Your Top 5 U.S Lager Breweries

Ahhhh @ZAP you've posed a difficult question! This list is apt to change as new brews arrive and or I finally get to try more of the thousands of existing ones. No order of importance to my top 5. IMHO these folks do lagers well. Cheers!
August Schell Brewing >New Ulm, MN
Fernson Brewing >Sioux Falls, SD
Hamm's Brewing >Milwaukee, WI
Kros-Strain Brewing >La Vista, NE
Summit Brewing >St Paul, MN

 

Though not strictly lagers, need to include Moonlight on this list.

 

I'd just like to point out that neither in the thread title nor OP, is there a distinction made that a brewery must be "Lager only" to be mentioned here.

 

Reading over it, I see you’re correct.

But, this quote does somewhat imply it. Cheers.

 

OK, below is my list.

Permit me to once again state that I would not necessarily label these breweries as “lager breweries” since for some (maybe all of them?) they sell more ales than lager brands.

In no specific order:

Sly Fox

Sterling Pig

Mainstay

Tired Hands

Live Oak

Cheers!

Edit: And an honorable mention to Troegs; I look forward to trying their new brand: Oktoberfest.

 

I reckon Grimm Brothers does very well with Lagers.

 

Jack's Abby, with a shout out to Von Trapp, whose lagers I only discovered last year.

 

Is Wolverine one of them? If so, you need to stop there the next time you're in Ann Arbor.

I don't see their bottles (cans maybe nowadays?) at my stores anymore, so maybe they're not distributing like they were in the past

 

This is tough to choose. So many great lager breweries these days.

Dovetail
Goldfinger
Schillings
Fox Farm
Bierstadt

Honerable mentions-
New Glarus
Hill Farmstead
Live oak
Seedz
Allagash
Farm Club

 

Bracketing the concerns above about how hyper-local some answers will be and also what makes a "lager brewery," here are my five:

Counterweight (CT)
Dovetail (IL)
Suarez Family (NY)
Urban Chestnut (MO)
Wooly Pig (OH)

HMs: Fox Farm, Goldfinger, Great Lakes, Hill Farmstead, Noble Beast

 

we're in the process of opening our brick-and-mortar place so right now we're on hiatus. October is ambitious but...maybe we'll have some beers then?

my list:

olde meck
halfway crooks
schilling stuff is good
schells for the history
and...hmmmm...someone doing franconian stuff

haven't had dovetail or bierstadt but suspect they'd be up there.

it's cool that each region seems to now have a stable of good to great lager offerings and fan favorites.

 

A few comments:

A number of folks have posted about Jack’s Abby. I have enjoyed drinking a number of Jack’s Abby lagers in the past but for some reason they have really ‘pulled back’ in my area (SEPA). At a number of my local beer retailers the only product available is House Lager. I have read recently that Jack’s Abby is expanding into new areas (e.g., Virginia, etc.) and more recently I read that more of Night Shift Brewing beers will be produced at Jack’s Abby. Does this mean even less Jack’s Abby beer being available for sale in my area?

I enjoy Von Trapp beers but my favorite of their brands is their Kölsch, which if fermented with an ale yeast but later goes through a lagering phase so I will ‘count’ this beer for this specific thread. I used to enjoy drinking Von Trapp Dunkel but I have not seen that brand at my local beer retailers in a long time (a Jack’s Abby ‘thing’ here?).

Cheers!

 

There have been some mentions of Bierstadt. Below is something I posted a couple of months ago:

"The Logjammin' Lager Beer Festival last weekend was indeed a great event.

Below is a short 'summary' I posted in the New Beer Weekend thread:

The ‘highlight’ is that there were many breweries there and every beer I had was a ‘keeper’ – no beers were dumped.

My wife and I got there early and we were fortunate they let us get in when we arrived. There was a very long line for Bierstadt and we wisely decided to get in that long line to get two pours of the Slow Pour Pils which the beertender did pour very slowly (3-5 minutes for a pour). The beer was pretty to look at (see photo below) and while I enjoyed drinking that beer there were several other Pilsners there just as good (and some better).



Prost!

 

The OP never said anything about nationwide availability. I listed a couple of excellent lager breweries here in southern California. Lots of folks travel here from all over the world. Hopefully my suggestions will mean something to them next time they are out this way.

 

Do they brew Lagers? Then they're a Lager Brewery.

 

That is one I’ve had in mind. I get some distribution but not enough to get a good idea of their quality.

 

Uh, there has been a "Hamm's Brewing" since 1975, when Olympia bought the company.

Pabst bought Oly a few years later and then sold the Hamm's brand to Miller in 1999 as the two divided up the Stroh-Heileman portfolio, thus "Milwaukee" on the label refers to current owner, Molson Coors' brewery in that city, the former flagship of the Miller Brewing Co.

 

No, that was my question.

I'd rather hear about beers I can get without traveling, but that's just me, I guess.

So, maybe I'll just list all of the favorites in my area and tell all of the others they're wrong.

 

I’ve been wanting to visit Seedz for a while. One thing I notice is that they don’t post their tap menu on their website which is somewhat off putting to me. What do you think of them overall?