Greenbrier Valley introduces two new lagers to distribution

Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company is getting aboard the lager train with this Friday’s release of Ole Ran’l Pilsner and Out of the Black Lager. I hoped that Brian Reymiller’s recent time spent working for the multiple gold-medal winning lager producer Devil’s Backbone Brewing might spur the release of more lagers when he returned to head GVCB’s brewing program last summer.

Reymiller is no newcomer to premium craft lager making. During the early 2000s he brewed at Victory Brewing, makers of the highly revered Prima Pils. He also brewed lagers during stints at Smoky Mountain Brewery in Tennessee and at Browning’s Brewery, Louisville, which later became Against The Grain Brewery.

With all the new tanks at GVBC, they now have space to make lagers year-round. Their intent is to keep both their lagers available on draft all the time. No plans for canning the lagers have been announced.

Ole Ran’l Pilsner 
A classic German-style pils with a little hop surprise, Reymiller cut no corners in making this beer. He used all German malts (95% pilsner malt, 5% dextrin malt), all German hops (a little Northern Brewer for bittering and some beautiful newer-variety aroma hops, including Hallertau Blanc, Huell Melon, and Mandarina Bavaria). Aroma hops added in whirlpool. Fermentation and lagering took five full weeks. Pale straw color, bright and clear. Notes of white wine, aromas of tangerine and melon. Dry and crisp, with a moderately bitter finish, like a good pilsner should. 5.49% ABV

Out of the Black Lager
(4/2019 UPDATE: This beer’s name changed to Bat Boy Black Lager.)
A traditional German-style black lager made with all German malts (pilsner, Munich, and a little Carafa III) and German hops (Northern Brewer and late-addition Hallertau Mittelfrüh). Moderate body. Dark brown color. Malt-forward taste with notes of baker’s chocolate. Slow dry finish.  5.29% ABV.

One-sixth barrel kegs of both Ole Ran’l Pilsner and Out of the Black Lager will be out in distribution across much of West Virginia by next week. The beers are being introduced on Friday, Dec. 14, with a tap takeover at T&M Meats in Cross Lanes, WV, from 5–9 pm.

Craft lagers expanding local beer market

More craft lagers are just what the WV beer doctor ordered to help expand the state’s beer universe. We think one of the primary reasons that West Virginians don’t drink more local craft beer has been the lack of availability of local pale lagers, a beer style that most WV beer drinkers love. A couple of years back, about the only West Virginia-made lager you saw out in distribution was Long Point Lager from Bridge Brew Works. While it’s a good one that has long been their best selling beer, it alone couldn’t really meet the broad demand for lagers across the state.

Lagers take a lot of extra time in the tank to mature — a process called Lagering. Making lagers can take three times as long as making ales. In the past, WV breweries really couldn’t tie up the tank space for the time required to mature the lagers. They needed to turn tanks quicker to make money, so they made ales. Today though, things are changing fast.

As WV breweries expand their equipment, lager production can also expand. Earlier this year, Big Timber Brewing announced that its tasty Logger Lager would be added to its canned beer line up and be more widely available. And as soon as they get fully in production at their new brewery, we should see plenty of Logger Lager out in distribution. Recently, Short Story Brewing announced the purchase of a dedicated lagering tank so it can keep lagers in production year-round. Short Story’s beautiful Argonaut Helles Lager, first made late last summer, is probably the highest-rated pale lager from a West Virginia brewery (Untappd rating is 3.76 ). At Weathered Ground Brewery, the excellent Cool Ridge Lager has consistently been the biggest seller in their taproom. This fall they dedicated one of their new 15-barrel fermentors solely to its production. This is all good news. 

Craft lagers come in many styles

Lagers, like ales, are a diverse category of beer. Lager is a type of beer produced by a strain of yeast that does its work at the bottom of the fermentation tank, while ale yeast strains like to work at the top of the beer. After fermentation, lagers then need to mature while held at cold temperatures over a period of several weeks. 

