In Session... with Ben McFarland
It's a fair bet that the drinking demands of hordes of England fans will be somewhat lost in translation this summer.
Reebok Classics twitching in anger, scorched pink skin getting redder by the minute as their calls for "L-a-g-e-r" fall on deaf, and no doubt confused, German ears. Saying it louder and slower won't help, nor indeed will performing the worldwide symbol for beer (rhythmic elbow-bending and mouth-a-gawp). Lager, you see, is simply not something the Germans ask for at the bar, mainly because it doesn't make sense.
Lager means "to store" in German so unless they want to have a peek at the barman's broom cupboard England fans would be better off specifying what kind of "lager" they'd like to drink.
And what a choice of bottom-fermenting beauties they've got to choose from - crisp pilsners, straw-like Helles beers, crimson-coloured Dunkels, beautiful Bocks and their more deviant elder sisters, Doppelbocks. All of them lagers, all of them very different in the way they look, taste and are made.
Sadly, such distinctions are rarely associated with lager over here where, with a 70 per cent stranglehold of the beer market, familiarity has bred contempt.
It's a much maligned tipple that attracts the kind of negative press normally reserved for Osama Bin Laden or, even worse, Owen Hargreaves. Lager is the opium of the masses, the last bastion of the scoundrel, fizz that fuels Friday night fisticuffs. While wine gets connoisseurs and ale gets buffs and bores, lager gets louts.
What's more, lager always gets told it all tastes the same. That may be the truth with some of the big brands (serve anything extra cold and it'll taste pretty similar), but spread your lager horizons and you'll discover that lager is not all sweetness and light.
Cloves, cut-grass, bananas, bonbons, pears, parsnips, spice and straw - they can all be found in amongst the bubbles and brimming head of a glorious, thirst-quenching lager.
And why not? After all, the only thing that distinguishes lager from ale is the type of yeast used. Lager yeast (referred to as Saccharomyces Uvarum by white-coated boffins and beer geeks) works its magic at colder temperatures and sinks to the bottom during fermentation. Ale yeast (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae), meanwhile, drifts upwards and likes things a little more temperate. That's why ale fans can often be found wearing sandals.
Up to 34 billion yeast cells are used to brew the average pint of beer. Who'd have thought such a little thing would be the subject of such fervent disagreement among drinkers? Mercifully, the battle lines between ale and lager are fading. It all began a few years ago when the Campaign For Real Ale held out an olive branch by championing the independent cause of Budweiser Budvar. And now, a few years on, the gauntlet has been picked up by a number of smaller English brewers who are wrestling lager out of the hands of the big boys and emancipating this downtrodden beer style from the shackles of misconception.
Cains Lager from Liverpool is a clever and tasty combination of commercial expedience and welcome reverence, the kind normally afforded to ale, the Harviestoun brewery in Scotland has for some time been producing a rather fine cask conditioned lager in the shape of the wonderfully hoppy Schiehallion. And if you haven't encountered the rustic charms of Cotswold Lager from the Cotswold Brewing Company then I suggest you do.
Any more for any more? Certainly. Freedom Lager, once the must-sip of the trendy Soho set during the late 1990s, has been given a new and scrumptious lease of life while word of the Meantime Brewery's Helles and Pilsner is spreading all the time.
Whether they will successfully wean the masses off the commodity brands remains unclear but let's just hope, when England fans return home from a period of drinking enlightenment, that the only impression made by Germany's lagers is not simply a pallid stain on their polyester shirts.
Ben was awarded the title of Beer Writer of the year for 2004 by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
