Beer Styles

What is a lager beer? A bottom-fermented beer that's cold-stored after fermentation. In Switzerland, "lager" mostly refers to a pale, mild beer without a strong hop note, exemplified by Feldschlösschen Original. For the Swiss, the name evokes a golden-colored beer that's easy to drink and slightly sweet.

As an international style, it's called pale lager. The tasting guidelines (BJCP) define it as 4.5 to 6 percent alcohol and 18 to 25 IBU. Typical traits include a pale body, light hop presence, little fruitiness, and a clean, dry finish.

How does Helles differ from Pils? A Munich Helles is less bitter and maltier. It has only 16 to 22 IBU and 4.7 to 5.4 percent alcohol. Pils is noticeably more bitter. A Swiss lager often falls somewhere in between, but is less bound to a fixed standard, since there's no Swiss style norm for lager.

There's no such thing as a "Basel beer" style. Breweries along the Rhine, whether Feldschlösschen in Rheinfelden or Fischerstube in Basel, brew the same styles found throughout Central Europe: lager, Helles, wheat beer, specialty beers, and, in recent years, craft beers.

Craft means: small batches, hops from the US or New Zealand, often with yeasts from the top-fermenting family. Such beers fill the shelves of small shops in Basel, but they make up the smaller share of the market. The region's everyday beer remains the pale lager.