Beer · Light & sessionable
Amber Lager
Toasty, malty, agreeable — the beer that gets along with everyone.
How to order it: Vienna lager by ancestry. Caramel notes, clean finish.
Flavor profile
The proper serve
- Pint glass or stein
- Serve at 40–45°F
- Toasty malt, clean finish
- Pairs: pizza, grilled anything
- The crowd-pleaser pick
The story
The amber lager's noble ancestor is Vienna lager, unveiled by Anton Dreher in 1841 using gently kilned amber malt and the new cold-fermentation techniques he and Munich's Gabriel Sedlmayr had studied on a famously nosy tour of British breweries. Vienna itself eventually forgot the style; Mexico, brewing under strong Austrian and German influence in the late nineteenth century, did not — Negra Modelo and Dos Equis Ambar carry the lineage still. American craft brewers revived ambers in the 1980s as an approachable gateway, toasty and clean, the diplomatic option on any tap list. It is rarely anyone's stated favorite and almost never anyone's complaint, which is its own quiet kind of victory.
Adjacent pours