By most accounts, the first lager Beer originated from Bavaria in the 1400s. Often, the first credited lager beer is in the style of Pilsner, a name that originates from the town of Pilsen in the Czech province of Bohemia. And even more famously, it is Pilsner Urguell, from Pilsner Urquell Brewery from 1842, that is often credited as the first Pilsner beer. (Pilsner Urquell has its own fascinating history, as it was formed by the citizens as they were unsatisfied with the quality of beer served to them.)
However, to understand what lager is, we must turn our eyes from human activity to yeasts.
Beer has been with us for at least 5,000 years, although many believe beer -or something similar is an even older product. Many of the historical beers and the current ales (all sorts of IPAs, British bitters, stouts, porters, and brown ales, to name a few) use a top-fermenting yeast strain, Saccharomyces cerevisiae to ferment the beer. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a handy yeast as it ferments -transforms sugars into alcohol- in the 20-25 Celsius range, meaning beer could be made in the typical temperatures in many regions.
Instead, lager beers use Saccharomyces pastorianus yeasts, which are of the more demanding sort. Saccharomyces pastorianus ferments below 10 Celsius temperatures, making it a much more difficult beer to produce. It is, therefore, fascinating that the beer that was hard to make ended up being the number one beer in the world.
However, the story of lager yeasts is not that simple. Saccharomyces pastorianus is a sort of hybrid yeast, part Saccharomyces cerevisiae and part some other yeast, a yeast that ferments in the cold and is in the bottom of the fermenting barrel or tank. Recently, researchers have discovered a yeast from Patagonia, South America, that dates over 200 years before lager was made in Europe. This yeast is a 99.5% match to the lager yeast portion of the Saccharomyces pastorianus. This find suggests that the first lager beers were perhaps made in Patagonia, well before Pilsner Urquell or even the proto-lagers before it.
However, it is unlikely that the yeast found its way from South America to Europe before the 1400s. According to some researchers, it is more likely that the lager yeast came to Europe from the east, travelling in wasps' stomaches and finding their way to Europe, where beer was made in cold cellars, giving the lager yeast a boost over the ale yeasts. Who knows, but it seems that lager yeast have travelled over the world way before we humans made lager beers a global phenomena.
Moreover, lager beers are also lagered -stored in the cold for some period of time. Because of this, many different kinds of things were done: lager beers required caves for storage, and to keep them even colder, ice was brought from the mountains or carved from lakes in the winter and transferred to the caves, chestnut trees were planted at the top of the caves to get shade from the sun and keep the beers cold (Chestnuts were planted because they grow quickly). In time, the shady chestnut coves became the first beer gardens (biergarten), with their own traditions and unique characteristics. Lager beers are said to be best when drank fresh from the cold lagering barrels, so in the warm summers, breweries started selling beer from the cellars, and what could be a more lovely place to drink it than a shade of chestnut tree?
A bit later, lager beers were one of the top reasons for the invention of ice-making machinery and refrigeration.
On top of all that, lager yeasts are pretty delicate and can develop a beer sickness, meaning that beer can go sour and start producing beer that smells or tastes awful. However, even though brewers did understand that to make beer, the gooey grey-brown substance in the bottom of the fermenting tanks is needed, they did not know that it is yeast and a specific strain of yeast that makes the beer. Thanks to Carlsberg Brewery (that on its own has a fascinating history of the relationship and rivalry between father and son), yeast, or Saccharomyces pastorianus, was eventually identified as the stuff that makes the beer and could be produced in a laboratory.
Moreover, lager beers helped in building the infrastructure (like railways) in the US, were the reason for massive demonstrations in Bavaria, and have, for instance, funded many sports teams with millions and millions of dollars.
Nowadays, we, as we the humans of the earth, drink a lot of lager beers. In 2021, we drank around 185.60 million kiloliters of beer and the number is presumed to be increasing. One kiloliter, 1000 litre, by the way, is approximately 2113 pints.
Globally, around 55% of the beer is lager beer, and for instance, in the US, that percentage is about 90. So, it is safe to say that lager is the most popular beer in the world and perhaps one of the most popular drinks in the world.
Moreover, lager is fascinating as almost every country in the world has a brewery that produces lager beer. As Mark Dredge says in his book Brief History of Lager: lager is the most global and the most local beer in the world
Beer is so local and global that every nation, city and village has a story that involves lager beer. Sometimes, beer is entangled in complex national or international regulations or politics, and sometimes, it is local pride or a product of local governance. Almost always, it has a place in forming the culture of that area.
Nowadays, lager beers are at some kind of turning point. Most of the famous brands, like Pilsner Urquell, Carlsberg, and Heineken, are owned by massive international conglomerates, and the beer is produced in huge automatic factories in record time (Lager is the reason for many of the innovations that make beer production faster, although not necessarily tastier). Although still hugely popular, these macro beers have lost their unique characteristics and taste. However, craft beer, the small scale and often highly local (beer is best when drank fresh, hence the Biergarten), are producing highly interesting lagers with their own local characteristics. Maybe there is just something special in the bottom-fermenting Saccharomyces pastorianus that really speaks to us?
