby increase ABV , at a lower price than a formulation using an all-malt grain bill. There are, however, cases in which adjunct usage actually increases
364-530: Is German for "dark". At 4.5% to 6% abv , Dunkel is weaker than Doppelbock , a stronger dark Bavarian beer. Dunkel was the original style of the Bavarian villages and countryside. Schwarzbier , a much darker, almost black beer with a chocolate or licorice-like flavour, similar to stout , is brewed in Saxony and Thuringia . Bitter Springs (fossil locality) The Bitter Springs Group, also known as
392-556: Is usually mild, and the producers often recommend that the beers be served refrigerated. Pale lager is a very pale to golden -coloured lager with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods. This approach
420-671: The Bitter Springs Formation is a Precambrian fossil locality in Australia , which preserves stromatolites and microorganisms in silica . Its preservational mode ceased in the late Neoproterozoic with the advent of silicifying organisms. Fossils include exceptionally well-preserved cyanobacteria microfossils , as well as multiple stromatolite species, including Linella avis and Inzeria intia . This locality also has been claimed to contain eukaryotic green algae preservation, though this interpretation
448-1003: The Carboniferous Mazon Creek , the Triassic Madygen Formation , the Jurassic Posidonia Shale and Solnhofen Limestone , the Cretaceous Yixian , Santana , & Agua Nueva formations and the Tanis Fossil Site , the Eocene Fur Formation , Green River Formation , Messel Formation & Monte Bolca , the Miocene Foulden Maar and Ashfall Fossil Beds , the Pliocene Gray Fossil Site , and
476-482: The Pleistocene Naracoorte Caves & La Brea Tar Pits . Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds: Konservat-Lagerstätten preserve lightly sclerotized and soft-bodied organisms or traces of organisms that are not otherwise preserved in the usual shelly and bony fossil record; thus, they offer more complete records of ancient biodiversity and behavior and enable some reconstruction of
504-607: The palaeoecology of ancient aquatic communities. In 1986, Simon Conway Morris calculated only about 14% of genera in the Burgess Shale had possessed biomineralized tissues in life. The affinities of the shelly elements of conodonts were mysterious until the associated soft tissues were discovered near Edinburgh, Scotland, in the Granton Lower Oil Shale of the Carboniferous . Information from
532-465: The Maotianshan shale the world's most important for understanding the evolution of early multi-cellular life. Qingjiang biota 518 Ma Hubei , China This site is particularly notable due to both the large proportion of new taxa represented (approximately 53% of the specimens), and the notable volume of soft-body tissue preservation. Sirius Passet 523-518 Ma Greenland A site known for its fauna, and that they were most likely preserved by
560-419: The advent of refrigeration, German brewers would dig cellars for lagering and fill them with ice from nearby lakes and rivers, which would cool the beer during the summer months. To further protect the cellars from the summer heat, they would plant chestnut trees , which have spreading, dense canopies but shallow roots which would not intrude on the caverns. The practice of serving beer at these sites evolved into
588-465: The broader range of organisms found in Lagerstätten have contributed to recent phylogenetic reconstructions of some major metazoan groups. Lagerstätten seem to be temporally autocorrelated, perhaps because global environmental factors such as climate might affect their deposition. A number of taphonomic pathways may produce Konservat-Lagerstätten : The identification of a fossil site as
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#1732776506967616-537: The cost of manufacture. It is possible to use lager yeast in a warm fermentation process, such as with American steam beer ; while German Altbier and Kölsch are brewed with Saccharomyces cerevisiae top-fermenting yeast at a warm temperature, but with a cold-storage finishing stage, and classified as obergäriges lagerbier (top-fermented lager beer). Lagers range in colour from extremely pale, through amber beers such as Vienna lager, to dark brown and black Dunkel and Schwarzbier. The depth of colour comes from
644-504: The modern beer garden . The rise of lager was entwined with the development of refrigeration , as it made it possible to brew lager year-round (brewing in the summer had previously been banned in many locations across Germany), and efficient refrigeration also made it possible to brew lager in more places and keep it cold until serving. The first large-scale refrigerated lagering tanks were developed for Gabriel Sedelmayr's Spaten Brewery in Munich by Carl von Linde in 1870. Lager uses
672-417: The pale malt making process. Dreher combined the pale malt making techniques with cold bottom fermentation, using yeast given to him by Sedlmayr. In late 1840, Anton Dreher started renting a cellar to mature his beer under cold conditions, a process that is called "lagering". The resulting beer was clean-tasting and relatively pale for the time thanks to the use of smoke-free "English" hot air kilns, resulting in
700-796: The poorly understood interval between the end of the Cryogenian period and the late Ediacaran Avalon explosion . Mistaken Point 565 Ma Newfoundland, Canada This site contains one of the most diverse and well-preserved collections of Precambrian fossils . Ediacara Hills 555 Ma South Australia The type location the Ediacaran period, and has preserved a significant amount of fossils from that time. Khatyspyt Lagerstätte 544 Ma Yakutia , Russia A Late Ediacaran lagerstätte preserving an Avalon-type biota. Maotianshan Shales (Chengjiang) 518 Ma Yunnan , China The preservation of an extremely diverse faunal assemblage renders
728-412: The specific grain bill used in the beers; paler lagers use unroasted barley and may even add other grains such as rice or corn to lighten the color and provide a crisp, bright finish to the flavour. Darker lagers use roasted grains and malts to produce a more roasted, even slightly burnt, flavour profile. The most common lagers in worldwide production are pale lagers . The flavour of these lighter lagers
756-454: The use of Saccharomyces pastorianus , a "bottom-fermenting" yeast that ferments at relatively cold temperatures. Until the 19th century, the German word Lagerbier ( de ) referred to all types of bottom-fermented , cool-conditioned beer in normal strengths. In Germany today, it mainly refers to beers from southern Germany , either " Helles " (pale) or " Dunkles " (dark). Pilsner ,
784-601: Was picked up by other breweries, most notably Pilsner Urquell Brewery in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic ) where Josef Groll produced the first Pilsner beer. 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. Another pale lager variety is Helles , native to Munich. Amber lagers are generally darker in color than pale lagers, often
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