Category Archives: History

Beer Styles, History

Carinthian Steinbier

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Carinthian Steinbier (stone beer) is a very unique but extinct beer tradition in Austria, and probably the only farmhouse brewing tradition that survived long enough to be documented by historians and brewers alike. At the same time, Carinthian Steinbier was also brewed commercially, by a number of local breweries in Carinthia, with some stone beer brewing also documented in adjacent Styria.

Stone beer brewing is based on the principle that hot, glowing stones were used to heat up liquid in simple wooden vessels. This approach allows heating up a mash even without the availability of a metal kettle, something that would have been unavailable or prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of farmers for a very long time. It is considered to be the most primitive way of brewing, but at the same is probably also one of the oldest ways of brewing beer. If you’re interested in the general history and technique of stone beer brewing in Europe, I can recommend the excellent book Historical Brewing Techniques by Lars Marius Garshol, or his article How stone beer was brewed. I’ve previously also discussed Carinthian Steinbier in my book Historic German and Austrian Beers for the Home Brewer.

Carinthian Steinbier is interesting because it survived for a fairly long time, until 1917 to be exact, despite repeated attempts to completely supplant it with what was called “kettle brewing”, i.e. brewing involving metal kettles. During other research, I recently stumbled upon a 1962 article that is probably the most detailed description of Carinthian Steinbier tradition that I’ve found so far.

In Die Steinbiererzeugung, ein ausgestorbenes Gewerbe in Kärnten (lit. “stone beer production, an extinct industry in Carinthia”), Josef Grömmer discusses Steinbier brewing in Carinthia, the common brewing practices over time including the last few surviving breweries up to the demise of Steinbier in Carinthia. I will try and summarize the article here and highlight what I would consider to be important in these accounts.

Steinbier brewing used to be the standard mode of beer brewing in Carinthia until the 18th century, when empress Maria Theresia permitted kettle brewing to one brewer Simon Jessernigg in Klagenfurt, Carinthia’s capital. Farmhouse-brewed Steinbier seems to have been common in Carinthia for ages, but at least from the 14th century on, it was also done on a commercial basis and provided hundreds of people in Klagenfurt alone with jobs during the 18th century. Authors in the 19th century sometimes described Steinbier to be a drink purely consumed by the ethnically Slovenian population (Carinthia has been ethnically mixed between a German and Slovenian population, a fact that has caused massive political tensions especially during the 20th century and to a certain extent up to this day), but this was heavily disputed by others.

Steinbier brewing in Carinthia only ended in 1917, but interestingly not because of difficulties in sales, but rather because raw material had become unavailable. This was a problem of the Austrian brewing industry in general during World War I. The largest brewery, Schwechater, had to brew “beer” from broad beans, potato starch, various types of syrup, sugar beets or even plum jam due to a general malting prohibition that had been enacted in 1916. This also meant the end for the last two Steinbier breweries, Kaschitz and Ure, both located in Waidmannsdorf, nowadays a district of Klagenfurt.

As for the Carinthian Steinbier brewing process itself, it is fairly well-documented. Grömmer’s articles even provides sketches of a complete brewhouse as well as a photo of the Ure brewery that had been fully preserved in the Technical Museum in Vienna.

Brewing of course started with malting. The common grains that were used were barley, oats and wheat. Depending on the brewery, differerent ratios of these grains were used, such as 60%/25%/15% barley/wheat/oats, while others simply used a third per grain type. Earlier reports from the 18th century say that brewers at the time used oat malt exclusively.

The grains were steeped and then let to sprout. In modern malting practice, the grains would get turned regularly, but not so much in Carinthia: the grains were mostly let to sprout by themselves, which made them get stuck together. Historic brewing literature calls this “Filzmalz”, or “felt malt” (like the textile). This was done for a particular reason: the kilns used were extraordinarily primitive smoke kilns. These kilns didn’t even have a metal grid or mesh, but instead only consisted of wickerwork set up in the form of a slightly sloped roof. Due to the shape, this construction was called a “Satteldarre” (lit. “saddle kiln”). We can see the specific form of this kiln even in Grömmer’s sketches:

The malt was kilned for 24 hours using cherry wood for the fire and was then stored without removing germs or rootlets. Apparently, the germs quickly reabsorbed moisture which made it hard to actually properly crush the malt, so it often only got squeezed open.

The breweries themselves were rather minimalistic in their equipment. One brewery was reported to only have the following brewing equipment: two large vats, one small vat, 15 pointed conical casks, one bag, one pump with a bucket, two carriers for stones, one “Grantner” (a trough to collect wort), one small vessel to scoop stuff, one brick underlay for a large cask, one kiln, two pliers to pick up stones, two forks to pick up stones, one wooden mash stirrer, one open fireplace and one lantern.

We know how the brewing itself worked thanks to Fritz Kaschitz, who in his 20s was brewing foreman in a Carinthian Steinbier brewery and brewed his last batch of Steinbier in 1917. In the 1960s, he was described as “Carinthia’s last living Steinbier brewer”. He gave account about Steinbier brewing in 1955.

Brewing was done like this: 600 kg of malt (1/3 barley malt, 1/3 oat malt, 1/3 wheat malt) were coarsely crushed. At 23:45 in the evening, the fire was started to heat up the stones. It took about 2 to to 2.5 hours to bring them up to full temperature when they were glowing red. The specific fire wood used here was pine. To pick up the stones, long pliers were used, while to carry the stones around, wooden carriers were used that had been watered for several hours to prevent them from burning.

On the bottom of the mash tun several juniper branches were put. They needed to be as fresh as possible. If they were too dry, they would lose their needles and lose their function as mash filters. They were held down by stones, and then water was added at a temperature of 62 to 75°C. Then hot stones were added to bring the water to a boil, and then 7 kg of hops were added. The hot stones were not fully submerged, so the hops were “roasted” for one minute. To prevent them from burning, more water was slowly added, then the mash tun was covered and left for 10 minutes.

During this break, a few small stones were added to a small vessel and water was added, then another bigger vat was put over it for steam-cleaning.

After 10 minutes, the mash tun covers were removed and mashing in started. Under constant stirring, the crushed oat malt was added. Stirring had to be vigorous to prevent the malt from settling in the juniper branches. More hot and cold water was added. Only then, the barley malt was mashed in, and in some circumstances, also small amounts of roasted malt.

The mash was then carefully stirred for 30 minutes. At the same time, the wheat malt was mashed in with tepid water in a smaller vessel. Later, hot stones were added to both vessels to slowly increase the temperature up to boiling. The stones were carefully placed at different places to prevent the mash from scorching. The small vessel with the wheat malt was then left until the morning, and only then mixed back into the main mash. The big mash vessel was then brought to a complete boil using stones of weights up to 20 kg. This usually took until 4am, followed by a rest until 6am.

At 6am, the tap (really nothing more than a bung) was slowly opened and the first wort was drawn. Any wort that wasn’t clear was scooped back into the mash vessel. The clear wort was then collected in the Grantner and left to cool a bit until it was moved to the fermenter. Then the mash was sparged using more hot water, and more wort was collected in the Grantner until it eventually ended up in the fermenter.

