a broad family of cold-fermented beers with a common heritage that emerged centuries ago out of Bavaria and nearby Czech Bohemia. Before the development of pale malts, all beers were somewhat dark, and that included the lager beers brewed in Bavaria from at least the 1500s on. Over time these became the variants we now know as dunkel and schwarzbier in Germany, černé pivo in the Czech lands, oscura in Mexico, and simply dark lager in the United States. Traditional versions would have been brewed from slightly caramelized Munich malts, but today many are brewed from a pale malt base with additions of caramel and chocolate malts for color and flavor. Although the flavor profiles sometimes become chocolate-like, they tend more toward a clean maltiness with notes of toffee and caramel. Hop bitterness tends to be low to moderate. In the northern Bavarian region of Franconia and in the Czech Republic, many versions are very dark, showing hints of coffee and charming rusticity. These are everyday drinking beers and thus are rarely sweet and usually hover around 5% alcohol by volume.

Many American breweries, harkening back to their shared German heritage, once made dark lagers. These started to fade away in the 1950s as a pale lager monoculture set in. Dark lagers are still produced by some large international breweries; some are entirely credible, whereas others gain their dark appearance largely from caramel coloring. Today, many craft brewers have revived dark lager and it is a favorite on brewpub menus from North Carolina to the Pacific Northwest. Dark lagers are also increasingly popular with beer enthusiasts in Scandinavia, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, and beyond. It seems likely that future years will witness a refreshing comeback of dark lagers in many parts of the world.

See also bavaria, dunkel, lager, and schwarzbier.