lager

Lager comes from German Lagerbier, "beer made for storing," from Lager ("store"). The name described where the beer sat, not how it tasted.

The facts given don't trace a shift in meaning beyond this origin, so the honest story is simply that a word for storage came to name the beer itself.

Lager is cognate with the native English word lair — both trace back to the same idea of a place where something rests or is kept.