The original gravity of this unboiled wort was measured at 6° Balling, while the last runnings were at 1.2° Balling. The whole brewing process was supervised by a tax officer who measured volume as well as original gravity, the basis for taxation.

In the fermenter, the wort was left to cool. Fermenters were previously washed with hot water, then cleaned with a brush and rinsed with cold water, and finally put over bits of burning juniper branches, with a stake on the side to allow fresh air to sustain the little fire.

When the wort was at 22°C, yeast was added. The yeast was usually repitched from the bottom of the serving casks, but every two years, the yeast was replaced with new yeast from a Weißbier brewery from Munich. Fermentation was done for 7 to 10 hours, after which the beer was filled into smaller serving casks which then got bunged up. Fermentation times varied, and especially during the colder months, would take place over a longer time period and much lower temperatures as low as 10°C.

When the beer casks were tapped, they were highly carbonated, and the beer was poured with lots of foam, usually at serving temperatures of 15 to 18°C. Besides a slightly sour flavour, a subtle smoke flavour was also noticeable, even more so when the beer was served cold. Especially during warmer seasons, the beer had a tendency to go sour very quickly. It never kept well, and tapped casks needed to be finished within 2 days.

There were of course variations of this process. One example is the 1905 article Vom Steinbier by R. Dürnwirth, which is what I’ve used as the basis for the Steinbier recipe in my book. But Mr. Kaschitz’s account describes the process in the last few years of Steinbier brewing in Carinthia.

Beer Styles, History

That Elusive Horner Bier

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Yesterday, August 28, Seedstock Brewery released a pilot batch of their Horner Bier, which makes them the first brewery in over 100 years to do so. Evan Rail wrote an article on VinePair.com about this particular beer style which, while often mentioned in historic beer literature, is so hard to get a grip on. What we basically know about the beer style itself is that it was brewed from oat malt, very pale and quite murky, slightly sour (something that’s been attributed to the use of cream of tartar), highly carbonated and very refreshing.

In my own book, Historic German and Austrian Beers for the Home Brewer, I have a section about Horner Bier. It is one of just two beers for which I was not able to find a complete recipe at the time, so the recipe in the book is just a reconstruction based on educated guesses from the sources that I knew. Previously, I had written down the few things that I knew about about Horner Bier in this blog.

This all got me thinking, and so I went back to researching, going through all the digital libraries that I’ve used in the past, to see whether there were any more details about Horner Bier that I hadn’t been aware of before.

To cut it short: there was not a whole lot of new stuff, in particular nothing that would give any more insight into how the beer used to be brewed. But I found out more things about the culture around this beer.

An ad from 1836 for “very well matured Horner Bier in stoneware bottles”, available during the summer in Vienna’s beer house “zur weißen Taube”, Bräunerstraße.

Horner seems to have been an exclusively bottled beer, very highly carbonated and certainly not cheap compared to other beer types. Most likely because of that, Horner Bier in Vienna in the 18th century and the early 19th century had a similar status of champagne later on, as a drink that somebody would order to display their social status and wealth.

It was served in tightly sealed stoneware bottles which, when opened, would make a banging noise. The type of bottle was called a “Plutzer”, a term also used to describe a big head. Due to the banging noise, it was also called a “Kracher” (banger). Due to its very pale colour and slight sour taste, it was compared with Berliner Weisse.

One source claims that the beer style was allegedly invented in 1750 by a brewmaster called Faber. After his death, the exclusive privilege to brew this beer was rescinded and other brewers copied it, in some cases poorly, and so over time, the quality deteriorated and the beer style lost its high status. This may have been the reason why some people decided to grate a bit of nutmeg into their Horner Bier to improve its flavour.

Horner Bier brewing was definitely not just limited to Horn itself: in Droß, a town about 30 km south of Horn, a brewmaster named Meier was reported to have exported very little of his Horner Bier to Vienna in 1803 because of rising prices, possibly due to taxation.

It’s not even clear when Horner Bier stopped being made. In 1849, an article claimed that the last Horner was brewed 20 years ago. But this seems too early, as we can find ads for “well-matured Horner Bier” in newspapers as late as 1836 (the same page is interesting in that it seems to be dominated by ads for wine, a good example for how popular wine used to be in Vienna before the advent of lager beer).

Horner Bier brewing eventually did cease. In 1878, a new tenant of the Horn brewhouse was mentioned as brewing excellent beer. Despite the allusion to Horner Bier’s past reputation, which older beer drinkers seem to have still remembered at that time, it is not clear whether this was an attempt of a revival of Horner Bier, or just a local brewer trying to build on the past reputation. Even if it was a Horner Bier revival, it didn’t last long. In 1888, the brew house tenant ceased operation, and focused on reselling beer from Schwechat, i.e. Vienna Lager.

And this is all I’ve been able to find out about Horner Bier, the historic oat beer that eludes us all.

Beer Styles, History

Hansla: the Revival of an old Beer Style

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Germany is slightly opening up. ICE trains are going again, and in Bavaria, hotels and holiday apartments are again allowed to open and host tourists. Since we’ve been practically locked in for almost 3 months, my wife and I decided on a short notice to go to Bamberg for a quick trip.

The ICE from Berlin to Bamberg is quick, less than 3 hours with just a few stops. Our holiday flat was located near Wunderburg, a small district of Bamberg a bit off the town center which is best known for its two breweries that are practically opposite of each other, Keesmann and Mahrs Bräu. Most of the days were rather rainy, which was a good opportunity to walk around a bit, enjoy the scenery of this historic city, and then find the good places for beer. And, amazingly, physical distancing both in pubs and beer gardens worked really well all across Bamberg. Everyone was compliant, wore masks where and when asked to, and kept their distance to other parties. One place, zum Sternla, even put up perspex “windows” to divide large tables for different parties.

Perspex windows!

One thing that I had noticed in the weeks before the trip, particularly on Instagram, was that Brauerei Heller, the brewery behind the well-known Schlenkerla smoked beers, had launched a new low-alcohol beer, Heinzlein. I was intrigued about it, because I knew this beer type under various different spellings (“Hainslein”, “Heinzele”) of the same name from previous research in historic beer literature. This “new” low-alcohol beer clocks in at just 0.9% ABV. While it cannot be legally considered to be alcohol-free beer, it is still practically too low to taste any alcohol or to get even tipsy from it.

In historic beer literature, this beer type is already mentioned in the early 19th century as typical for Bamberg. In the 1818 book “Das Bamberger Bier” by Johann Seifert, it is described as being brewed from the third runnings, boiled with hops, left to cool in the brew kettle overnight, and fermented with bottom-fermenting yeast like the regular beer made from the first and second runnings. The 1836 book “Die Bamberger Bierbrauerei” by Johann Messerschmidt contains an own section about brewing this beer type, and calls it a “one-hundred-year tradition” which, even though it was actually not legal according to the Bavarian brewing regulation from 1811, resisted any attempts to abolish its brewing. So, just from historic sources we know fairly well that this beer was actually brewed, and more importantly, how it was brewed.

