Lager: Premium Lager

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.