Glossary
Lagering
Extended cold storage after fermentation — traditionally weeks to months near 0 °C — which clarifies beer and produces the clean, rounded character lagers are named for.
Pronounced LAH-ger-ing.
Also called cold conditioning, lagered.
The full record
Lagering has its own catalogue entry with the detail this page summarises — causes, thresholds, related styles and evidence.
Lagering — Store beer cold for an extended period after fermentation to clarify it and produce the clean, rounded character lagers are named for.
The German word simply means "to store". Cold maturation drops yeast and protein, allows sulphur compounds to leave, and lets the beer round out. It is the step, not the yeast, that the word originally described.
Modern commercial practice has compressed lagering considerably, and warm-conditioning followed by a short cold rest can produce a good beer. Whether a two-week lager is the same thing as a three-month one is a live argument in the trade.
Commonly misunderstood
"Lager" is widely assumed to mean a pale, fizzy, mild-tasting beer. It names a process — cold fermentation and cold maturation — and includes Schwarzbier, Rauchbier and Doppelbock.
Related
- Conditioning — The general category.
- Bottom fermentation — The fermentation lagering follows.
- Munich Helles — A style defined by careful lagering.
More vocabulary
Arrested fermentation · Barrel ageing · Batch sparging · Biotransformation · Blending · Bottle conditioning · Bottom fermentation · Burtonisation · Cask conditioning · Centrifugation
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.