What is the difference between a lager and an ale?

For the average beer drinker, the difference between an ale and a lager comes down to how the beer looks, smells, and tastes. Ales tend to be fruity-estery, while lagers are clean-tasting and frequently described as "crisp." But to a brewer, the difference is more fundamental than that. It's not color, or flavor, or aroma, or hop/grain/malt varietals or even water hardness that separates a lager from an ale. Simply put, lagers use an entirely different type of yeast during fermentation. All of the knock-on effects -- from different flavors and aromas to decreased fermentation temperatures -- arise from this difference. You'll hear some beer pedants describe the difference as "top-fermenting" (ale) vs. "bottom-fermenting" (lager) yeast, which is generally accurate, but useless to those who have no interest or experience with brewing.

ALE VS. LAGER

A quick graphical reference for the differences between ale and lager. The main difference for the brewer is the brewing temperature: ales ferment under warm conditions; lagers cold.

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Here's the thing about the lager yeast genome. It possesses many similarities to that of ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae -- it in fact has whole stretches that are identical to S. cerevisiae (as you'll find out, there's a reason for this). But lager yeast behaves in a profoundly different manner than ale yeast. The most obvious difference is that lager yeast works best in cold temperatures -- temperatures that would make an ale yeast go dormant. Further, unlike ale yeast, no "wild-type" lager yeast has ever been found in Europe and lager yeast need humans to continue its propagation.

                                                   Read More at                                                                              https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/beersci-what-difference-between-lager-and-ale#page-2

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