Simply put, good craft lagers are very clean tasting beers, without the fruity esters of ales. They finish clean and have more subtle, yet sometimes more complex tastes than some ales. European style lagers typically feature noble (German or Czech) hop varieties and are made from all barley malt. Craft brewers tend to stay pretty true to the European taste profiles, but also love to put twists on tradition. American macro-brewers typically lighten the flavor by adding corn, rice or other adjunct ingredients to the barley malt and use American hops instead of all European varieties.

Popular lager styles include:

Helles —  denotes a German style beer with very light color. A light bready or biscuity character. Spicy, flowery aroma from the noble hops. A low to moderate ABV, lightly bitter pale lager that has high drinkability and a clean finish. Traditional ones are 100% barley malt. Best consumed very fresh as draft. Short Story Argonaut is possibly WV’s best example.

Amber/Märzen/Vienna — rich color and flavor, emphasizing the toasted malt, bready flavors, with the Vienna being more intense. Medium bodied, they feature malt over hops. Well-made amber agers are soft on the palate, yet should finish toward dry. They can be lightly-hopped (Märzen) to more moderately-hopped (Vienna) for bitterness to balance the maltiness. Berkeley Springs Brewing Co. makes its flagship Vienna Calling available at the brewpub most of the year. Devils Backbone Vienna Lager is thought by many to set the American standard for the style. Great Lakes Eliot Ness is a good one we have had for a long time. The small-batch, seasonal Oktoberfest lagers made by several WV breweries normally fit into this Märzen/Vienna category. Eliot Ness

Pils or Pilsner — pale to dark golden color depending on the malts used. The trademark of a traditional European-style pilsner is the crisp spicy-herby noble hop signature that comes from the European hops. Moderate to high hopping in aroma and flavor. Typically some grainy or bready flavor from the pilsner malt. Clean, crisp, non-fruity taste. Pilsners tend to be medium body, moderate in ABV, more dry with a clean finish. American-style Craft Pilsner can vary with different flavors coming from mixing in some non-traditional, non-European hops. Good examples of pilsner we’ve seen sold in WV include: Big Timber Logger Lager, Bridge Brew Works Pillow Rock Pils, Short Story Lamplight Czech Pilsner, Greenbrier Valley Ole Ran’l Pilsner, Terrapin’s Sound Czech Pils and Lagunitas Czech Pils.

American-style Craft Pale Lager — these can be all over the board, may be all-malt but often add adjunct grains to lighten the taste profile. may mix in some American-sourced hops that provide a different taste from the German and Czech hops. Appearance is straw to rich golden color. Usually, lightly hopped with low bitterness. Clean. Light bodied. Low to no sweetness. Highly carbonated. Pre-Prohbition styles will normally include corn with its signature flavor. In addition to the long-standing Long Point Lager and newer Cool Ridge Lager mentioned above, good basic craft lagers are widely available today in West Virginia from the likes of Bells, Founders, New Belgium, and others. 

Black Lager or Schwarzbier — dark brown/black color from the use of some roasted malts. Mildly roasty aroma. Fairly light to medium body. Can be mostly dry to a bit caramel malty, but with little perceived bitterness. High carbonation. European hops at lower hopping rates is traditional, more along the lines of Helles. Non-traditional American craft versions may have more bitterness and use American hop varieties. Bridge Brew Works Black Diamond, Greenbrier Valley Bat Boy, New Belgium 1554 and Devils Backbone Schwartzbier have been solid ones available in WV.

There are plenty of other lager varieties, such as light lager, dunkel, Dortmund, bock, doppelbock, fest beer, Baltic porter, and kellerbier, to name a few. There are also a handful of popular lager-ale hybrid styles, such as cream ale, California common, Kolsch, and Altbier. If you want to read more about these styles visit the style guidelines on the Brewers Association website.

Greenbrier Valley Brewing website