Southern Lager in good hands

What is the state of contemporary craft lagers from brewers in the South? That’s an excellent question and one that the Southern Lager Invitational attempts to answer.

A couple of years back, Nashville’s Bootleg Biology and Asheville’s Riverbend Malt House came up with the idea for a Southern Lager Invitational (SLI) event.

Brent Manning, co-founder of Riverbend Malt House, said Bootleg Biology and Riverbend had been working together on a lager recipe project using regional ingredients. “We thought it would be cool to pitch the idea to some of our customers,” says Brent. They did, and SLI grew from it.

Southern Lager Invitational

SLI’s purpose is to explore the state of lager beer brewed in the southern regions of the U.S. This year, 24 invited lager brewers met up in Asheville to have their beers tasted, enjoyed, and compared by a discerning group of lager aficionados.

Brewers from Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina participated in the event. Each invited brewer brought one lager beer.

Held on Saturday, May 25, the event was hosted by The Mule taproom at Devil’s Foot Beverage.

Diversity in Southern Lagers

Off the top of your head, you might expect Southern lagers all would be crispy bois—light, crisp, pale lagers—the kind made for thirst-quenching on hot southern days. But you’d be wrong. These lagers were anything but predictable.

Yes, a lot of them were lighter, lower-ABV pale lagers, but, contrastingly, many of the beers were lagers with color and lagers with more potent flavors. While the brewers primarily used ingredients from the event’s sponsors—Riverbend Malt House and Bootleg Biology—the styles and treatments varied widely.

Brian Simpson, co-founder/CEO of Riverbend Malt House, dispelled the thought that the Southern Lager Invitational was about developing one specific type or style of lager that everyone would brew. He said that Bootleg Biology and Riverbend sponsored the event to explore and expose the wide range of lager styles that top southern breweries were actually brewing today.

He said the main focus of SLI is about the use of southern-sourced ingredients in the beer. The excitement here is seeing what all these brewers come up with while using primarily Southern ingredients in their lager beers.

Lagers on tap at SLI

• Akademia Brewing Company The Best Place Czech-style Premium Pale Lager.
• Alga Beer Co. La Sur Mexican Lager
• Barrique Brewing & Blending Kronländer Continental Style Pilsner
• Cahaba Brewing Company Bama’s Got Bock Maibock
• Cellarest Beer Project Narcissus Wheat Lager
• Cherry Street Brewing Cumberland Cold Snap Cold IPA
• Cultivation Brewing Co. + Symbiotiq Beer Project Novaking Unfiltered American Pilsner
• DSSOLVR Ceni Cero Gold Mexican Corn Lager
• Fireforge Crafted Beer Descent Into Helles Helles Bock
• Fonta Flora Brewery Grodziskie Smoked Lager
• Fullsteam Brewery Bethania Moravian Dark Lager
• Grand Central Brewhouse St. Pete Export Helles Export
• Harding House Brewing Jimmy Red Southern Steam Pre-Prohibition Steam Lager
• Leveller Brewing Co. + Fait La Force Brewing Feed My Horse On Corn and Hay Rustic American Pilsner
• Little Animals Brewery Night Hoss Dark Wheat Lager
• Mythk Brewing The Beholders Rye Lager
• New Heights Brewing Company Rock Lot Lager Southern Lager
• The River Arts District Brewing Company Amber Mexican-style Lager
• Rock Solid Brewing Company Midnight Trucker Czech Dark Lager
• Sierra Nevada Southern Gothic Unfiltered Pils German-style Keller Pils
• Skeeta Hawk Brewing Back In The Day Malt Liquor
• Soul and Spirits Brewery Brewery Raunchy Rotbier
• South Main Brewing Co. Cumberland Southern Lager

Finding inspiration in unusual places

To gain more insight on the topic of Southern Lager, I spoke with one of the deans of Southern craft brewing: Sean Lilly Wilson.

As the founder/owner of Fullsteam Brewing in Durham, NC, he has been brewing Southern beers for over 14 years. Sean is known for incorporating local/regional-sourced ingredients into his beers.

His experience shows that inspiration for a Southern Lager can come from unexpected places. For example, the Fullsteam beer Sean brought to SLI was Bethania Moravian Dark Lager.

“It’s named Bethania after a small Moravian intentional community north of Winston-Salem,” says Sean. “It’s a Czech Dark Lager style, made with 100 percent North Carolina malt.”

Tasting a glass of the beer—I concur that it’s quite toasty, roasty, and very smooth drinking. It may be a Czech style, but it’s also a Southern Lager.

I learned that Bethania, North Carolina, was established in 1759 by Moravian immigrants as a self-sufficient farming community. Today, it offers tours of carefully preserved and restored homes and stores. 

It’s a unique place, and Sean is working with members of that community to explore brewing more beers from historical recipes preserved at the settlement.

Wilson on Southern Lager

When asked if he, during his 14 years of experience at Fullsteam, had developed any ideas about brewing southern lager, Sean explained he’s taken a bit of a curvy path on the topic since his brewery’s early days.

