Lagered Ale

Dampfbier.

 

Most Trappist ales.

 

Duvel undergoes secondary in cooler temps, doesn't it?

 

Sam Adams Boston Ale:

"Keeping with the stock ale style, Samuel Adams Boston Ale is fermented at warmer ale temperatures. The beer is then krausened like Boston Lager and dry hopped at cold temperatures like a lager."

http://www.samueladams.com/enjoy-our-beer/beer-detail.aspx?name=boston-ale

 

We get into some controversy here through the use of "ale"
Unilaterally and without proper reason ale has been misrepresented as a catch all for top fermented beer. Not all top fermented beer is ale.Kolsch for example is legally an "obergäriges lagerbier" , not an ale as it's German and ales are beers of British descent.I know I'm pissing into the wind because the calumny is seen everywhere.Perhaps because people don't bother checking facts and sources as it's easier to join the herd.I've even had people saying that it's the yeast which defines the beer!

 

Interesting, never heard this before. So what's a better way to define lager then? By the longer, colder secondary fermentation?

And aren't hefeweizens German ales? Or is that also due to a narrow definition?

 

Lots of North American ale styles - Canadian ales, sparkling ales, cream ales, golden ales, "bastard" ales - styles developed by ale brewers to compete with lager beer - are/were traditionally lagered for a time. And, of course, many other ales were long aged, and simultaneously dry hopped in many cases, in large casks/tanks before bottling/racking.

 

The clue to lager is that it has been lagered! That's where the name came from. Originally lager would have been brewed with a top fermenting yeast but as bottom fermenting strains cope better with cool temperatures they became predominant.The result, not the cause, of lager brewing.So the Germans, wishing to be correct in these matters call Kolsch an obergäriges lagerbier.
Germans simply didn't use the word "ale" , that was used in Great Britain as one of their types , confusingly the other was "beer" and included stout and porter.Ale brewers were different from beer brewers, had their own guilds and barrel sizes.Ale brewers didn't brew porters.
That was then and things have moved on , ales and beers came closer together.But German top fermented beer has little in common with that from the UK except where the yeast settles.Countries which have been influenced by British brewing such as Belgium and the US use "ale".
Some observers would say that the historic references are irrelevant. But it's a bit like nationality-it's not a matter of what you call yourself it's a matter of record, where you were born and where your parents were born.
And let's face it, there's no need to define Kolsch as an ale. Why not simply call it a Kolsch?

 

Today, most beers go through a period of cold conditioning. It doesn’t make much sense any more to divide beers into top-fermenting and bottom-fermenting ("ale" and "lager" for the Americans), if it ever did. It’s only one of a number of factors that affect the flavour of beer.