When it comes to the most popular type of beer in Australia, lager wins the toss hands down every time.
Pale ales are certainly popular, with the style giving many breweries the freedom to make it their own, but lagers have found a special spot in Australian culture: largely because it’s so damn perfect for a hot day (and we do get a lot of them).
It’s a deceptively simple drink, needing to be both refreshing and flavourful without being overwhelming, and often coming off as basic despite the precision needed to brew it. Many breweries are judged on their lagers simply because there really isn’t any corner cutting here – the process needs to be pitch perfect before you can deliver something palatable.
Thankfully, the making of lagers has a long history all around the world, and while we’ve seen a major explosion of craft breweries taking on pale ales in recent years, lagers look to be the next big target: and we’ve already got some delicious drinks to down.
So, without further ado, here are the 9 best lagers you can drink today.
The Best Lagers at a Glance
- The most popular lager: Great Northern Brewing Co’s Super Crisp Lager
- The best pilsner: Whitelakes Brewing’s 100-day Pilsner
- The best pale lager: Beerfarm’s India Pale Lager
- The best non-alcoholic lager: Heaps Normal’s Another Lager
Related: 11 Best Pale Ales to Crack Open
Table of Contents
- The Best Lagers at a Glance
- 1. White Bay Brewery’s Lager
- 2. Heads of Noosa Brewing Co’s Japanese Lager
- 3. Mack Brewery’s Isbjørn Lager
- 4. Whitelakes Brewing’s 100-day Pilsener
- 5. Hawke’s Brewery’s Hawke’s Lager
- 6. Beerfarm’s India Pale Lager
- 7. Mountain Culture’s Lager
- 8. Heaps Normal’s Another Lager
- 9. Great Northern Brewing Co’s Super Crisp Lager
- What Makes A Good Lager?
- How Man of Many Chose the Best Lagers
1. White Bay Brewery’s Lager
Type: Lager
Size: 355ml
ABV: 4.7%
Origin: Sydney, NSW
Awards: The Indies: Champion Beer, Champion Lager (2022)
As it should be, when the team at White Bay first powered on the stills at their Balmain brewery, they knew the first style they needed to nail was the lager – and nail it they did, with the brewery’s core lager release having become a mainstay in the Australian beer scene ever since the brand’s launch in 2020.
While it’s brewed in our hometown of Sydney, the method behind White Bay’s brew is surprisingly European, using traditional German malts and hops to deliver a refreshing, and somewhat zesty, beverage perfect for our Australian summers. In fact, it may just be the best beer for the end of a hard day, with the brewery’s tagline – “working classy” – signalling that its beer is made to be drunk by people with their feet on the ground, but with a taste for the finer things.
Pair it up with a good fish and chips, and you might have the perfect pub meal: makes sense coming out of the harbour city.
2. Heads of Noosa Brewing Co’s Japanese Lager
Type: Pale Lager
Size: 330ml
ABV: 4.5%
Origin: Noosa, Queensland
Awards: Royal Melbourne Australian International Beer Awards: Gold (2022)
Bringing an Australian twist to an international favourite, Heads of Noosa’s Japanese-style Lager is a local triumph. Created as a means of delivering Queensland with the high-quality taste it deserves, Heads of Noosa’s Japanese Lager brings the clean, dry finish of a Sopporo or Kirin, but delivers it through the lens of unapologetically Australian ingredients.
What makes a lager Japanese, you ask? It comes down to the ingredients: namely, the use of rice grain in the mix which delivers a crisp flavour and a pale colouring. Heads of Noosa‘s brewers use Australian-grown long or medium grain rice in the process, leave the beer in its maturation tank for longer than its ale counterparts, and make sure to cleanly filter the beer. This ensures the crisp, dry finish we all expect.
As with all of the brewery’s drinks, the lager is made with the Sunshine Coast in mind, meaning it goes down a treat on a hot day, and does wonders at the beach. Just drink it after you’re finished in the surf, please.
3. Mack Brewery’s Isbjørn Lager
Type: Lager
Size: 330ml
ABV: 4.5%
Origin: Tromsø, Norway
Hailing from the icy tundras of Norway, Isbjorn delivers exactly the kind of refreshing taste you’d expect from a beer brewed in the arctic circle. Served best chilled, Isbjørn comes by way of the northernmost brewery in the world, Mack Brewery, which is situated in Tromsø.
