Are pale ales hoppier than lagers?

[Kegstand]

Still trying to learn my different beers. From what I understand there are two main types of beer. Ales and lagers...with of course many different styles of each. From what I can taste it seems like pale ales are much hoppier than any lagers I've tasted.

 

[plaidpaint]

Generally, yes. Especially if it's an India Pale Ale, or IPA, the hop flavour and bitterness should dominate the flavour profile. And most generic macro-lagers have very little hop flavour or bitterness, because the average beer drinker doesn't appreciate it.

 

[plaidpaint]

There are good quality lagers, however, like real pilsners (which is a sort of subset of the lager family) that have fairly substantial hop flavour, but ususally not as much bitterness as an IPA.

 

[Kegstand]

Oh yeah...I've noticed IPA's are really hoppy. One of my favorites is the Firestone Union Jack. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend it. Drinking the California Ale right now from Firestone and it's also really good.

 

[GregR]

Ballast point makes a pretty damn hoppy India Pale Lager and a very mildly hopped Kolsch. and Berliner Weisse has almost no hop presence at all.

The real difference is in the type of yeast used, fermentation temperatures, and a lagering period.

 

[Veinman]

If by Lager you mean "Light American Lager" then what the OP says is generally correct . The problem is he's not really comparing apples to apples.
"Pale Ale" is a beer style (which can be further reduced to American, English or Belgian). Style guidelines say an American Pale Ale is 30-45 IBU's, English (Extra Special Bitter) is 30-50 IBU's, and Belgian is 20-30 IBU's.
"Lager" on the other hand is not a style (all it tells you is something about the yeast and fermentation temperture) and should further be reduced to one of 18 BJCP lager styles. "Lagers" can range from 12-18 IBU's for a "Light American Lager" to 45 IBU's for a Bohemian Pilsner.

To sum up yes a Pale Ale will be hoppier than a "Light American Lager" but not necessarily all lager styles.

 

[Yooper]

When I first got interested in "good" beer, I found that reading the BJCP guidelines was an enormous help. Many ales aren't hoppy at all, while some are very hoppy. The same can be true of lagers. A cream ale, for example, isn't hoppy at all and neither is a sweet stout. A Bohemian pilsner can be hoppy.

Here are the guidelines: http://www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_Guidelines.pdf

They even give commercial examples of each style, which helped me when I was doing my "research"!

 

[sportscrazed2]

Most Lagers i've had have been more malty than hoppy