“We started off with a lager called Fullsteam, and it was our flagship beer. We struggled a lot with the name of it. First, it was just called Fullsteam, then it was Carolina Common for a while, then Southern Lager for a while, then just Lager.

“We’ve only recently brewed it again, and this time we brought it back as Fullsteam 100 — made with 100 percent North Carolina malt. It’s sort of a realization of that original mission, 14 years ago, to someday be able to brew a true Southern Lager with all local grain.

“It was this event [Southern Lager Invitational] that pushed us to do it.”

Sean says that, to him, southern is much more about the source of your ingredients and intention, rather than being about brewing a specific beer style.

“I like the fact that Southern Lager Invitational is so open-ended as to what a southern lager should be, because the South is open-ended. The South spans from Delaware to arguably Texas. That is not a uniform South. That is a diverse, multi-cultural area with a wide range of history and experiences. And beer should and does reflect that.”

Descent Into Helles

Yes, as I wrote above, inspiration for Southern Lagers can come from some pretty unexpected places. And I found another cool example of that at SLI.

Brian Cendrowski founded and leads Fireforge Crafted Beer in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. He operates a small brewery and taproom with 15 to 20 beers on tap. While, like so many breweries in America today, their best seller is currently a Hazy IPA (John Hopcock), Fireforge brews several lagers as well.

For SLI, Brian brought a beer called Descent Into Helles. In style, it’s a Helles Bock beer that has a seriously interesting origin. Brian says he brewed it in collaboration with their local Eastern Orthodox church, St.John of the Ladder.

“A couple of the priests at that church are pretty regular Fireforge customers,” he explained, “and they approached us a few months ago about doing an Easter week celebration at the brewery. They wanted to know if we’d be willing to brew a bock beer for a spring festival.”

Brian agreed to brew the beer. He used Riverbend Pilsner as his base malt, plus some true German malts. Hops were traditional German varieties. The priests came up with the name for the beer, and the church’s iconographer designed the label art for the can.

The resulting beer, a deep golden bock lager, sits a bit on the stronger side at 6.5% ABV. “The beer will get you festive in a hurry,” says Brian, “but it’s still drinkable even for warmer spring weather.”

That’s the beauty of a good Southern Lager: One good beer deserves another.

Steam Beer, Export & Malt Liquor

As I moved through the taps at SLI, I found a bunch of variations in the Pale lager categories. Here are some examples of ones I enjoyed.

Jimmy Red

A lighter-style, very well-made pale beer at SLI was Jimmy Red Southern Steam Lager by Harding House Brewing of Nashville. This beer has a light yet fun aroma, mild sweetness, and a superior quaffability that makes it ever so attractive, at 5% ABV. It includes a big dose of southern heirloom Jimmy Red corn along with the malt. This is a Pre-Prohibition-style lager to seek out.

St. Pete Export

Ever since they opened a few years back, Grand Central Brewhouse in St. Petersburg, FL, has been a favorite stop when I’m in Florida. They came out of the gate making lots of good lagers. Tasting their St. Pete Export, a Helles Export style lager, really lets you know why craft pale lagers are gaining such popularity across the South. Superior balance, with tasty malts and beautiful hopping.

Back In The Day

A beer style you might be surprised to see at a craft lager showcase was Back In The Day Malt Liquor. It’s brewed at Skeeta Hawk Brewing, which is a little neighborhood brewery in New Orleans. They make Back in the Day with all southern malted barley plus three different heirloom malted corn varieties. Skeeta Hawk says this beer “takes you through the corn fields of the Southeast back to a time when brewing with 35% corn was normal.”

At a mid-range 6% ABV, I found the beer smooth with good drinkability, showing off a citrusy-herbal hop over top of its light corn-flavored base. A well-made brew.

On the darker side

Some of the darker lagers featured at SLI included:

Dunkel Dog Dare

The Southern Growl Beer Company roared loudly with its Dunkel Dog Dare Munich Dunkel. This little brewery located in Greer, SC (just outside Greenville), showed they could make a delectable Dunkel with southern malts and yeast. At only 4.0% ABV, this beer had good flavor and superior drinkability. The beer captured that toasty bread crust flavor that makes a good Dunkel so attractive. We’re impressed.

Night Hoss

Early in the SLI event, I discovered Night Hoss by Little Animals Brewery in Johnson City, TN. I’m glad I did. This Schwarzbier-inspired dark lager was roasty and smooth. The malts deliver notes of spices, cookie dough, cocoa, toasted bread, and dried fruit. Those malt notes are wrapped with herbal hops and a balanced bitterness. An easy lager to love.

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Live • Love • Lager

I’ve touched on only a few of the beer beauties on display at SLI 2024. However, I tried enough of them to believe that the state of Southern Lager is in a good place and in good hands.

To experience more of them yourself, visit one of the southern breweries on the above list. Or, just get out to your local craft brewery and try their lager brews. Our West Virginia brewers make some good ones too.

Don’t just stop at pale lager: Try the richer, darker versions too.