1896 Danish Export Lager
Golden, bitter, strong, and brilliantly clear, export lager was built for the age of steamships.
By the late 19th century, breweries in northern Europe were shipping beer across oceans and rail networks to distant markets around the world. But long journeys demanded a different kind of lager. Export beers were brewed stronger, hoppier, and fuller-bodied than ordinary domestic lagers so they could survive travel while retaining flavour and stability. They were robust enough for commerce, but still designed to remain crisp and highly drinkable.
Our 1896 Danish Export Lager is brewed in tribute to this world.
Rich golden in colour with firm continental hop bitterness, fresh bread malt character, light honeyed sweetness, and a dry finish, it reflects the strong pale lagers exported from Denmark during the great industrial age of brewing.
And few breweries shaped that age more than Carlsberg.
Founded in Copenhagen in 1847 by J.C. Jacobsen, Carlsberg became far more than a brewery. It became one of the world’s great brewing laboratories. At a time when many brewers still relied on inherited intuition and guarded trade secrets, Jacobsen believed beer could be improved through science.
He was right.
For most of brewing history, nobody fully understood fermentation. Brewers knew that beer transformed through yeast, but they did not know what yeast actually was. Fermentation was treated almost like magic: part agriculture, part luck, part inherited tradition.
Then came the work of French scientist Louis Pasteur.
In the mid-19th century, Pasteur demonstrated that fermentation was not a chemical reaction, but a biological process carried out by living microorganisms. Beer spoiled because unwanted microbes contaminated it. Brewing, for the first time, could be understood scientifically.
At Carlsberg, researchers pushed this work even further.
In 1883, Carlsberg scientist Emil Christian Hansen succeeded in isolating a pure strain of lager yeast for the first time in history. Before this breakthrough, breweries reused unstable mixed yeast cultures containing wild contamination and multiple strains. Hansen’s work allowed brewers to ferment beer with unprecedented consistency, cleanliness, and control.
Modern lager brewing was born.
The yeast Hansen isolated became known as Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, named after the brewery itself. Using pure yeast cultures alongside refrigeration and industrial brewing technology, breweries like Carlsberg helped transform pale lager from a regional specialty into the dominant beer style on Earth.
Export lager became one of the clearest expressions of this new industrial brewing culture. Stable. Precise. Dependable. A beer engineered for long-distance trade in an age of steamships, railways, and expanding global commerce.
But despite the science behind it, great export lager remained deeply satisfying beer.
Ours balances firm bitterness with rich pilsner malt and elegant noble hop character beneath a dense white head. Stronger than an everyday lager but remarkably drinkable, it carries the confidence of an age that believed science and industry could solve almost anything.
This is a beer from industrial Copenhagen. From copper brewhouses, refrigerated cellars, steam engines, and laboratory microscopes glowing beneath gaslight.
A beer from the moment brewing ceased to be mysterious and became microbiology.
Availability: Seasonal
First Produced: 2026
Alc/vol. 6.1%