Amber and dark lager

Vienna Lager

BJCP 7A

Elegant and lightly toasty, built on Vienna malt. Less rich than a Marzen and drier than its colour suggests.

Vital statistics

Each bar is drawn against the full range of all 98 styles

Original gravity

1.048 - 1.055

Final gravity

1.010 - 1.014

Bitterness

18 IBU - 30 IBU

Colour

9 SRM - 15 SRM

Alcohol

4.7% - 5.5%

Colour also 18-30 EBC

What goes wrong

Letting it get sweet. Vienna should finish clean; residual sweetness pushes it toward a dunkel.

Commercial examples

Chuckanut Vienna LagerDevils Backbone Vienna LagerHeavy Seas CutlassOttakringer Wiener OriginalSchell's Firebrick

Reference examples of the style, as listed in the BJCP 2021 Style Guidelines. Availability varies by market and year.

Vital statistics as published in the BJCP 2021 Style Guidelines. Not yet checked against the published guidelines: treat these ranges as a planning aid and read the source at bjcp.org before entering a competition.

The rest of the amber and dark lager family

International Amber Lager

4.6-6% · 8-25 IBU

International Dark Lager

4.2-6% · 8-20 IBU

Czech Amber Lager

4.4-5.8% · 20-35 IBU

Czech Dark Lager

4.4-5.8% · 18-34 IBU

Marzen

5.6-6.3% · 18-24 IBU

Rauchbier

4.8-6% · 18-30 IBU

Altbier

4.3-5.5% · 25-50 IBU

Munich Dunkel

4.5-5.6% · 18-28 IBU

Schwarzbier

4.4-5.4% · 20-35 IBU

Plan a batch to these numbers.

Bitterness Colour Alcohol