Franconia Beer Message Board

Lager Categories
Posted by Nick B. on 2016-09-25 04:33:41
In a discussion over at ratebeer, I posted an alternative to their partly-silly categorisation of lagers. It's such an amazingly good contribution to the world of beer knowledge, I felt I should cut-n-paste it here, also to see what critiques of it youse might have.

---begin pasted post---
Yeah, there are pale lagers, and then there are pale lagers. I have always found some of the lager categorisations here kinda questionable. Look at what German beers show up as "pale lager" or "premium lager", for heck’s sake, rather than "helles/Dortmunder" (which is also a very unhelpful categorisation), for example.

The lager categories SHOULD be:

Macrobrewery Adjunct Lager (incl ironic "craft" copies thereof)
Macrobrewery premium Lager (see above)
Macrobrewery low-alc Lager (see above)
Malt liquor (see above)
Pale Lager
Amber Lager
Dark Lager
Unfiltered / Traditional Lager (kellerbier, ungespundetes, zoiglbier, zwick[e]lbier)
Export Lager
Festbier
Märzen
Munich Oktoberfestbier
Pale Bock
Dark Bock
Doppelbock
Eisbock
Smoked lager
German Pils
Czech Pils
Schwarzbier
Imperial Pils
Specialty Lager (but not Spezialbier!)

Pale, amber, & dark lager would contain any lager from anywhere that is brewed according to European (i.e. German, Czech; i.e. no adjunct grains) traditions, generally filtered. Unless, of course, it’s described explicitly as one of the other styles. I go back and forth on how to deal with the fineries of lower-gravity and/or soft Czech lagers, and wouldn’t object to having special categories for them as well.

Crappy industrial Eurolagers, as long as they’re adjunct free, would go here, like Stella, et al.

A category for low-alc German beer might also be useful, those beers categorised as Schankbier, but distinct from Czech 10°, for example.

Export lager would be ones so labeled by the brewery, generally a bit stronger than regular helles, for example. There be also dark ones. Grouping these with normal helles is silly.

"Landbier" as a category is silly, as it’s only a marketing term in Germany.

Festbier is necessary as there are dozens or maybe even hundreds of such beers brewed to different seasons and different festivals all over Germany. They vary considerably, and are considerably better than the Munich Oktoberfest beers...at least the ones sold IN Germany, I don’t know about the supposedly better versions sold for export to the US.

German Pils is different to Czech Pils (the latter really is only one single beer, Pilsner Urquell), brewers from elsewhere need to choose what they’re emulating: Jever or PU.

Specialty lager would be for all the wacky stuff the kids are brewing these days.

Here are the current categories:
Amber Lager/Vienna
California Common
Czech Pilsner (Svetlý)
Doppelbock
Dortmunder/Helles
Dunkel/Tmavý
Dunkler Bock
Eisbock
Heller Bock
Imperial Pils/Strong Pale Lager
Malt Liquor
Oktoberfest/Märzen
Pale Lager
Pilsener
Polotmavý
Premium Lager
Radler/Shandy
Schwarzbier
Zwickel/Keller/Landbier

Discuss.

Implement.
---end pasted post---
 
Followups:
   Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-25 10:03:20
   Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-25 23:19:35
     Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-26 00:28:58
       Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 00:33:54
     Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 00:49:38
     Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 01:26:34
       Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-26 01:28:12
         Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 01:33:32
           Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-26 02:06:00
             Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 04:21:28
               Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-26 04:33:23
                 Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-26 06:17:48
               Vienna Lager by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-26 11:01:52
                   Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-27 00:41:35
                 Vienna Lager by Nick B. on  2016-09-27 02:43:53
   BJCP on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-27 03:14:25
                     Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-27 06:33:15
     BJCP on Kellerbier by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-27 11:12:56
       BJCP on Kellerbier by Barry on  2016-09-27 12:25:14
         BJCP on Kellerbier by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-27 13:26:54
           BJCP on Kellerbier by Barry on  2016-09-27 15:38:56
                       Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 00:37:53
             Barry on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 00:40:51
           BJCP on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 00:47:24
       BJCP on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 00:49:55
                         Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-28 01:08:58
         BJCP on Kellerbier by Barry on  2016-09-28 01:13:16
                           Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 01:56:43
           BJCP on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 02:00:21
                           Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-28 03:00:51
                             Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-28 03:08:34
             BJCP on Kellerbier by Barry on  2016-09-28 03:42:52
                             Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-28 06:33:51
                               Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-28 07:01:07
               BJCP on Kellerbier by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-28 07:15:50
               Barry on Kellerbier by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-28 14:53:10
         BJCP on Kellerbier by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-28 14:55:27
                             Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-28 14:56:57
                               Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-28 14:58:42
           BJCP on Kellerbier by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-28 22:46:51
                                 Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-29 00:20:06
                                   Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-29 00:53:09
                 Barry on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-29 00:56:30
                 BJCP on Kellerbier by Nick B. on  2016-09-29 01:02:57
               BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Nick B. on  2016-09-29 01:22:08
                               Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-29 04:19:06
                 BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Barry on  2016-09-29 04:21:35
                                 Lager Categories by TreinJan on  2016-09-29 04:25:39
                                   Lager Categories by Barry on  2016-09-29 05:55:53
                   BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Nick B. on  2016-09-29 05:57:22
                 BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Barry on  2016-09-29 06:14:07
                     BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Barry on  2016-09-29 06:14:57
                             Lager Categories by Gunnar H on  2016-09-29 07:08:46
                               Die Mass vs Das Maß by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-29 12:29:20
                                     Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-29 12:30:45
                 BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Andy H on  2016-09-29 12:47:12
                                 Die Mass vs Das Maß by Gunnar H on  2016-09-29 12:59:02
                                   Die Mass vs Das Maß by Gunnar H on  2016-09-29 13:02:55
                                     Die Mass vs Das Maß by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-29 23:47:25
                                       Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:25:40
                                       Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-30 00:26:20
                                     Character Map by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:27:25
                                       Die Mass vs Das Maß by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:34:13
                                         Lager Categories by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:35:23
                   CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:46:17
                     CAMRA on Styles by Nick B. on  2016-09-30 00:51:36
                                           Lager Categories by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-30 01:31:07
                                         Die Mass vs Das Maß by Gunnar H on  2016-09-30 02:39:23
                                         Die Mass vs Das Maß by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-30 03:15:35
                                         Lager Categories by Uncle Jimbo on  2016-09-30 03:19:59
                                           Die Mass vs Das Maß by Jürgen Wening on  2016-09-30 03:26:57
                                       Character Map by Barry on  2016-09-30 04:51:59
                   BJCP on British Beer & IPA (long copy & paste) by Barry on  2016-09-30 04:54:52
                     CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Barry on  2016-09-30 04:55:38
                                             Die Mass vs Das Maß by Nick B. on  2016-10-01 01:27:01
                       CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Nick B. on  2016-10-01 01:31:14
                         CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Nick B. on  2016-10-01 01:33:17
                           CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Barry on  2016-10-01 06:09:25
                             CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Gunnar H on  2016-10-01 08:36:32
                               CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Nick B. on  2016-10-01 09:06:30
                               CAMRA on Porter & Stout by Barry on  2016-10-01 09:28:27
                                         Lager Categories by Andy H on  2016-10-09 12:44:03
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