lager vs ale

[spam]

forgive me for I am a noob. but besides temp what the heck is the difference?

when I think of lager I think of bud and when I think of ale I think of bass,but I know there is dark larger and lite ale out there. so if I had a dark lager and an amber ale made form the same grains and hops how would the taste vary between the two???????

 

[revolutioned]

There are enough differences to fill several books that you should buy

 

[bigbeergeek]

Wikipedia.

 

[spam]

differences in TASTE is what I am after,,,not process. What flavors do lager/ale yeast and temps promote? and why? And I will look it up......

 

[sudsmcgee]

Try a lager, then an ale. Try Google too.

 

[jonmohno]

Generally lagers are more smooth and refined. They take longer and require more cool condition ing,resulting in a smooth refined taste. I think a lager aroma is minerally and almost metallic like, unless you dry hopp.They require more time also, but they dont have to be boring and simple like they have been in the past. Really they are about clean dry smooth crisp flavors in generall, thats probalbly why BMC do lager because they found a clean tastless way of making beer.
In general when i try a lager like FCB z-lager i think its a smoooth refined mellow tasting beer with a clean crispness with its added character for whatever type lager it is. That one happens to be a smoked lager.
there are all types of beers to do lagers with like oktoberfest,dunkle,probalbly even wheat beers, also helles i think and many others really its limitless,and no bounderies when experimenting.

 

[revolutioned]

That's where the obsession comes in bro. You will brew and learn and that's what it's all about.

 

[revolutioned]

It's about types of yeast ( top or bottom), ingredients, ferm time, temp, hops ect...

 

[mattd2]

If I had to explain it to the 99% of people that don't want to listern for more than 30 seconds while I talk about beer o) I would explain like this:
Generally it's about the flavour you get from the yeast: Lager is clean with no flavour from the yeast, Ales get a varying degree (from a little to a lot) of flavour from the yeast from the phenols & esters they produce during fermentation.

 

[el_caro]

The difference between the brews is the different type of yeast used.
Lager yeast are bottom fermenting whilst Ale yeast are top fermenting.
Each of these yeast types have their own little likes and dislikes and hence the different way we pander to their whims by warming their tootsies or freezing their asres of.

 

[jonmohno]

Sometimes they are so subtle,you wont know the difference,depending on the recipe/temps it could almost be unnoticable.I can point out some differences but in generall you can make a clean ale too and alot of recipes wont even detect the difference given conditionoing.

 

[mattd2]

Sometimes they are so subtle,you wont know the difference,depending on the recipe/temps it could almost be unnoticable.I can point out some differences but in generall you can make a clean ale too and alot of recipes wont even detect the difference given conditionoing.

Funny story:
one of the highest (or even the highest) selling beers in NZ is Speight's Gold Medal Ale, the thing is ... it's actually a lager:cross:

 

[jonmohno]

Love New zealand hops!