Beer Styles

What is a Vienna lager? It's a bottom-fermented beer, amber to copper in color, with a soft, slightly toasty malt character and only mild hop bitterness. Anton Dreher is considered its creator, and Kőbánya made the style at home in Hungary.

A Vienna lager tastes of bread crust, a touch of toffee, and a lean finish. It differs from German pilsner in its darker malt and lower bitterness, and from Munich dunkel in its lighter color and lighter body.

Over time, Hungary's everyday beer has grown even paler. What you'll typically find in a glass in Budapest today is a pale, cool lager from the international pale lager category. It's clear, golden yellow, and light-bodied, designed above all to refresh.

The ranges below come from the style guidelines of the US competition judging manual BJCP and apply to competitions, not as a standard for individual brands. A specific beer may fall outside these ranges; the brewery's figures on the label take precedence.

Alongside the lagers, ales from small Budapest breweries have appeared in recent years. One example is the brewery Fehér Nyúl, which translates to "White Rabbit" in English and was founded in 2017 by three homebrewers. Their American-style IPA shows just how much hop character a Budapest beer can carry these days. Between the two worlds, the difference lies not just in flavor but in scale: small breweries brew in tiny batches, while the big houses reach millions of hectoliters.