Breweries that don't lager their "lagers"

Was wondering that myself. Maybe shortening the time and/or elevating the temperature? And I believe the "stronger" the beer, the longer it should lager. I would suspect the shortcut is in the time.

 

Depends on the method I suppose. Abyss is pasteurized now and tastes fine.

 

Based on multiple tours of breweries that produce only ales and breweries that produce both ales and lagers (which are alive and well here in SEPA), I'd say the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Lots of breweries will include the lagering room/tanks on their tour. So I can't help you find one that produces a "faux" lager.

 

Isn't lagering just moving the beer to secondary and keeping it cool? I would say it's common practice for most breweries to do that with all of their beers.

 

Anchor uses coolships to cool their beer. If they didn't pasteurize their beer it would get pretty funky and inconsistent over time.

 

Not if the beer is in a clean room, filtered air system, and a proper pitch of yeast. If you read your link, they don't use it for cooling either.

Many breweries use open fermenters. Bigfoot is open fermented, and that is not a funky beer.

 

Lagering is longer and colder than just maturing a beer in a secondary.

 

But that's not what that Anchor webpage says: "However, since we now have the modern luxury of refrigeration and the wort is cooled before being pumped in, we no longer refer to our open fermenters as “coolships.” "

Many US breweries, both lager and ale brewers, once practiced open fermentation and, as was the convention at the time, their draught beers were not pasteurized while their canned/bottled beer were (typically via tunnel pasteurization).

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Several US breweries still open ferment, and don't pasteurize their beers.

Fritz Maytag simply chose to flash pasteurize both his bottled and kegged beers - in the case of the latter, he was an early US adopter of the practice.

Ed. note - Took too long finding that Schaefer image (one of my favorites) and I see "Hopenunmaltz" beat me to it...

 

Correct, I shouldn't have said they use them to cool their beer. However, their method of fermenting in open vessels puts them more at risk for contamination than fermenting in closed vessels. They ship beer all over the country and the only way to guarantee a consistently good product is to pasteurize.
Anchor Steam beer has a fairly low abv. Bigfoot is a much hardier beer at around 9% and loaded with hops.
I doubt they are pasteurizing their beer just for the sake of doing it. They are trying to provide you with a great beer 100% of the time.

 

Ooops! I sincerely thought they skipped the whole cold conditioning phase of a lager, at least for their flagship anyways.

Don't California commons/ Steam beers usually skip cold conditioning? That was my understanding of the style.

 

Good question -- the BJCP guidelines don't mention lagering in the California Common description, while it *is* mentioned in other descriptions of atypical top-fermenting styles, e.g., Dusseldorfer Alt and Koelsch.

 

I used Bigfoot as an example, as one can lay it down for years and years and no funk. Kellerweis is also done in the open fermenters. New Glarus has open fermenters for their wheat beers. Many breweries in Bavaria use open fermentation for the wheat beers and lagers.

I won't disagree that there are more infection possibilities with open fermentation, but stable beer can be made in a clean room with sterile filtered air supplied.

 

He might have been referring to the amount of time something is being lagered. I can't recall where I heard this, but I think the gold standard used to be 6 weeks. Now using the right technology, techniques, etc. that's a little on the longer side and 4-5 is more typical.
Again, not sure where I heard this, but there are ways to cheat time and avoid off flavors, too.
There's also the possibility that he's referring to breweries that aren't lagering long enough and their flavors ARE off as a result.

 

California Commons use a bottom fermented yeast and are usually fermented around 60-65 while lagers are around 50-55. Think of it as a lager fermented at ale temps allowing it to produce more esters while still retaining some crispness.

 

Greg Noonan published rules of thumb for lagering duration in his book The New Lager Beer book. Below is something I posted previously:

MLucky quoted a popular rule of thumb of "one week per 2 degrees Plato". I should state up front that this is the rule that I personally follow for lagering my beers.

Below is an extract of an article that Bill Pierce wrote for BYO magazine. As you will read the above rule of thumb is part of a ‘series’ of rules from Greg Noonan (author of the book “New Brewing Lager Beer”).

“How long to lager is a matter of some discussion. Light American lagers are typically held near freezing for 10–20 days, while some strong German doppelbocks are lagered as long as six months. For medium to high-gravity beers, Greg Noonan — brewpub owner and author of “New Brewing Lager Beer” (1996, Brewers Publications) — recommends 7–12 days per each 2 °Plato of original gravity. (One degree Plato is roughly equal to 4 specific gravity “points.”). For lower gravity lagers the time is reduced to 3–7 days. According to those guidelines, a 1.064 O.G. German bock should be lagered for 56–96 days, while a 1.040 American lager would be lagered 15–35 days.”

So, as you can read above there is some flexibility in selecting a lagering time for your beer. For example, to lager a 12P (1.048) beer you could lager on the shorter end of the duration: 3 x 6 = 18 days.

Cheers!

 

If a bottom-fermented beer is not lagered, then it is simply a bottom-fermented beer, and not a lager.
Altbier and Kolsch are top-fermented lagerbiers.

 

Some also use this yeast and timeline to crank out lagers fast.

http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp925-hp-lager-yeast?s=pro

 

There has been some discussion about whether Anchor Steam beer is lagered. Below is from an article published in Brewing Techniques magazine entitled: California Steaming by Roger Bergen.

“Modern Anchor Steam has about 10-15% kraeusen, is cellared at cold temperatures for three weeks, centrifuged, polish filtered, and flash pasteurized before bottling.”

From my perspective, three weeks of cold conditioning = lagering.

Cheers!

 

you all are making me thirst re-posting this image of Steam Beer over and over

 

see below posts but yes you can and some do Lager their ales.