So just from that perspective, it makes me incredibly happy to see a recreation, even with a slight modernization, of this historic beer style: unlike the historic original, the modern Heinzlein is available in two different version, a pale and a dark version. The dark version is, well, brown, slightly malty and astringent, while the pale version also has a faint astringency, but a lot more hop aroma and bitterness in the foreground, which makes it quite the refreshing drink.

In addition to that, Schlenkerla also has a version of this historic beer which they spell differently again, Hansla. It’s advertised as less than 1.2% ABV, and very obviously is related to Schlenkerla’s smoked beers. It is slightly malty, still has some smokey flavour, but also carries the tiniest hint of astringency. I was lucky to sample this beer directly at the historic Schlenkerla pub.

Schlenkerla Hansla

In the context of beer history, the Schlenkerla version of this low-alcohol beer type is probably closer to the historic original than the more modern versions.

Historic sources describe it as light and agreeable, pale in colour. Some brewers apparently sold it directly (and there was plenty of demand from poor people that couldn’t afford a Maß of full-strength beer!), while others mixed it with the regular beer.

And that’s where I also see the Hansla’s great potential: while it’s nice and refreshing to drink on its own, I could totally see a Schlenkerla Märzen mixed half-and-half with Hansla, to produce a drink that’s still obviously classic Rauchbier, but at the same time only has about 3% ABV. Or, if you prefer it slightly stronger or weaker, in different ratios. Please note that I haven’t actually tried this, but as soon as I get my hands on bottles of Schlenkerla Märzen and Hansla or Heinzlein, this is certainly an experiment I would like to conduct.

And last but not least, kudos to brewmaster Matthias Trum, who created these beers with the full awareness of the historicity. In my opinion, it’s a drink with character, in some ways a bit rough around the edges, that can meet the current trend of low-alcohol beers without giving up any of its character or originality. Especially the Schlenkerla Hansla is very much a Schlenkerla beer. Just a few years back, I don’t think anybody would have expected low-alcohol Schlenkerla that would be recognizable as such. And going even a step further, I don’t think anybody would have really expected a low-alcohol dark beer, either.

After writing all about low-ABV beer, I’m actually quite thirsty. I wouldn’t mind a Heinzlein, or Hansla, or Heinzele, or Hainslein, or however you want to spell it (the German language has been very flexible in spelling before its standardization, especially when trying to write local dialect words in high German), but it hasn’t quite made its way up from Bamberg to Berlin.

History

German Sparklers

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Sparklers, little attachments to a beer engine’s nozzle that aerate the beer and produce a bigger head, are a bit of a controversy. Northerners stereotypically swear by them, Southerners despise them, etc. Personally, I think they make sense with some beers, but not so much with others. My personal hypothesis is that a lot of cask beers are brewed with the intention of being dispensed with or without a sparkler. A pint of Landlord without a thick head on top would certainly be weird, while London Pride served through a sparkler was probably one of the grossest pints I’ve ever had.

Most people think that this is probably a problem only cask beer aficionados in England face, but at least in the 19th century, lager beers in Germany and Austria directly dispensed from wooden casks were served in a similar way: besides the regular tap, a device called Mousseux-Pipe, sometimes also called Bierbrause (lit. “beer shower”), was also quite common. I’ve never seen an actual photo or illustration of one, but the descriptions of it make it sound very much like a sparkler: when beer was dispensed from a cask through the Mousseux-Pipe, it foamed up and produced a bigger, denser head.

As with every aspect of beer, the effect of this dispensing method also came under scrutiny by beer researchers. Th. Lange compared how much carbon dioxide was lost when dispensing from a regular (wooden) tap compared to dispensing from a Mousseux-Pipe, both with bunged and unbunged beer.

The total loss of CO2 when pouring bunged beer was 14.6% from a regular tap, and 22.72% from the sparkler tap. For unbunged beer, which is lower in CO2 in the first place, the loss was slightly lower: 10.27% from a regular tap, and 14.03% from a sparkler tap. (Source)

What’s also interesting is the amount of CO2 lager beers were served in the late 19th century: a regularly carbonated (bunged) beer contained 3.9 g/L (= 1.99 volumes) of CO2, a medium-bunged beer 3.457 g/L (= 1.76 volumes), while an unbunged beer contained as little as 3.097 g/L (= 1.58 volumes) of carbon dioxide. Compared to the typical carbonation of modern beer, this is fairly low: modern lager beers are often carbonated at around 5 g/L or roughly 2.5 volumes, while cask ales are carbonated lower at roughly 2.9 to 4 g/L (1.5 to 2 volumes).

So when we’re looking at the historic carbonation rates, it clearly shows that they are more in the range of what we get in modern cask ale. These historic lager beers seemed to have been more gently carbonated, making for a nicer drinking experience, something that you would find also in beers gravity-poured from wooden casks in Franconia.

Just like its modern counterpart in England, the use of Mousseux-Pipen was not uncontroversial either: in Tyrol, the use of syringes of similar devices to create artificial foam in beer was prohibited from 1854 on for sanitary reasons. A letter to the editor in a newspaper from 1871 laments the “strict non-enforcement of this edict got rid of syringes” and popularized beer showers that produced a thick and dense foam that helped defraud customers through underpouring.

Some publicans also saw sparkler taps as an issue: the wooden casks of the era were not entirely tight, so they gradually lost carbonation. Combined with a sparkler tap and the agitation when transporting, handling and tapping the casks, this led to an unacceptable amount of carbonation loss resulting in flat beer.

The organization of Viennese brewery owners even blamed assertions of beer adulterations on poor beer pouring practices: beers that tasted overly bitter were accused of using something other than hops for bitterness. Practically, beer that was poured hard and through devices like sparkler taps ended up flat, and no CO2 to soften down the hop bitterness. The Viennese brewers therefore suggested to pour beer as little as possible, and with as little devices in between. Instead of getting beer poured through a sparkler tap into a jug or large bottle, and then carried all the way home, beer should ideally be poured directly into a glass through a regular tap, and protected from sun and heat while bringing it home.

All in all, Mousseux-Pipen seemed as controversial back in the day as sparklers are in England nowadays. While I couldn’t find anything definite, I’d say the practice at the very latest died out when gravity-pouring beer from cask fell out of fashion, and more modern top-pressure-based dispensing methods became popular. And frankly, in the narrow context of gravity-poured lager beers, I don’t really see the need for it, as I’ve never seen such a beer freshly poured from a cask suffering from any foam issues, while still having a gentle carbonation that makes it easy to drink. Maybe brewers have become more knowledgeable about brewing beer with greater foam stability, or the slightly higher carbonation of modern lager beer is making a difference, or maybe the higher quality of modern “wooden” casks (most of which are metal-lined nowadays) means less CO2 leakage and a better retention in carbonation. In any case, a properly poured beer directly from a cask, with a nice thick head on top, makes for a great presentation, and I crave one now.

History

About Saazer Genossenschaftsbrauerei

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As some of you may have noticed on my Twitter account, I am currently researching for a book about historic and contemporary Vienna Lager. As with my previous book, I want to lay out the history of the style as detailed as possible, and accompany it with historic recipes and authentic brewing instructions. On top of that, I want to describe how “modern” Vienna lager came to be as part of the craft beer revolution, and what the current state of the beer style is.