Why does this matter? Well, unlike most beers we get Down Under, Isbjørn is brewed using water from the arctic – some of the highest quality water in the world – which actually does make a difference to how the beer ends up tasting. It’s arguably the most important ingredient, yet the one most people forget about when drinking beer.
Plus, while the Isbjørn label has only been around since 2014, the beer itself has been brewed since the 1880s: it just got a little face-lift to bring it up-to-date with the modern world. Isbjørn is one of the most popular beers coming out of Scandinavia these days, and for good reason. Skål!
4. Whitelakes Brewing’s 100-day Pilsener
Type: Pilsener
Size: 375ml
ABV: 5%
Origin: Perth, Western Australia
Awards:
A pilsener? I thought this was a list of lagers? It turns out that pilsener is a take on the lager-style beer which originated in the Czech city of Pilsen, and Whitelakes’ 100-day tribute here is an incredible upping of the ante.
Most lagers enjoy an extended fermentation process, but it’s usually something closer to a month. Whitelakes, though, lets its pilsener sit for a full 100 days before bringing the beer to market, creating a far more nuanced flavour while still delivering a deliciously dry finish. You can expect some light bursts of fruit in the drink, though these are subtle flavours compared to what you may be used to if you’re coming from the world of pale ales.
What this means, though, is that the 100-day Pilsener is a complex beast and can deliver new flavours across multiple sessions. As you become more familiar with it, you’ll begin to taste more of its intricacies alongside the refreshing, crisp clarity you want from a pils.
5. Hawke’s Brewery’s Hawke’s Lager
Type: Lager
Size: 375ml
ABV: 4.2
Origin: Sydney, NSW
Awards: Australian International Beer Awards 2023, Silver. The Indies: Gold (2024), Silver (2023, 2022, 2018).
You’ve probably heard the story of how two scrappy punters from Sydney laid it all on the line to start up a brewery with Bob Hawke’s face on the label, but it’s worth remembering that, behind the marketing, the beer is actually good.
“A brewery’s lager tends to be their barometer: if their lager is humming, then all other beers are also,” Hawke’s head brewer Brodie French tells us. “Flaws can be picked up in a lager very easily. There are no hops to hide behind, so any issue with fermentation shows up.”
When it comes to Hawke’s lager, the beverage is brewed using Australian barley and wheat, which delivers an easily drinkable beer that holds a subtle citrus aroma. Plus, as the can calls out, ‘every sip gives back’, with a percentage of sales of Hawke’s beer going directly to Landcare, an environmental organisation Bob Hawke himself set up when he was PM.
We can’t have good beer without a healthy environment, so really, it’s a win for everyone.
6. Beerfarm’s India Pale Lager
Type: Pale Lager
Size: 375ml
ABV: 5.2%
Origin: Metricup, Western Australia
Awards: Good Food Guide Beer of the Year (2024)
Beerfarm’s India Pale Lager has the honour of being the beer its brewers always wanted, but could never find. Rather than only delivering the crisp flavouring and dry finish of a lager, Beerfarm’s IPL is infused with tropical flavours developed across weeks of fermentation.
The result is a curveball of a beer: hints of mango, passionfruit and paw paw sit within a hop-forward, pale-but-clear liquid that is as refreshing as it is delicious. In saying that, it’s still a simple, straight-forward beer made to be drunk in good company.
If you’re coming from a fruity pale ale, but want something a bit more crisp, the lads at Beerfarm created this beer solely for you. That’s not true, actually, they made it for themselves.
7. Mountain Culture’s Lager
Type: Lager
Size: 355ml
ABV: 4.6%
Origin: Blue Mountains, NSW
Mountain Culture has an advantage over a lot of other Australian breweries, in that is has ready access to the sparkling clear spring waters of its home in the Blue Mountains. In this case, however, the folks at Mountain Culture have opted to cut the minerals out of its water to deliver something cleaner.
How do they do this? Well, by way of a reverse osmosis water filter, obviously! If you’re like me and don’t know what that means, it softens the water to more closely match the type used in classical Czech brewing, and allows Mountain Culture to think and experiment outside of its geographical box.
