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The American lager or North American lager is a style of pale lager produced in the United States and Canada. Pale lagers originated in Europe in the mid-19th century and were brought to North America by German immigrants. While the Bavarian and Czech variants of this style may be firmly hopped, pale lager has developed into a modestly hopped beer in the rest of the world and sometimes uses adjuncts such as rice or corn – this is also true in the US and Canada.
The best-known American lagers worldwide are Anheuser-Busch InBev's Budweiser and Bud Light, although several other prominent brands are produced by MillerCoors; these include Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Miller Lite, and Miller High Life. Pale lager is the predominant choice among the largest brewing companies of United States of America, although it is not common in U.S. microbreweries. Likewise, in Canada the biggest-selling commercial beers, including both domestics such as Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue, Kokanee, Carling Black Label, and Old Style Pilsner, and imports such as Budweiser and Coors are very lightly hopped pale lagers. This is by far the largest-selling style in Canada. [1] Just as in the United States, Canadian microbrewers typically do not produce North American-style pale lagers.
Other terms for this type of beer, or sub-categories within it, include "adjunct lager", "American-style light lager", "American-style low-carbohydrate light lager", "American-style lager", "American-style premium lager" (a term used at the World Beer Cup), "North American style-lager" and "North American-style premium lager" (terms used at the Canadian Beer Awards).
The United States and Canada [2] were traditionally ale (and whisky) consuming regions in the British traditions before the late 19th century. Pale lager was later introduced by German immigrants. These German brewers developed their beers from the American six-row barley which has a higher tannic acid and protein content and greater husk per weight than the two-row barley typical in continental Europe. In addition, the Tettnanger and Saaz hops of Europe were not available. Therefore, to balance taste, and dilute the excessive protein, the grain mixture was adjusted by adding up to 30% corn to the barley malt mash. However, the beer was brewed to full-fledged European strength and to the practices of a pale lager style. Later, rice gained popularity in the domestic brewing market during World War II, due to grain rationing on the home-front. Most breweries were unable to afford the necessary amounts of barley required for production and so began using rice as a filler. After the war, the process was not changed[ citation needed ].
Canada had its own, shorter experiment with prohibition which bankrupted many breweries (and distilleries), and with the rise of mass media marketing and national-scale supply chains, the major breweries consolidated into a near triopoly dominated by Molson, Labatt, and Carling O'Keefe following the Second World War. These corporate brewers reacted to a new taste for sweet drinks in a public that had switched to sugary soft drinks and "near-beer" during prohibition. [2]
Large-scale representatives of the pre-Prohibition lager style in the United States are D.G. Yuengling & Son with its traditional lager; Genesee Brewing Company with its Genesee beer; and August Schell Brewing Company with its Original. A number of smaller American breweries have also reintroduced it, such as Victory Brewing Company with its Headwaters Pale Ale, North Coast Brewing Company with Scrimshaw Pilsner, and Full Sail Brewing Company with its Session Lager.
Pilsner is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň, where the world's first pale lager was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewery.
The Molson Brewery is a Canadian-based brewery based in Montreal and was established in 1786 by the Molson family. In 2005, Molson merged with the Adolph Coors Company to become Molson Coors.
Pale lager is a pale-to-golden lager beer with a well-attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
Big Rock Brewery is a Canadian public company and the largest brewery that is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As of March 2020, it was also Canada's largest craft brewery. Additional brewing operations are located in Vancouver, British Columbia; Etobicoke, Ontario; and Liberty Village in Toronto, Ontario. Big Rock distributes a variety of beers and ciders throughout Canada.
Creemore Springs is a brewery in Creemore, Ontario, Canada, which first opened in 1987. It was founded by John Wiggins, and its flagship brew was a premium amber lager brewed with specialty malts, fire brewed in a copper kettle. In 2005, it was acquired by Molson, a subsidiary of the seventh largest brewery corporation in the world, Molson Coors Brewing Company.