Why am I doing this? Because I think that, compared to the popularity of the style, very little is known is about the beer’s history, and in addition, a lot of misinformation and myths have been spread which I try to clear up and reset the narrative.

As part of my historic research, I stumbled upon several references of “Anton Dreher’s Export-Brauerei” in Saaz/Žatec, a city best known for the local hop variety grown in and around it. I found this strange, because historic sources talk about only four brewery locations that were bought and run by Anton Dreher father and son: the main brewery in Klein-Schwechat just outside of Vienna, a brewery in Steinbruch/Kőbánya near Pest (nowadays Budapest), a brewery and hop garden in Michelob/Měcholupy just outside Saaz/Žatec, and a brewery in Trieste, but none of them mention a fifth brewry directly in Saaz. So of course I had to find out more about this brewery.

The first traces of the brewery can be found in newspaper articles mentioning its foundation on either 23 or 25 May, 1898, under the name “Saazer Genossenschaftsbrauerei”, literally “Saaz cooperative brewery”, allegedly by a syndicate that had managed to raise 3 million Crowns, the equivalent of over 42 million Euros nowadays.

The building works took several years, and only in January 1902 the brewery was able to announce that they would start operations in spring of the same year. Already later that year, ads can be found of their beer named “Urstoff” (lit. “original stuff”).

The other brewery from Saaz/Žatec, Bürgerliches Brauhaus (burgher brewhouse) Saaz, was not happy about it, went to court, and obtained judgement prohibiting Genossenschaftsbrauerei from using the name “Urstoff” altogether, and instead earning the right to the “Saazer Urstoff” brand exclusively for Bürgerliches Brauhaus. The court decided that the name “Urstoff” was consumer deception, probably because it insinuated that it was the “original” beer from Saaz, especially since Bürgerliches Brauhaus had been around since 1801, while Genossenschaftsbrauerei had been founded very recently at that time.

In 1903, Genossenschaftsbrauerei went one step further and made the “Urstoff” part of the company name: “Saazer Genossenschaftsbrauerei” was renamed to “Urstoff-Genossenschaftsbrauerei in Saaz”. Bürgerliches Brauhaus complained about this as well, and saw this as an attempt to circumvent the court’s verdict, which was again confirmed by court.

When looking not at trademark court cases but at beer production volume, Genossenschaftsbrauerei was doing quite well for such a young brewery: in 1903/1904, the brewery produced 85000 hectolitres. This was relatively miniscule compared to the amounts other Austrian breweries around that time period were brewing (Klein-Schwechat 1896/97: 770536 hl, Bürgerliches Brauhaus Pilsen 1904: 808000 hl).

In 1905, the legal troubles came to an end, when it was finally decided by the Austrian trade ministry that the “Urstoff” brand registered by Genossenschaftsbrauerei had to be deleted.

In 1914 then, the brewery was converted from a cooperative to a limited liability company (GmbH) named “Exportbrauerei GmbH in Saaz”, with a nominal capital of 1,029,000 Crown, about 5.7 million Euros in today’s money.

During World War I, the Austrian government apparently regulated beer exports, and Exportbrauerei was a complainant about this: the regulation apparently based on OG of the beers, and assumed an average of 11% which – according to Exportbrauerei – severely disadvantaged breweries only brewing 12% beers but no 10% beers, and suggested to instead determine an actual average OG per brewery. It is not known what came of this, but it does tell us one thing about the food economy in Austria-Hungary during the World War: at least in 1916, enough grains must have still been available to brew full-strength beers.

After the breakup of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Exportbrauerei was located in newly founded Czechoslovakia, and of course operated like before. It was not exactly a big player in the export business, though: Bürgerliches Brauhaus Pilsen, by then also known as “Pilsner Urquell”, was responsible for 209000 hl beer export in 1929. The total beer exports of all of Czechoslavakia in the same year were 271000 hl, but Exportbrauerei Saaz was responsible for only 5000 hl of those.

One blog claims that Exportbrauerei was renamed to “Anton Dreher’s Exportbrauerei” in 1926, but interestingly, I haven’t really been able to find any other sources about it. In any case this is an interesting year, because at that time, the Dreher family was not really involved with the Austrian brewing business anymore: Anton Dreher Jr. had died in 1921, his son Anton Eugen Dreher died at the age of 54 in 1925, his son Theodor had died in 1914 in a car accident, and his son Eugen had moved to Budapest and sold off his stocks. The inheritance went to Anton Eugen’s daughter Katharina “Kitty” Wünschek-Dreher.

Exportbrauerei Saaz nowadays (photo by SchiDD, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

I have not been able to find out who had the idea to give Exportbrauerei Anton Dreher’s name, and more importantly, why, as there is no discernible direct connection between Anton Dreher, who made Klein-Schwechater brewery big and pale lager beer famous around the world, and this medium-sized Bohemian brewery. This is also the reason why I decided to tell the story of “Anton Dreher’s Exportbrauerei” in my blog instead of my upcoming book, as it does not touch the history of Vienna Lager itself.

Beer Styles, History

Vienna Lager: Another Piece of the Puzzle

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In several previous postings, I wrote about various details in my effort to reconstruct historic Vienna lager as it was brewed in the 19th century by Viennese breweries, in particular Anton Dreher’s Kleinschwechater Brauerei, and exported all over Europe.

In a posting about a month ago, I discerned various mashing methods as they were described in the 1887 book “Die Dampf-Brauerei. Eine Darstellung des gesammten Brauwesens nach dem neuesten Stande des Gewerbes” by Franz Cassian. Despite all the interesting information that I was able to get out of that book, I missed one particular table much earlier in the book that shows a brief but informative overview over how Munich lager, Vienna lager, and Bohemian lager are brewed.

(click on the image to expand)

While much of this information was already known to me, there are a few more interestings bits and pieces in there: it lists a hopping rate of 1.5 kg per 100 kg of malt (which, after some calculation, should be roughly equivalent to between 3.45 g/L and 3.75 g/L). We get a hop boil time (2 hours), and a more detailed hopping schedule: 1/3 of the hops are added to the first runnings (so-called first wort hopping), while the remaining hops are added 45 minutes before the end of the boil. Unfortunately, the same book describes this just a few pages afterwards in words, and there it says that 2/3 of the hops are added 45 minutes after the beginning of the boil. At a 2 hours boil, that would be 75 minutes before the end of the boil. Personally, I find the latter a bit more convincing.

It also lists 13° as the OG of Vienna lager. Both the OG and the hopping rate corroborate previous findings from other pieces of literature. While not exactly new information, it adds much more confidence to this information.