“With a lager we’re not aiming for the fruity, hoppy profile we’re aiming for in an ale,” Mountain Culture’s brand and innovation manager Pat Thiering told us. “A good lager expressed the grain and the earthy, herbal and spicy character of the hops whilst maintaining a balance between the elements.”
All that effort is probably a huge pain in the ass, but the result is worth it: an incredibly clean and crisp lager, made with the same care and attention as the rest of Mountain Culture’s lineup.
8. Heaps Normal’s Another Lager
Type: Non-alc Lager
Size: 375ml
ABV: 0.5%
Origin: Canberra, ACT
Awards: World Beer Awards: Gold (2024), Silver (2022)
Compared to our list of the best pale ales, the naming conventions of lagers is pretty lackluster – something it seems Heaps Normal also realised when they named their own attempt at the style Another Lager, as in, ‘oi mate, grab me another lager!’.
The goal in developing Another Lager was to create something well balanced that let you maintain your own: with only 0.5% ABV in each can keeping the wobbles firmly at bay.
But everyone knows what lager is supposed to taste like, and so the execution on a non-alcoholic attempt had to be perfect.
“People want their favourite non-alc to taste like their favourite alcoholic beer, so brewers must work twice as hard to build the balance and complexity in a beer without the alcohol,” Heaps Normal co-founder Ben Holdstock told us.
Thankfully, they nailed the landing. The Another Lager hits the notes it needs to – crisp, clean, and refreshing – without knocking you out.
9. Great Northern Brewing Co’s Super Crisp Lager
Type: Lager
Size: 375ml
ABV: 3.5%
Origin: Cairns, Queensland
Awards: Australian International Beer Awards: Gold (2018), Silver (2021), Bronze (2017)
While it’s easy to say that Australia’s favourite style of beer is the humble lager, it’s also true to say that, for the past few years at least, Great Northern has also been Australia’s favourite beer. Or, more specifically, we’re buying a lot of it.
Data from industry analyst firm Circana, collected for NewsCorp’s annual list of top selling beers, found that Great Northern topped the charts for the second year running. Why? Well, if you’ve tasted Great Northern, you probably already know: it’s a dazzling and delicious mix of Australian ingredients, isn’t overly bitter, and packs a subtle fruitiness into what is ostensibly a mid-strength beer.
It is the perfect buddy for a hot day, and unlike many of its craft beer comrades it’s made at scale and won’t cost you an arm and a leg to pick up a slab. Chances are you’ve already tried Great Northern and know what we mean, but if you haven’t for whatever shameful reason, get on it.
What Makes A Good Lager?
Now that you know what makes the best lagers sing, let’s take a look at how the style itself shines in the busy beer market. Lager is, in many ways, the most basic beer you can imagine. There’s very little by way of extras flavours to hide behind, and as such, ingredients need to be well suited to the style and perfectly handled in the process.
Hawke’s Brewery’s head brewer Brodie French told us great beer is 1 per cent recipe and 99 per cent process, and there’s nowhere where that is more true that in creating lager. According to French, a breweries success in formulating its lager largely falls on how it manages the health and performance of its yeast.
“This is by far the most important aspect to manage in producing a great lager, but is also the defining character in the style,” French said. “A brewery’s lager tends to be their barometer… and this is because flaws can be picked up in a lager very easily. There are no hops to hide behind, so any issues with fermentation shows up.”
Ingredients are key, obviously, but time is also a massive factor. Compared to other styles, lager prefers a longer, colder maturation period as well, which allows the flavours to mellow and even out over time (see the 100-day Pilsner above), and keeps tastes subtle.
The end result is a beer that is made specifically to be neutral in flavouring, but refreshing and dry on the palate.
How Man of Many Chose the Best Lagers
When it comes to picking a list of the best lagers on the market, it goes without saying that expertise is key. While we’ve tasted every beer on this list, we’ve also turned to the wider public for their overall ratings. Our list takes into account four major perspectives to determine the overall rating. In addition to our own opinions, we take into account reviews via alcohol retailer Dan Murphys and the global beer rating community Untappd, as well as the results of the most recent GABS Hottest 100 Beers. We then collate the information together and measure the beers via overall flavour profile, reader ratings and commercial availability, meaning one-off special editions aren’t likely to top the list.
