A bit thick and sweet for my taste, but refreshing nonetheless. 3.25/5 stars.
I wrote about my ideal lager, but let me tell you about my lager pet peeves. Residual sweetness. Full body. Cloudiness. Aggressive bitterness.
There are exceptions, of course, since some lagered beers should have some of those characteristics. Bocks tend to be sweeter and more viscous than pale lagers, for instance. I do like a well-done doppelbock. It’s not quite the same as what I’m talking about though. The residual sweetness that bothers me is the result of impatient brewers. The lager yeast takes more time than an ale yeast to fully attenuate because they are working at lower temperatures. If a brewer rushes the process and doesn’t let the yeast finish its job, the remaining sugars stay in the finished beer and can lend it a sweet cereal flavor that I find undesirable. Compare a Budweiser to a true Czech pils, and you’ll taste what I mean.
The main reason that an all-lager brewery is so much more rare than an all-ale operation is because of the time required to do the beer justice. To allow the beer to dry out and for all the haze to drop, time and patience is necessary. The end result is sublime, though. Clear, crisp, clean, cold. No questions about what’s in the beer, you can plainly taste it all.
Moving on from sweetness to body. Again, the incorrect amount of body could be a result of rushing the process. Cold conditioning the beer (along with proper attenuation) should allow a lot of that fullness to settle out of solution. Time, patience.
What about haze? See above. Conditioning should fix it, which takes time. Filtering is also par for the course. Chemically or mechanically removing unwanted particles (like hop bits and proteins) helps create that see-through looks that lagers are known for. It’s kind of the opposite idea of a hazy, which crams as much matter into the beer as will stay suspended (and then some) to maximize flavor. Lager removes everything extraneous to allow the pure malt and hops to shine.
Now bitterness. If everything else is done to spec, there shouldn’t be a need to intensely bitter a lager. It’s been tried (India Pale Lager), but it doesn’t quite mesh with the intention of lagerbier. If a beer is peeling the enamel off my teeth, I can’t quaff it. Plus, a lager is all about balance. Finding the precise balance of malt breadiness with just enough bitter to leave your tongue dry is key. That’s what brings the drinker back to the stein for another mouthful, pint after pint.
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A Beer a Day 
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