All in all, we’ve now got the following information about historic Vienna lager:

  • Original gravity: about 13 °P
  • ABV: about 4.6%
  • Final gravity: about 4 °P
  • Hopping rate: 3.3 to 3.6 g/L
  • Boil time 2 hours, with hop schedule as described above
  • Hop variety: Saaz
  • Base malt: Vienna malt
  • Mashing schedule: triple decoction (more details here)

This information is pretty complete, and in fact quite detailed. The only things I would say are not 100% clear are the exact specs of historic Vienna malt such as colour, modification and barley variety (which means we need to trust commercially available modern Vienna malt), and the brewing water that was used. To give you a hint about what the ground water in Schwechat is like, you can find current water analysis data online. This is of course not a guarantee that the water profile is authentic. The water may have changed through 150 years of modern farming, and the brewery could have treated the local water, which would change everything. In any case, the important point about the water is that Viennese water is not necessarily right, as Schwechat’s water source is separate from Vienna’s, and Vienna’s water sources have changed in the last 150 years.

Nevertheless, quite a lot of information about Vienna lager has now been confirmed through historic sources, some of them even through multiple sources, which gives me greater confidence than ever before that Vienna lager brewed based on the specs above is as close to the historic original as possible.

Brewing, History, Technique

#BeeryLongReads2018: Revisiting Brewing Methods

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More than two years ago, I wrote an article discerning accounts from 1834 about various brewing methods as they were practiced in Germany and Austria, in particular Munich, Augsburg, Prague and Vienna, as part of #BeeryLongReads. I even won great prizes for it:

A lot has happened since then, not only did I gain more experience in blogging, I also published a book about historic beer stuff. So this time, I want to follow up on the theme and discuss the specific differences in decoction mashing from a late 19th century point of view.

Franz Cassian published a book named “Die Dampf-Brauerei. Eine Darstellung des gesammten Brauwesens nach dem neuesten Stande des Gewerbes.” in 1887 in which he talks about the state of the art of brewing at that time. I only came across this book recently, and found it particularly interesting because it contains a whole section with nothing but detailed descriptions of various types of decoction mashing and their differences.

Now, if you’ve never heard of decoction mashing before, let me just quickly describe it to you: when brewing a beer, the brewer uses the enzymes in the malt combined with hot water to convert the starches in the malt to sugar. In order for the enzymes to work under optimal conditions, this needs to happen at certain temperatures. Different enzymes do their stuff at different temperatures, so if you wanted to activate the enzymes to do their thing, you’d go through these different temperature steps so that each of them can work under optimal conditions. There are essentially three different ways of doing this:

  1. by adding more hot or boiling water (which can make the mash very thin)
  2. by heating up the mash until the right temperature is reached (which can be tricky if you don’t have exact temperature control)
  3. by taking a part of the mash, boiling it, and mixing it back (which takes a long time and uses up a lot of energy and fuel)

Some brewing traditions even just keep a single temperature, but in some ways, they’re just a simplification of methods (1) and (2), which nowadays are called infusion mashing. Method (3) on the other hand is called decoction mashing and is very traditional in Bavaria, Bohemia and Austria to a certain extent, and only used to be practiced there. At the time, brewers swore by it and exclaimed that decoction mashing was absolutely essential for their local beer style. Even today, decoction mashing is necessary in the Czech Republic if a brewer wants to call their beer a Czech beer.

Modern German breweries have gone off it for various reasons though: energy efficiency is one of them, as infusion mashing doesn’t use up nearly as much energy. Another reason is the perceived lack of impact on quality. This is relatively controversial, but there exist studies that claim that the difference of decoction mashing and infusion mashing cannot be smelled or tasted by your average Joe beer consumer, while some brewers still swear by it. An experiment at Brulosophy that compared whether people could taste a difference between triple-decocted beer and one produced by single infusion mash failed to gain significance. Upon closer analytical examination, differences between worts and beers produced through infusion mashing resp. single, double and triple decoction mashing can be measured.

Decoction mashing nowadays is mostly distinguished by how many decoctions are pulled (1, 2 or 3), the consistency of the decoctions (thick or thin), and which temperature steps you’re going through. With modern brewing science as a helpful tool, we exactly know what’s happening at each temperature step and which enzymes will be the most active, and we know about the destructive force boiling a decoction wields on the diastatic power (the ability to convert starches to sugar) of the partial mash. Even though brewing science in the late 19th century had already made great progress, brewing as such was still a craft and findings of brewing science were not necessarily immediately incorporated into the knowledge and toolset of a brewer.

With this context, let’s look at what Franz Cassian wrote about the specific styles of decoction mashing. He distinguishes three main methods, the Munich method, the Viennese method, and the Bohemian method. He identifies two main differences between those three methods: first, the type of malt that is used in mashing, and second, the way the mash is treated in relation to temperature, the number and consistency of individual decoctions, as well as boiling durations. The rest of the operation, like boiling and chilling the wort as well as fermenting and lagering the beer, he says, are essentially the same.

He then goes on to describe the different malts that are used for each of these methods: for the Munich method, highly kilned malts are being used, while for the Viennese method, the malt used produces a beer with reddish-brown colour that is lighter than Munich beers. The malt itself is very aromatic. The typical malt for Bohemian beers, he writes, is very pale, leading to an almost wine-like colour of the beer. The malt is kilned as such low temperatures that the author describes them more as dried than kilned. He also mentions an interesting detail: some Munich breweries at that time had started kilning their malt to a lower temperature, and then adjusted the colour of the beer with Farbebier.

Farbebier, literally “colouring beer”, is an extremely dark beer made from large amounts of debittered roasted malt that can be used to adjust the colour of beer without imparting the beer with too much roasted aroma and flavour. Since it’s just beer, mixing Farbebier with pale beer was compliant with the Bavarian prohibition on adulterating beer or substituting its ingredients. It was the only legal food colouring for beer at that time, and still is to this day if you want to advertise your beer as being compliant to the Reinheitsgebot.

Kilning at lower temperatures has a good technical reason: it destroys fewer of the enzymes that are required for starch conversion, and makes the malt more convertible, which in turn makes it easier for brewers to work with it. Using Farbebier was really just for matching customer expectations. This is what some Munich breweries allegedly still do nowadays: American beer consumers expect an Oktoberfest beer to be amber-coloured instead of the golden colour of modern Festbier, so Farbebier is used to adjust the colour for the American exports without impacting the flavour.

This description with Bohemian malt being the palest, Munich malt being the darkest and Viennese malt being in-between these two also reflects modern base malts: many maltings in Germany will produce and trade at most three base malts: Munich malt, Vienna malt and Pilsner malt. Only a few specialty malt producers offer a wider range of base malts, from extra-pale malt even paler than Pilsner malt, to Pale Ale malts more suitable for British and American styles, to proprietary malt blends for producing wort with a distinct red hue.

Besides the malt, the even more important distinction in brewing methods was the mashing itself. For Bavarian mashing, the author distinguishes four types: the old Munich or old Bavarian method, the new Munich method, the Augsburg method, and the Franconian method.

Old Bavarian Method

At the time of the publication of this book, this method was barely in use anymore. It used to be common for primitive breweries with not a whole lot of equipment, so most of the work was manual labour: mashing and lautering was done in the same vessel, so mash tuns had a false bottom, stirring was only done by hand, and hot water was added through simple tubes attached on the side of the mash tun going underneath the false bottom. Underneath the mash/lauter tun, another vessel, the “Grand”, was installed, which was large enough to contain all the collected wort.

