What Ales Us

Ale, Lager, Pilsner – What’s the dif?

Ales are made from top-fermenting yeasts. Beers brewed in this manner tend to be fruitier, not in the lambic or berry-weizen, chick-beer type of way where actual fruits are harmed in the production of the drink but along the lines that the scent and taste of an Ale will be alive, reminiscent of an orchard…it is so hard to talk about the flavor of drink without appearing to be either pretentious or compensating for a poor palate with a large vocabulary – in any case, ales tend to be more assertive.

The ale’s flavor is stronger in part due to the addition of hops. Pilsners and lagers have the advantage of being bottom-fermented and stored in a chilled environment – even before the ubiquity of refrigeration – there was nature’s beer cooler – the Alps. Ales are brewed at warmer temperatures, warm things like to spoil, hops rich in resins and oils retard the growth of unwanted microbial growth.

The advent of modernity with its pasteurization, hygiene and chemical analysis means hops are now a flavoring more than a preservative. Beers like India Pale Ale – IPA to the txtrs amongst us – originally used hops to prevent beers from spoiling during the long, hot voyage from England to India. Currently, IPA’s use hops to boldly flavor beer, along with adding a floral scent and a degree of bitterness to help balance out the robust flavor.

As ales are to Anglos and Anglophiles, lagers are to the Saxons. Golden, sparkling and best served chilled it is no surprise that most American beers are lager-style brews. Speculation for our cultural preference for lagers runs from derisive comments attempting to account for taste to the more nuanced conjecture that the US brewing capitals first Albany then Detroit and Milwaukee – are all on the cold-side of the climate with the added bonus of being able to harvest ice from the frozen rivers and lakes in the region making easy to manufacture and store beer 12 months a year.

Michael Jackson – the late beer master, not the bleached hermaphrodite – has a different theory: The arrival of glass drinking vessels (or what we now plainly like to call glasses) meant cloudy, dark, heavily malted beers served in metal, wood or ceramic glasses, which weren’t previously seen, were now being judged on appearance. A golden, clear, bubbly lager that could be seen in transparent glass was a seal of purity. The advent of affordable glassware matches the emergence of the American brewing industry.

Lastly, a pilsner is a style of lager. Purists will claim pilsners are 4% alcohol by weight, a specific gravity near 12 on the Plato system and use only Saaz hops. Sure, maybe, I guess. I am not sure how centuries old Bohemian guild standards apply to a style of beer brewed on 6 the 7 continents in the new millennium but the words and their definitions change, evolve, flex and expand – you can rally against it like a beer Luddite, doomed to defeat or you accept the world changes and acknowledge that a pilsner is a golden, bubbly lager while maybe not the most complex beer in the world is a good one for a hot day.