Your Top 5 U.S Lager Breweries

My source is a WFs as well in the South Bay (San Jose area). RC & D&T are there nearly 100% of the time and fresh. I get the impression this particular WF makes greater effort to get some interesting beers as I recently found a Fort George 3-Way IPA there. I was lucky enough to find Heady Topper and Focal Banger there once.

 

Can find them at larger grocery stores as well as TW and BM

 

Hmm, I don't recall ever hearing much chatter about their lagers. Good stuff?

 

Never lived in Straub territory, but I visited the Straub brewery in about '80 and drank a beer at the eternal tap at the bottling line. Only beer was Straub Lager. Workers at the end of the line were putting bottles into cases by hand. I don't think they had a can line at the time.

 

There isn’t a lot of chatter, but that just encourages my post. Quinannan Falls had a great rep on BA… back in the day… when it was a bit radical. Forgotten now I guess. Lager of the Lakes struck me as an unusually good American pilsner, but I tend to avoid American pilsners so I don’t buy it. The beer that makes me especially enthusiastic is their Oktoberfestbier. It has its fans and haters, but for me, it’s one of my favorite American lagers. It marches to its own beat. I love that beer. It’s one of the few American lagers I care about. Time will tell if the sale of the brewery kills it.

 

I co-sign the above but would also mention Consecrator, which was my favorite lager they did (and it was maybe my favorite widely distributed American doppelbock overall). I'm sad it's been brewery-only the past few years.

 

Agree. I want this one back.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/287/58981/

 

Gotta go Bierestadt for first place, jacks Abby a second place. Third fourth and fifth go to TRVE, prost, and cerebral. The last three aren't just brewing lagers, but the beers they do lager are great. What I've had (thanks @unlikelyspiderperson ) from moonlight has been good, I just haven't had enough.

 

If you make it out there, there used to be an excellent pupusa place just down the road near the corner of stadium and liberty. Pilar's I think it's called. Pupusas, lager beers, and darts at wolverine state used to be a favorite way to spend an afternoon when I lived in that area

Are they still doing quarterly releases only?

They seem to be pretty widely available. I'd check other whole foods stores or any decent bottle shops along your route

if I had to pick 5 right now;
North Coast - scrimshaw is the best

Moonlight - lots of good stuff but Death & Taxes alone gets them on the list

Urban Roots - they don't seem to do anything poorly

Bierstadt - a limited sampling compliments of @SFACRKnight, but every one absolutely excellent

Russian River - i think Velvet Glow is my favorite American helles. Sts is solid too.

honorable mention to Trumer.

 

I feel like I am a bit of a "recovering tunnel-visioned ale fan"; been definitely getting more into lagers these days, and expanding my scope of beer styles in general. My top 5 from what I have personally tried so far:

1. Jack's Abby
2. OEC
3. Victory
4. Zero Gravity
5. Troegs

Also, honorable mention to von Trapp; I wanted to include it in the list and forgot about it.

 

Velvet Glow is a Helles? I always imagined it was a session IPA or similar from the name.

I see a cold bottle of STS Pils and a cold bottle of Velvet Glow in my future once I get back to The States.

 

A damn good one if you ask me.

 

Penn

 

Seedz is incredible. Went to Goldfinger on Friday night and saw the Seedz head Brewer at Goldfinger participating in Goldfinger lagerversary. I have been to Seedz only three times and he immediately recognized me. Excellent taproom. Fun vibes at that taproom & staff is very friendly. High quality beers. Put it on your brewery bucket list.

 

12 oz bottles, 12 oz cans, 16 oz cans, all in 4-packs. $2+ low end to $4+ (oak conditioned lagers) on the high end. Yes on pricing range to their lower ABV ales.

 

I’ve had others from around the country, but not enough regularity to warrant a place on my list so it’s very region specific…

Notch
Schilling
Hill
Suarez
Tree House

 

Oh yeah - I forgot that one.

 

I was becoming extremely disappointed that no one was mentioning Notch. Thank you for finally doing that. Absolutely the best lagers I've had in the US.

Shoutout to Silvaticus as well.