The brewing process worked like this: for every unit of malt (by weight), 8 times that amount in water was required. One third of the water is added to the mash tun, while the rest is slowly brought to a boil. While the water heats up, the malt is doughed in. Bringing the water to a boil could take 3 to 4 hours, so that’s how long the malt was doughed in at a cool temperature. When the water is boiling, it is added very slowly to the mash, and mixed thoroughly, so that when all the boiling water is mixed in, the mash is at a temperature of about 37 to 38 °C.

Immediately, one third of the volume (as a thick mash) is put back into the copper, and quickly brought to a boil, where it is boiled for half an hour and then slowly mixed back into the main mash while constantly stirring. The resulting temperature of the mash should then be at about 45 to 50 °C, and will be mashed (stirred) for another 15 minutes to liquefy the mash. Then again, a third of the volume (again a thick mash) is put into the copper, and boiled for 45 minutes, and again slowly mixed back to reach a mash temperature of 60 to 63 °C. More stirring happens for 15 minutes, until the the third decoction can happen:

A third of the mash, this time a thin mash, is put into the copper, boiled for 15 minutes, and – you should know the drill by now – slowly mix it back under constant stirring to reach 73 to 75 °C. With that, the mash boiling is concluded, but not the mash itself: it gets stirred until the mash is fully converted. Nowadays, this would be verified with an iodine test (an iodine solution turns from brown to blue if the mash still contains unconverted starches), but back then it was determined by how quickly the hard matter in a sample of the mash sinks down the bottom of the vessel.

When mashing is concluded, it rests so that the grains can sink to the bottom of the vessel, which usually takes 30 minutes. Then the tap of the lauter tun is opened and the first wort is drawn into buckets. The wort is poured back onto the mash until it runs clear, then the wort is collected in the Grand, from where it is transferred to the copper. The grains are then further rinsed by pouring hot water on top: 30 liters per 100 kg of malt. The resulting wort is added to the wort. More hot water is then poured on top of the grains, at 50 to 60 liters per 100 kg of malt, and the resulting wort is used to brew a weak beer called “Schöps”. The final runnings, at 30 to 40 liters per 100 kg of malt, are called the Glattwasser and are used for distilling.

New Munich Method

Unlike the old Bavarian method, the new Munich method employs more sophisticated equipment and a certain degree of automation using steam engines. Mash and lauter tuns are separate, and no full-sized Grand is used anymore. Doughing in happens with a pre-masher, and the initial mash temperature is reached by using water from a hot liquor tank. The Mash tun is set higher than other equipment so that decoctions can be transported using gravity, and mixed back using pumps. Like the old method, the new method still employs three decoctions, two thick ones and a final thin one. But due to the high degree of automation, exact timing, and a hot liquor tank that can be used for quick temperature corrections, the whole process is meant to be quicker and more precise and therefore more reproducible and repeatable.

The temperature steps are slightly different: the first decoction is drawn at 30 °C and boiled for 15 to 45 minutes to bring the mash to 55 °C. The second decoction is boiled for 15 to 45 minutes to bring the mash to 65 °C, and the final thin decoction is boiled for 30 to 45 minutes to bring the mash to 75 °C. The amount of sparge water that is used is two thirds of the initial water volume.

Augsburg Method

The typical method for Augsburg is “auf Satz brauen”, which is pretty unique and quite different from the class Bavarian or Munich decoction. The ratio of malt to water is 1:6 by weight. The mash tun has a false bottom, which gets covered with hop leafs to help prevent the mash from getting sour through lactic acid fermentation. Doughing in is done with so much cold water that the resulting mash is quite thin and easy to stir, and then rested for 4 to 5 hours. Then the cold malt extract (you probably can’t call it wort yet), called “kalter Satz”, is then drawn off and put aside. The rest of the water is brought to a boil, and then a few liters (unfortunately, the author is not very clear here) of the kalter Satz are added to the boiling water which makes the proteins in it coagulate. The proteins are removed, then the hot water is slowly mixed into the drained main mash that has been hacked up before. After all the hot water has been added, the kalter Satz is also mixed back into the main mash, after which it should have a temperature of 60 to 65 °C.

Then the mash is stirred until it has properly liquefied, only to rest 15 minutes before the “warmer Satz” is drawn off. This is just like lautering: first, wort is drawn off and poured back into the mash until it runs clear. Of all the wort, two thirds go into the copper, while one third is put aside. The wort in the copper is brought to a boil as slowly as possible to maximize the amount of hot break for a clearer wort. The boiling wort is poured back into the main mash, which again should have a temperature of about 65 °C. At that point, the mash shall be stirred to continue starch conversion.

Then, the thick portion of the mash is drawn off into the copper and boiled for up to 2 hours, until no more hot break appears on the surface. It is then mixed back into the main mash to get it up to 70 °C. Then, the wort that was set aside is added to the copper, hops are added, and the main mash is lautered and also added to the copper. This wort is then slowly brought to a boil.

In the late 19th century, this method was considered to be completely outdated, and only practiced in Augsburg. It was hard to scale it up to larger amounts, and suffered greatly from issues of the mash getting sour during the whole process. Beer made using it was described to be very full-bodied and less perishable than other Bavarian beers.

Franconian Method

The Franconian method, as described by Franz Cassian, is a single step decoction mash. The malt to wort ratio (by weight) is 1:6 to 1:7. Hot water of 80 to 85 °C is thoroughly mixed with the malt to reach about 60 to 65 °C and then rested until all hard matter has sunk to the bottom of the mash tun. Then, all the wort is drawn off and brought to a boil. All hot break is thoroughly removed, and the wort is boiled for 45 minutes. After that, it is mixed back into the mash to bring it up to 75 °C, and then thoroughly stirred and rested for an hour to continue conversion. Then a small amount of wort, about one tenth of the whole volume, is drawn off and used to boil the hops for about 30 minutes, then the rest of the wort is drawn off, added to the wort and hops, and boiled even longer (the author doesn’t specify how long, though).

Both beers brewed after the Augsburg and the Franconian method are sparged, but the resulting second runnings aren’t added to the first runnings, but rather made into a small beer called “Hansle” (if you’ve read my book, other sources also call this “Heinzele”).

Viennese Method

According to the author, this method may actually be used to produce more beer than with the Munich method, as it has been in use not only in Austria and Germany, but also in France, Norway, Russia, as well as breweries in North and South America. The method is described in very specific numbers:

To produce 100 liters of beer, 20 to 22 kg of malt are used. The total water amount is 200 liters, split up into the mash water (125 to 166 liters) and the sparge water (34 to 75 liters).

To malt is doughed in with 2/3 of the cold mash water, while 1/3 of the mash water is brought to a boil. It is stirred until it is completely smooth, and only then the boiling water is added to bring the mash to a temperature of 36 to 38 °C. The rest of the mash is done in a triple decoction fashion, with two thick decoctions and a thin decoction.

