Lagerbier

Lagerbier is German for 'storage beer,' from Lager (storehouse, warehouse) + Bier (beer). The word names the process: lager is beer that has been stored (lagered) at cold temperatures for weeks or months after fermentation. The cold storage allows the yeast to settle, producing a clear, crisp, smooth beer. Ales, by contrast, are fermented warm and served relatively quickly. The difference between lager and ale is not the ingredients — it is the waiting.

Cold-storage brewing developed in Bavaria in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Bavarian brewers discovered that beer stored in alpine caves or cellars over the winter improved dramatically. The Reinheitsgebot (German beer purity law) of 1516 codified brewing standards, and Bavarian lager became the dominant beer style in German-speaking Europe by the nineteenth century.

German immigrants brought lager to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. Adolphus Busch, a German immigrant from Hesse, co-founded Anheuser-Busch in 1876 and began producing Budweiser — a light, pale lager that would become the best-selling beer in America. Miller, Coors, Pabst — nearly every major American beer brand was founded by German immigrants making lager. The German word for 'stored' became the American word for 'beer.'

Today, lager accounts for approximately 90 percent of all beer consumed worldwide. Pale lager — the style of Budweiser, Heineken, Tsingtao, and Corona — is the most consumed alcoholic beverage on earth. The German patience that created lager — months of cold storage — has been industrialized, accelerated, and scaled to planetary volume. The caves are gone. The storage is a word on a label.