Updated
Helles is a pale, malt-forward Bavarian lager — soft, bready, and gently bitter, built for drinking by the litre. Expect fresh white bread and light honey from the malt, restrained floral hops, and a clean, dry-but-round finish that asks for another sip.
History & origin
Helles was Munich’s answer to pilsner. When Bohemian pale lager began conquering Germany in the late nineteenth century, Munich’s brewers — Spaten first among them, in 1894 — responded with a pale beer that kept Bavaria’s malty soul instead of chasing Czech bitterness.
It worked. Helles displaced darker dunkel as Munich’s daily drinker across the twentieth century, and today it is the beer of the city’s gardens and halls — the reference point every Munich brewery is judged against.
Brewed by
Brands on the atlas with a helles in their range.
Adjacent styles
How helles compares with the rest of the lager family.
| Style | ABV | IBU | SRM |
|---|---|---|---|
| helles | 4.7–5.4% | 16–22 | 3–5 |
| American lager | 4.2–5.3% | 8–18 | 2–4 |
| Vienna Lager | 4.7–5.5% | 18–30 | 9–15 |
| dark lager | 4.2–6% | 8–20 | 14–22 |
| export | 4.8–6% | 20–30 | 4–7 |
| ice beer | — | — | — |
| pale lager | 4.5–6% | 18–25 | 2–6 |
More styles to explore
All styles →Sources & corrections
Sources: wikidata.org
Structured data: Wikidata (CC0), Open Brewery DB (MIT), OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL).
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