newbie AG brewer here making my first post so sorry if this is stupid, and long. My understanding is these two concepts are totally different yet it seems as though people use these terms interchangeably which confuses me. Lager beer is a beer which uses lager yeast that prefer temps around 48-52 and produces a beer that is dry/crisp. Ales use yeast that prefer temps in the 60's-70's and produce a beer that is fuller and sweeter. Laggering (again i'm probably wrong) is a process (from germany) to naturally carbonate a beer since by law they cant artificially carbonate their beers. So instead of just adding 12 PSI of CO2 and forgetting it for 2-3 week they have to have a long secondary fermentation to naturally carbonate their beer. Ok, If this is the case, then what would i gain by "laggering" my already carbonated lager beer for 2-3 months? I mean i'm not trying to carbonate my beer, thats already been done. If its basically a secondary fermentation (to improve the flavors), why not just leave the beer in the primary for a month (doing both a primary and secondary) like i do with my ales then cold crashing it once the yeast have done their job? If having beer in my carbonating/storing/serving freezer (@38 degrees F) for several months is "laggering" then that means all of my beers (including ales) are being "laggered". Again, as i understand it, laggering is naturally adding CO2 to a beer. having it in the freezer for several months isn't adding CO2, maybe clarifying it a little but i'm still very confused on the concept and why in modern brewing you would want to do this?