American lager

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The American lager or North American lager is a style of pale lager produced in the United States and Canada. Pale lagers originated in Europe in the mid-19th century and were brought to North America by German immigrants. While the Bavarian and Czech variants of this style may be firmly hopped, pale lager has developed into a modestly hopped beer in the rest of the world and sometimes uses adjuncts such as rice or corn – this is also true in the US and Canada.

The best-known American lagers worldwide are Anheuser-Busch InBev's Budweiser and Bud Light, although several other prominent brands are produced by MillerCoors; these include Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Miller Lite, and Miller High Life. Pale lager is the predominant choice among the largest brewing companies of United States of America, although it is not common in U.S. microbreweries. Likewise, in Canada the biggest-selling commercial beers, including both domestics such as Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue, Kokanee, Carling Black Label, and Old Style Pilsner, and imports such as Budweiser and Coors are very lightly hopped pale lagers. This is by far the largest-selling style in Canada.^[1] Just as in the United States, Canadian microbrewers typically do not produce North American-style pale lagers.

Other terms for this type of beer, or sub-categories within it, include "adjunct lager", "American-style light lager", "American-style low-carbohydrate light lager", "American-style lager", "American-style premium lager" (a term used at the World Beer Cup), "North American style-lager" and "North American-style premium lager" (terms used at the Canadian Beer Awards).