Style sheet for... American Style Premium Lager
Greetings,
"This is, perhaps, both the broadest and narrowest style of beer. It is broad in that every major brewers, as well as mid-sized and regional brewers, label their basic beer as "Premium" at the coaching of their advertising departments. It is narrow in that these same brewers are economically restricted to producing a product that is acceptable to the consumer, at the lowest production cost possible."
"The beginnings of this situation can be found in the fantastic economic growth of companies after World War II. At that time the economy of size created mega-corporations that produced millions of "affordable" automobiles, appliances and beer. These products met minimum standards and were sold on price rather than quality."
"The effect on the American brewing industry was that unique beers became too expensive to produce, promote and distribute. In the late 1960's there were less than 100 commercial breweries in the United States and most of them were owned by three corporations. These corporations met an increasing demand for refreshing beverages that were as inexpensive as possible to produce and sold at a low cost to the consumer."
"Today, all the major American market their "standard" beers as "premium," and their premium beers are called "super premiums." To try to justify the "premium" appellation, commercial brewers try to insure these products contain only 25-30% rice and/or corn and often use more expensive malt."
"According to the Association of Brewers' 2004 Beer Style Guidelines, American Style Premium Lager is a style that, "Has low malt (and adjunct) sweetness, is medium bodied, and should contain no or a low percentage (less than 25%) of adjuncts. Alcohol by volume is usually between 4.3-5%."
Cheers!
Peter LaFrance
( http://www.beerbasics.com/ )
The above is one of my entries to The Oxford University Companion to American Food & Drink:
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-American-Food-Drink/dp/0195307968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201787712&sr=1-1
