It’s been a long day, and your shift is almost over. You can’t wait to get home, put your feet up, and crack a frosty beer. What kind do you reach for? For many, it’s Lager. East Brother Beer’s Pre-Pro Lager is the quintessential American beer; released every spring, it honors the American working tradition. Short for “Pre-Prohibition,” Pre-Pro Lager envisions what beer was like a century ago, and it celebrates the style as a working tradition, dating back before U.S. workers began to organize in the 1800s.
After all, beer is labor. As we’ve learned firsthand, running a brewery is hard work—hoisting, hauling, boiling, bottling, canning, and cleaning—and production has a lot of moving parts, as those who work in Richmond’s industrial sector know. Lager is the perfect reward at the end of a long day of physical work: not only more refreshing, but more affordable than a four-pack of Double IPA or Imperial Stout. Lager also stays fresh longer, so those working long hours can always have a case in their fridge.
“Beer is a drink of the people, and the labor movement represents the people,” says Rob Lightener, co-founder of East Brother. Clean, light, simple, and cold, Lager is the beer of the working person. “Lagers are not fussy beers,” Lightener says, yet they encompass a broad range of styles, from Maibock to Festbier and Schwartzbier; done right, they’re as nuanced and complex as any Ale. Pre-Pro Lager “embodies balance,” Lightener adds. “It’s got good maltiness and hoppiness, but with that Lager crispness.”
“Lagers are very much a malt-driven beer,” agrees Paul Liszewski, head brewer at East Brother, “and we’ve kind of forgotten that over the years, when comparing it to macro-beer.” In the minds of many craft consumers, Lagers are bland, fizzy, and watery, peddled by the likes of Anhauser-Busch, Miller, and Coors (notorious for its anti-union practices). Lager is the world’s most popular style, especially in Germany, where the Big Beer barons immigrated from. As industrialization and then Prohibition consolidated brewing in the hands of these few—there were 4,000 U.S. breweries in the 1870s, and only 100 after Prohibition—the style became associated with their mass-produced, homogeneous varieties.
But today, Lager is enjoying a well-deserved and long-predicted comeback as people discover its full potential. “In the back of brewers’ minds, we want to be doing Lagers,” Lizsewski says, “but there are time constraints.” Lagers ferment longer and at lower temperatures than Ales, so craft breweries scrambling to keep up with constantly changing consumer demand have tended to focus on quicker-turnaround, trendier styles. When the pandemic hit, however, breweries suddenly found themselves with time and tank space on their hands. Their Lagers struck a chord with consumers who were also revisiting old-school styles and wanted to stock their fridge.
To celebrate Lager’s legacy and Richmond’s role in civic history, we’re launching the first-ever Pride + Purpose Beer Festival on June 18. Offering 30+ Lagers from more than 25 Bay Area breweries, it also benefits Richmond’s Rosie the Riveter Trust. The fundraising partner of the World War II Home Front National Park, the Trust celebrates the women who entered the workforce for the first time at places like the Richmond Shipyards, where Henry J. Kaiser oversaw the production of hundreds of ships in record time during WWII (East Brother Beer is housed in the shipbuilders’ former dormitories). Get your tickets here, and grab a six-pack (or two) of Pre-Pro Lager while you can.