The first decoction is heated up, but not immediately brought to a boil: instead, it is rested at 70 to 75 °C for 10 to 35 minutes. After that, it is quickly brought to a boil, and boiled for 5 to 15 minutes. The boiling mash is then mixed back while thoroughly stirring to bring it to a temperature of 45 to 50 °C. After a rest of a few minutes, another third of the mash, again a thick mash, is drawn off and boiled for 20 to 50 minutes. It is then again mixed back. Unfortunately, the author doesn’t mention the expected temperature, but we can guess it to be in the range of 60 to 65 °C. For the final decoction, a larger amount of the whole mash, 40 to 50 %, is drawn off and brought to a boil so that the protein coagulates and the hot break settles. It is then mixed back into the main mash which should then have a temperature of about 75 °C. After some more stirring, the mash process is considered finished.

The mash is then lautered and sparged, and the wort is boiled with the hops. The stronger the beer, the more hops are used. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide any specific hopping rates. Original gravities are mentioned, though: lager beers are generally at around 13 °P, while low-gravity draught beers are at 10 °P.

Bohemian Method

The Bohemian beers at that time are characterized as less malty, but rather more hop-aromatic. With every 100 kg of malt, 700 liters of water were used: 562 liters in the mash, 188 for sparging. 435 liters of water are used for doughing in at a temperature of 40 °C in winter, or 30 °C in summer. After doughing in is completed, 108 liters of boiling water are added to raise temperature. After a few minutes of rest, about one quarter of the thick mash are removed and very slowly heated up to 55 to 60 °C so that the enzymes can convert starches into sugar. After that, the decoction is brought to a boil, while the hot break gets skimmed. After 30 minutes of mashing, it is mixed back into the main mash, and stirred thoroughly to ensure a consistent temperature throughout the mash. After that, a second and third decoction are drawn and conducted exactly like the first thick decoction. After the third decoction has been mixed back, the overall temperature of the mash should be at 70 to 75 °C, and the mash is rested.

Wort is then drawn off until it is clear. The turbid part of the wort is boiled together with about 19 liters of water for a few minutes, and poured back into the mash. The mash is then moved to the lauter tan, and lautered and sparged with the sparge water that was set aside. The resulting wort is boiled with relatively large amounts of hops. Some of the hops are kept back and only added at the end of the boil to increase the amount of volatile hop aromas. This is what the author considered to be very specific for Bohemian beers and what gives them their typical hoppy aroma and flavour.

Discussion

While I’ve been working with lots of different sources when I was writing my book about historic German and Austrian beers, finding such a detailed description and comparison of various types of decoction mashing was quite refreshing. The Old Bavarian method is closest to what I’ve seen in plenty of other sources. I would describe it as the most classic method, pretty much fully based on manual labour, and done with an approach that employs volume measurements so that when done properly, no temperature measurements would be necessary. The ratio of malt to water is crazy high, though. For decoction brewing, today’s literature recommends ratios of 1:4 to 1:5. The text is not totally clear in all details, and might mean the total amount of water needed for the brew, i.e. including sparge water.

The Augsburg method, “Satz brauen” is truly odd. I’ve actually seen several different ways of how this is done, and the description as summarized above is actually the clearest one I’ve seen so far. It is possible to see why this method works and how it gets all starch converted, but it seems horribly inefficient, even in comparison to classic decoction mashing.

The Franconian method is closest to modern brewing. Any lower temperatures are skipped, and the main temperature is right at saccharification temperature. Other descriptions of the method that I’ve read don’t even employ a final thin decoction, but this might probably just be a local historic Bamberg variation.

The Viennese method on the other hand can be considered to be very modern: the specific method of resting the first decoction at about 70 °C for a while to let starches convert before the diastatic power is destroyed in the boil is a technique that even modern literature recommends, e.g. Narziß, though his recommended temperature is closer to 65 °C. And that’s what differentiates it from the classic Bavarian method: while it follows the same general pattern, it is more intricate, more detailed, more informed. It is built on top of the information that enzymes (though the book only says “diastase” without knowing what exactly enzymes are) break down starches to sugars at certain temperatures, and in the Viennese method, this is used to maximize fermentability of the wort. It is what I would call a modern method, this modernity would also be a good explanation for its success that is indicated by the author’s comment how internationally widespread the Viennese method has become.

The Bohemian method does seem a little bit more rustic, and differentiates itself by only using thick decoctions. It already builds upon the knowledge that starch conversion happens at certain temperatures, and leverages this knowledge to facilitate conversion when heating up individual decoctions. The specific mention of certain amounts of water does show that this has been thought through more and indicates that it closely follows a tried and tested recipe.

While not strictly related to the mash, the author discusses what distinguished Bohemian beers from other lager beers: the pale colour as well as the unique hopping method. I am not surprised that the author points out the use of late hopping techniques to introduce a brighter and more intense hop aroma. While we nowadays know that it’s the way of producing hop-aromatic beers, it is not a technique commonly seen in old brewing literature, where hops were only added for their preservative qualities as well as their bitterness.

All in all, this historic comparison of various mashing techniques from Bavaria, Bohemia and Austria was a great find. It gives a good insight into the shift from brewing as a craft involving manual labour (Old Bavarian method) to the industrialization of beer production supported by automation (New Munich method) and scientific methods (Viennese method). It also gives a good explanation what made Bohemian beer so unique and special in the late 19th century, which was also a reason why pale lager beers became the most widespread and successful type of beer in the world. And last but not least, it is also a good lesson for homebrewers how the decoction mashing process can be varied, in a form that’s even usable on a relatively small scale.

If you’re a homebrewer and you’ve never done a decoction: try it out. It may seem scary, but after brewing several beers with decoction mashing, I can safely say that it’s really hard to screw things up if you just follow the principle of doughing in, heating it up to about 40 °C, and then repeatedly taking out roughly a third of the mash, boiling it, and mixing it back. The mash goes through saccharification temperatures multiple times, and especially with enzyme-rich, “hot” malt that we have available nowadays, most of the conversion happens fast. I am a proponent of decoction mashing, because conceptually, it is really hard to screw up.

History, Hops

Historic Vienna Lager: More Findings

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During my preparations for #BeeryLongReads2018, I found more information regarding my historic Vienna lager. In particular, I found more information about one topic that has been quite difficult to find anything out about: hopping rates. I blogged about the hops used in Vienna lager previously.

In the book “Die Theorie und Praxis der Malzbereitung und Bierfabrikation“, published by Julius Thausing in 1888 (previous, less comprehensive editions, e.g. from 1877, are available), the author lists typical hopping rates for Vienna lager beers. The amount of hops varied depending on the original gravity:

  • 10.5%: 1.8 – 2.2 – 2.5 g/l
  • 11.5%: 2.5 – 2.8 – 3.0 g/l
  • 12.5%: 3.0 – 3.3 – 3.6 g/l
  • 13.5%: 3.3 – 3.6 – 3.8 g/l
  • 14.5%: 3.6 – 3.8 – 4.0 g/l
  • 15.5%: 4.0 – 5.0 – 6.0 g/l

Low-gravity beer was generally brewed with an OG of about 10% and sold after 6 to 8 weeks, while the regular Lagerbier was brewed with 13% OG and lagered for 4 to 8, sometimes even 10 months or more. This hopping rate is a bit lower than what I had found in other sources before, which prescribed a hopping rate of 4 g/l for Vienna lager.

