Each of these aspects, including the yeast, can make a big difference on how the different styles turn out in the end. From mega-brewery billionaire businesses to your basement brew-setup, there are any number of differences. Knowing how those differences can impact your beer is the first step to understanding how the complexity of quality in the final beer is achieved.
Both of these varieties actually disperse throughout the entire fermentation vessel while brewing is underway, but it will be more apparent at the top or bottom during particular stages of the fermentation process. Ale is fermented using Saccharomyces cerevisia , a very common yeast type used for a number of different applications, including wine and bread making.
This quality also makes it very easy to harvest the yeast without disturbing the process. In historical cultures where bread making was developed alongside the brewing industry, this would make it easy to use the excess yeast at the top of the vessel for leavening bread.
The fast action of this yeast species brews the ale in as short a time as a week, with the yeast products floating to the top due to the increased motion within the fermentation vessel.
Lager, on the other hand, is fermented using Saccharomyces uvarum. It was first used for brewing in Bavaria in the Renaissance, one of the first species to hitch a ride from the American continents to Europe during the discovery and exploration of the western hemisphere.
Compared to ale yeast, it is a much more fragile yeast, which requires more specific conditions to thrive. However, this means it can produce different outcomes than ale yeast. It also attenuates sugars more slowly, causing the brewing process to move more slowly.
It has a lower tolerance to alcohol and has the ability to ferment mebilose, a sugar that is not fermented by top-fermenting yeasts. These last three features allow more sugar to remain in the mix, creating a smoother, sweeter beer. No matter what type of beer it is, the yeast will directly impact the overall alcohol content, our second area of interest. Because ale yeast is much hardier in higher-alcohol environments, it will survive into higher levels of alcohol, causing ales to have a higher alcohol content, in a general sense.
Another area of distinction between these two varieties is the temperature at which they are fermented. For this reason, ales are typically brewed in these ranges to quickly bring it through the fermentation cycle due to the increased chemical activity at the higher temperatures. However, short of filtering, this fast fermentation process provides a somewhat cloudier, hardier beer that some may find distasteful. At the same time, the lower temperature provides slower fermentation by half, slowing down the process and allowing for a for a clearer brew.
The advent of refrigeration and the general thirst-quenching quality of lagers have made them the dominant global style of beer. The reason craft breweries almost exclusively produce ales is because the time and storage requirements to make quality lagers is a much bigger cash suck than ales, which can be fermented, hopped, and canned in just a few weeks. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Filed under: What's the Difference? Beer Drinks. Some steam lagers are fermented at ale temperatures but with a lager yeast.
A lager would typically be allowed to warm towards the end of the primary fermentation for a couple of days diacetyl rest but this is not always required with an ale.
Lager fermentation usually takes longer than ale fermentation due to the lower temperatures. Steam lagers can finish just as fast as an ale, reaching final gravity in four to five days. Lagers were first made in Bavaria and later in Bohemia with pilsner in the early nineteenth century. Both these paler varieties of what had gone before were made possible by new indirect kilning methods that allowed for the production of lighter malts.
This little bit of history is important, as lager is usually made with a double or triple decoction mash, whereas IPAs are generally made with the British-style single temperature infusion mash. There are no hard and fast rules though. We know a few German brewers who would be horrified to think of a Lager made by British and, therefore, incorrect methods. Decoction mash versus single temperature infusion mash.
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