Malt liquor is a type of mass market beer with high alcohol content, most closely associated with North America. Legally, it often includes any alcoholic beverage with 5% or more alcohol by volume made with malted barley. In common usage, it refers to beers of high alcohol content, generally above 6%, which are made with ingredients and processes resembling those for American-style lagers.
Beer was introduced to Canada by European settlers in the seventeenth century. The first commercial brewery was La Brasseries du Roy started by New France Intendant Jean Talon, in Québec City in 1668. Many commercial brewers thrived until prohibition in Canada. The provincial and federal governments' attempt to eliminate "intoxicating" beverages led to the closing of nearly three quarters of breweries between 1878 and 1928. It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that a significant number of new breweries opened up. The Canadian beer industry now plays an important role in Canadian identity, although globalization of the brewing industry has seen the major players in Canada acquired by or merged with foreign companies, notably its three largest beer producers: Labatt, Molson and Sleeman. The result is that Moosehead, with an estimated 3.8 percent share of the domestic market in 2016, has become the largest fully Canadian-owned brewer.
The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, doing business as Leinenkugel's, is an American beer maker based in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Leinenkugel's was historically distributed only in the Upper Midwest, but is now available throughout all 50 states. The company is the seventh oldest brewery in the United States, and the oldest business in Chippewa Falls. It is a subsidiary of Molson Coors. It produces both traditional beers, including lagers and ales, as well as a popular line of shandies, which are a mixture of beer with fruit juices, such as lemonade.
In brewing, adjuncts are unmalted grains or grain products used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient. This is often done with the intention of cutting costs, but sometimes also to create an additional feature, such as better foam retention, flavours or nutritional value or additives. Both solid and liquid adjuncts are commonly used.
In the United States, beer is manufactured in breweries which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels (23.0 GL) of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly 28 US gallons (110 L) of beer per capita annually. In 2011, the United States was ranked fifteenth in the world in per capita consumption, while total consumption was second only to China.
Beer has a long history in what is now the Czech Republic, with brewing taking place in Břevnov Monastery in 993. The city of Brno had the right to brew beer from the 12th century, while Plzeň and České Budějovice, had breweries in the 13th century.
Genesee Brewing Company is an American brewery located along the Genesee River in Rochester, New York. From 2000 to 2009, the company was known as the High Falls Brewing Company. In 2009, High Falls was acquired by the capital investment firm KPS Capital. Together with newly acquired Labatt USA, KPS merged the two companies as North American Breweries. Along with this change, High Falls Brewery changed its name back to the original "Genesee Brewing Company" operating under the North American Breweries name. In October 2012, North American Breweries was purchased by FIFCO.
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
Oriental Brewery or OB is a South Korean brewery currently owned by AB InBev, and initially founded by Doosan Group.
Sharp's Brewery is a British brewery founded in 1994 in St Minver Lowlands, Rock, Cornwall, by Bill Sharp. Since 2011, the brewery has been owned by Molson Coors. It is best known for its flagship ale Doom Bar, named after the notoriously perilous Doom Bar sandbank in north Cornwall.
Lager is a type of beer brewed and conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be pale, amber, or dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term "lager" comes from the German word for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.
Dundee was a Rochester, New York–based brewing company that produced ales and lagers. It was part of the Genesee Brewing Company, owned by North American Breweries which started marketing the brand's first lager in 1994 as J.W. Dundee's Honey Brown. Honey Brown quickly gained a good reputation and won awards, most notably the gold medal at the 2004 World Beer Cup.
Anheuser-Busch, a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, is the largest brewing company in the United States, with a market share of 45 percent in 2016.
Cream ale is a style of American beer which is light in color and well attenuated, meaning drier. First crafted in the mid-1800s at various breweries in the United States, cream ale remained a very localized form with different styles until the early 20th century. During Prohibition in the United States, a great number of Canadian brewers took up brewing cream ale, refining it to some degree. Following the end of Prohibition, cream ale from Canada became popular in the United States and the style was produced anew in both nations.