![]() ![]() I’m not aware that Koch ever described Boston Lager as a Vienna himself, but Americans looked at its amber hue and lager crispness and declared it so. ![]() Yet the beer he developed is made with German hops, American pale and caramel malt, and not a grain of Vienna malt. When he created Boston Lager, Jim Koch reached deep into the family archives-there are five generations of Koch brewers. When American microbrewers first began to revive the style, it had been so long since it was Austrian that the connection was severed. ![]() They got makeovers-first by immigrant German brewers, then by American and Mexican brewers in the Industrial Age. Yet in that second, expatriate life, Vienna lagers evolved away from Austria. The style instead flourished abroad, principally in the New World, where it became a staple of brewing in the 19th and 20th centuries. Local breweries have started to try to revive “Wiener lagers” in their hometown but so far haven’t found many takers. Austrians drink a style of lager they call märzen-it’s crisp, golden, and flavorful, something like a German helles. For decades it was one of the most popular beers in the world.Īn example of the style is difficult to find in Vienna-or anywhere in Austria-and it has been since just after World War I. He would go on to build one of the largest and most technologically advanced breweries in the world. Quite the opposite: One of the world’s first pale lagers, it was for decades spoken of in hushed tones as “liquid amber” and “fire in the glass.” The man who developed it, Anton Dreher, did so by the use of a pale malt that also bears the city’s name-still common today in brewing. Nor was Vienna lager a footnote in the annals of brewing. In fact, one of the best-selling American beers, Sam Adams Boston Lager, fits broadly within the style. Unlike some other beers named for their hometowns-Berliner weisse, Grodziskie-Vienna lagers are not especially rare. A casual beer fan could be forgiven for imagining that the best place to find a style called “Vienna lager” would be-well, Vienna. ![]()
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