The lagered difference

Another passion I have other than photography is home brewing beer. All the beers I brew now are brewed all-grain usually with a yeast started that I have started 3-4 days before brew day.

I have created my own recipes. I have a pilsner lager recipe that everyone seems to love. The first time I made it I brewed it in the basement at my parents house in the winter with extracts. The fermenting temperature was 45 degrees which is absurdly cold for fermentation. The second batch I made, I converted to an all grain recipe and then made a double batch (10gals or around 120 bottles of beer). It turned out amazing and is one of the only beers that I seem to run out off.

This brings me to my latest bottled batch. Last summer I brewed a maple lager. By lager I mean I used a lager yeast and brewed it at a temp around 55-60 degrees. This is different than a beer that has been lagered. A beer that has been lagered is a post brewing process that enhances taste and clarity. So how does one go through the process of making a beer lagered.

In the two pictures you can see a physical difference in clarity of each glass of beer. Both of these beers are from the same batch and where bottled on the same day and were consumed a day apart.

So how is one clear and has a very "crisp" taste and the other one is cloudy and tastes very full and feels thicker in your mouth. Well its what happened to the bottles between bottling and consumption.

The first bottle that is cloudy had been stored in my basement under the stairs at a temperature of around 55 degrees. This is how I store the majority of my beers. The second beer has had a more interesting winter. In October I brought a cooler full of beer to deer camp. Including a good handful of maple lagers. The beer I brought did not all get consumed. (Its a shame I know) . When I came home, I did not immediately put the beer back into my stock in the basement because my homemade labels had fallen off in the cooler. I decided I would leave the beer in the cooler and put it in my carport outside and with the temperatures falling I thought it would be a good opportunity to keep some cold beers outside for when I am working outside.

Well over the winter I have checked on them time to time even when it was below 0 out and with the cooler being inside a brick building it did not let the beer get frozen. But it did get very cold and was not disturbed. I had an occasional beer after snow blowing time to time but it was not until it started warming up in March now that I brought a couple of them in and poured them into a glass and was astounded by the clarity of my winter beers.

So what happened? When the temp of the beer dropped to near freezing for an extended amount of time. And that kids is how a beer gets lagered. Its a magical process isn't it. By keeping the beer near freezing it helps it clear and taste better.