16.02.2022
Fyne Lager – Now Available in Cans!
Fyne Lager, our modern Scottish helles, is now available in 440ml cans!
For the very first time, our 4.7% year-round dry-hopped lager is available to enjoy anywhere, any time and we can’t wait for you to try it.
To some Fyne Lager is simply a good pint of well-made beer, but for us it was years in the making, and for one of the team in particular, it was a labour of love – Yvonne Wernlein, our Technical Brewer was given the task of taking her extensive knowledge of German lager brewing and using it to create the ultimate modern, dry-hopped helles for the good people of Scotland.
“I know that Fyne Ales was brewing lagers for a quite a while before I joined the team, but it almost felt like it was my duty to take things forward – so that’s what I did,” she recollects.
While Fyne Lager has been an established part of our core range in keg and mini-keg for a few years now, but some of you may remember some of our previous lager brands, namely Haus Lager, Christmas on the Beach and most recently North West, the latter of which was being produced when Yvonne joined the Fyne Ales team in 2018.
“North West was described as a ‘hop lager’ – it was a lager dry-hopped with New Zealand hops and it was a good beer, but to me it didn’t taste much like a lager, it was closer to a pale ale, and I wanted to take it in the direction of a more traditional lager while keeping the core idea of the beer the same,” shares Yvonne, whose brewing career began at the age of 16 at her parents’ brewery in rural upper Franconia. Following her apprenticeship and further specialist training in quality assurance, Yvonne went on to complete her Braumeister qualification.
“We refined the recipe quite a bit over several batches, but the most significant change we made was switching the Nelson Sauvin dry-hop to Rakau, a much more mellow variety with a flavour profile described as ‘the whole orchard’ – I love that, and I think it works a lot better than the winey Nelson.”
Newly rechristened as Fyne Lager, Yvonne’s rework of our year-round lager was an almost immediate success, especially with our local community in and around Argyll where kegs can be found on many bars alongside our cask classics.
“We call Fyne Lager a ‘modern helles’ and I think that’s a good description for the beer and I’m really proud of how popular it has become. To me it represents the best-of-both worlds, with a really simple, well-made lager base and just a gentle fruitiness from the New Zealand hops – I love it and it’s great to finally have it in cans.”
Fyne Lager is available now on the Fyne Ales online shop and will soon be available from all good bottle-shops.