Of course, with the absence of any information regarding alpha acid, the actual bitterness still remains a big miracle.

In the years 2006 to 2015, the alpha acid content of Saazer hops varied between 2.1% (2015) and 4.0% (2011); the average 3.15%, the median 2.9%. At a hopping rate of 3.6 g/l in a 13°P wort and 90 minute boil time, this can mean a bitterness between 19 IBU and 37 IBU! Most likely, the answer lies somewhere in-between, so for hops with 3.15% alpha acid, this would mean 29 IBU, which seems absolutely reasonable and is close enough to some of my previous estimations of 27 IBU. I take this as a confirmation that a hopping rate to achieve a bitterness of around 27 IBU to 30 IBU seems appropriate for Vienna lager, at least from a historical point of view.

History, Hops

Styrian Hops in the 1920’s

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Recently, I came across “Handbuch der Brauerei und Mälzerei”, published as three books from 1930 to 1935 by author Franz Schönfeld, who some of you may know as the author of “Die Herstellung obergähriger Biere” from 1902 and its updated version “Obergärige Biere und ihre Herstellung” from 1939.

This “manual of brewing and malting” is more technical, and focuses on beer ingredients (first book, published in 1930), malting (second book, published in 1932), and brewing (third book, published in 1935). When going through all three, I found a list of common hop varieties and their distinction which I think reflects hop varieties around that time quite well.

What particularly caught my eye was the list of hop varieties that were derived from Saazer hops, which in this book is described as one of the finest hops, what is nowadays known as “Saazer Formenkreis”. According to these list, it includes the following hops:

  • Schwetzinger (from Schwetzingen in Baden-Württemberg)
  • Tettnanger (from Tettnang at Lake Constance)
  • Neutomischler (from Nowy Tomyśl in Poland)
  • Auschaer Rothopfen (from Úštěk/Auscha in Bohemia)
  • Steirer (from Styria, in particular Lower Styria in Slovenia)

The last one was particularly interesting, because it solved a big question that I asked in 2016, what hop varieties used to be grown in Austria (and formerly Austrian lands) before Styrian hops were replaced with Styrian Goldings due to an issue with hop disease, and before Upper Austrian hops were uprooted.  As it turns out, the hops grown in Styria were simply Saazer with local terroir!

There’s still another question surrounding Styrian hops, and that is when the change from Saaz-derived Styrian hops to Fuggles-derived Styrian Goldings due to an alleged hop disease issue happened. Many source say in the 1930’s, and at least major cases of downy mildew can be corroborated through the Joh.Barth&Sohn-issued annual hop reports: in the 1934/35 report, Poland and Yugoslavia are mentioned as two countries who have been indifferent about Peronospora (downy mildew) in the past and now have to pay the price for it through crop failures. But (Styrian) Goldings are mentioned in earlier issues of the same report: the 1931/32 report mentions both Goldings and “late hops” being picked in Slovenia. The 1926/27 report mentions both varieties, with the “late hops” only being grown on 90 hectares (ha) of a total of 1150 ha of hop gardens in Slovenia. The “late hops” suffered from Peronospora, while the quality of the Goldings was good. Earlier Barth reports give no insight into which hop varieties were grown.

So what we do know from these reports is that the change from the old Styrian variety to the newer Styrian Goldings variety must have happened in the years before 1926/1927. During that time, Slovenian hop farming went through huge changes: where Styria grew 1788 ha of hops in 1914, that area had shrunk to just 855 ha in 1917, and to a mere 400 ha in 1919. From then on, the hop acreage grew dramatically to 850 ha in 1924 and reached its peak of 3000 ha in 1928. In 1930, it took another drop to 1380 ha, but slowly recovered to 1850 ha in 1937, roughly the size before World War I. During these many ups and downs, it is very likely that new hop gardens were planted with Styrian Goldings, whereas old hop gardens that were abandoned were more likely old Styrian hops. But this is more speculation on my side, so that question when this change really happened is still unanswered.

History, Hops

How to build up the Prussian hop industry for 3 decades and implode it within a few years

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Prussian king Frederick the Great was apparently very interested in the state of hops in Prussia. He noticed that most hops that Prussian brewers used in brewing was imported from surrounding hop growing regions like Bavaria, Franconia and Bohemia. Self-sufficiency was apparently an important economic principle at that time, if you could grow it locally it meant you didn’t need to spend time to import it from somewhere else.

So in 1743, Frederick the Great gradually ordered the various regions of his kingdom to start planting hop gardens and grow more hops: first Pomerania, then Saxony was ordered to become self-sufficient and if possible, export any surplus hops. In 1751, he ordered that experiments with Bohemian seedlings shall be undertaken in the regions of Altmark and Kurmark, as these hops were more popular on the hop markets due to “their greater strength and power”.

The Seven Years’ War stifled further initiatives, but in 1770, new orders were sent out to further promote growing hops for self-sufficiency. Hop poles were sold to new hop farmers for a very cheap price, and even a contest was started, with a cash prize of the farmer with the greatest hop production at the end of the year.

In 1775, hop gardens were introduced in Western Prussia, and the king’s chamber director was ordered to expand the hop gardens around Potsdam as the existing ones still couldn’t cover to demand from brewers in Berlin. In April 1776, imports into Prussia were completely prohibited due to a substantial surplus production of 2600 Wispel from 1775, about 1420 hecolitres in modern units (it is unknown whether this was in pressed or unpressed form), and enforcement of this law was supervised by the king himself.

There’s a story where allegedly Frederick the Great on one of his carriage rides through his kingdom noticed a carriage with a delivery of hops. Realising that from that particular street, it could have only come from Dessau, he suspected that the hops may have been smuggled in from the adjacent Principality of Anhalt. He immediately started an investigation that eventually found out that the hops were indeed contraband and illegally imported from Anhalt.

But the tides turned: due to a bad hop harvest in 1777, the king didn’t decide to allow imports, but he instead also forbade exports, to prefer the local market. And not just temporarily to deal with the hop shortage, no, this export ban was permanent, and the Prussian hop market was insular. Hop prices crashed, and by 1779, many hop farmers gave up the crop completely. The French period and the German campaign of 1813 didn’t help with developing Prussian hop gardens, either. Only in 1860, when Europe was hit by a terrible hop crop failure, Prussia had a temporary surge in new hop gradens: the Hallertau was the only region with a good harvest of high-quality hops, which sold for 6.5 times the normal rate. Farmers again started looking into hops as an attractive cash crop. By the end of the 19th century, much of the hop growing had shifted to Posen/Poznań, while both the acreage and the yield in the rest of Prussia steadily decreased: in 1898, Prussia only harvested a miserable 4.6 Zentner per hectare, while Bavaria reached 10.6, Baden 13.6, and Alsace 16.8.

If Frederick the Great had been more forward-thinking and less focused on self-sustenance, the current German landscape of major hop growing regions may have looked differently.