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When written, that law excluded all ingredients save water, malt and hops. Yeast went unmentioned. Why? At the time, no one knew how beer went from sweet, harmless wort to that delightful beverage which caused the head to spin and--for fasting monks--was a filling substitute for food. For brewers of the day, the alchemy happened in the (wooden) fermenters: put wort in, wait awhile, take beer out. Voila! The more reverent among brewers felt that such an event could be no less than miraculous and called the process "Godisgood." By the 19th century, the yeasty culprit was found hiding inside the cracks and crevices of the wooden casks. In conjunction with the Danish brewing company Carlsberg, Louis Pasteur isolated the yeast cell as the engine of this process (yet another scientific blow to God's reputation). The yeast strain Pasteur discovered was one of the two major classes of beer yeast, Saccharomyces uvarum (which was called S. Carlsbergensis at the time), or lager yeast. It was a bottom-fermenting yeast that required cold temperatures and longer periods of time than top-fermenting ale strains to convert malt to alcohol. Reinheits-gebot had to be amended. The rise of lagers (again) We tend to think of the ale dominance of the craft-brew market as a reaction to the all-lager market which preceded it, and in many ways it was. But it's a mistake to think of the beer situation that existed from 1945 to 1980 as the norm. Rather, a number of unique factors conspired to deliver us into a beer market of singular choice. First, Prohibition. In 1914, there were between 1,400 and 1,600 breweries operating throughout America (slightly more than today), but on Jan. 16, 1920, when the Volstead Act became law, initiating Prohibition, none of them was allowed to brew beer. Some survived the 13 years of Prohibition by making root beer (or illegally selling real beer). Still, a year after Prohibition was abolished in 1933, only 750 breweries were left. Even though beer was legal then, the Depression caused more brewery failures. Soon after, WWII made its mark on brewing. First, grain rationing was instituted because malt was needed to make alcohol for munitions. This led to the increased use of adjuncts like rice and corn (which had the added perk--for brewers--of being cheap). Second, when a good portion of the beer-drinking population went off to war, brewers began marketing their lighter products to women who, like Rosie the Riveter, wanted a beer when they got off work. That style dominated the market for more than 40 years until craft brewers began to brew "unusual" ales. What exactly distinguishes lagers and ales? This question can be (and is usually) answered uselessly by reference to the ways yeasts act to make each. This does nothing to describe the difference in taste between ales and lagers, a squishy and complex task. Brewers will tell you that lagers are "cleaner-tasting" than ales, by which they mean that the flavor of the malt is less influenced by the yeast. Ales, by comparison, have a quality produced by the esters in the beer and taste, depending on the style, fruity, sweet, sour, caramelly, citrusy (and on and on and on). It is not universally true, but in many cases lagers have a crisp, almost dry quality. Although they have long given a nod to Germany in the form of weizens, altbiers and kölshes, craft brewers have until recently made true lagers only rarely. Part of this may be due to an affinity Oregonians feel with the wet, mossy island folk who made ales famous, but, practically speaking, it is also easier and cheaper to brew ales. Lagers stay in a fermentation vessel longer (the word "lager" is German and means "to age"), doubling or trebling (or more) the time it takes to make one batch. When a brewery decides to brew both ales and lagers, special care must be taken to make sure the yeast strains don't commingle and cause off flavors in the beer. Now they're beginning to come around. Nearly every brewery and brewpub offers at least one style, and more seem to be in the offing. Pilsners and bocks are the most popular. Widmer and Portland Brewing offer versions of light lagers that are maltier and more bitter than examples from the majors. On the other end of the spectrum are the bocks, like Saxer's flagship bock and spring dark bock, big, booming beers coming in at more than 7 percent alcohol. In a world of IPAs, porters and pales, lagers offer breweries and consumers a mostly uncharted sea of new styles. If you believe a lager's principal taste characteristic is aluminum, give one of these a try.
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