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a glass of beer

Lager

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Lager is a type of beer brewed with a cold conditioning period after the initial fermentation. Lagers mature in cold storage and usually use a certain yeast called “bottom-fermenting” which can ferment at low temperature. In German a lager is a storage place or storehouse, so lagerbier described this beer which was left in cold storage to develop before the advent of electrical refrigeration. Leafy chestnut trees planted over such underground storage to keep it cool may have given rise to the biergarten, or beer garden.

While lager may be light or dark in colour, in the UK lager usually refers just to pale beers of the lager type, and overdrinking holidaymakers are sometimes described as “lager louts”.   The word Lager also occurs in the compound word Konzentrationslager, or concentration camp, often referred to as just a Lager.