Last Thursday evening, I released an ebook about homebrewing historic beer styles. I wrote this book in German and released it under a Creative Commons license, meaning that you’re free to download and distribute it to whoever you like.

Even though I tweeted about it in German, some of my English-speaking Twitter followers retweeted it, and the whole thing got a bit more popular than I had initially thought. With 290 downloads and counting, I wouldn’t exactly say it blew up, but for such a niche topic, in a language that is spoken in countries where homebrewing is still kind of a niche hobby too, and only minimal announcements, I think it has done quite alright so far.

Probably the most common feedback that I got was that the ebook is in German. No why did I do that? Very simple: this ebook is a trial run. First, it was a trial to see whether I’d have the energy to even follow through with such a project (I started working on the ebook in early August 2016, and only worked on it in my free time), how many beer styles I’d be able to cover (almost 30, as it turned out), and whether the outcome would even be worth publishing (yes, I suppose). Second, I published the book for free because I wanted to see whether there would be any interest in the topic itself. As it turned out, yes, the interest is definitely there.

But why homebrewing historic beers? Because I find looking into the past exciting. All the beer and the beer culture of modern days wasn’t created in a clean room, but it’s gone through a development over the years, decades, and centuries. Over the last 150 years, beer as a product has radically changed, and brewing “trends” that used to be limited to the regions of Bavaria, Bohemia and Austria have exploded and are now stylistically absolutely dominant. And even in countries and places that have preserved their local beer styles and traditions, these styles are still continuously reinvented and adapted to ever-changing trends. With it, you’ve got folklore, and myths, some of them rooted in actual history, some of them just completely made up. So instead of just perpetuating folklore and myths around beer, I think it’s a better idea to actually look into the past, to take a closer look at contemporary documentation about local beers, about the fashionable beer styles of past centuries, and try to recreate them in a fashion that is as true to the historic original as possible and feasible.

One book that has done that in a fantastic way is Ron Pattinson’s Home Brewers’s Guide to Vintage Beer. Ron’s focus was on British beers, simply because he was able to directly work with historic brewing records, but he also made attempts to cover continental styles, as well, such as Kottbusser, Salvatorbier and Grätzer.

And that’s where I picked up. I’m not saying my ebook is even nearly as complete or well-researched as Ron’s book, but due to where I come from (Austrian living in Germany for almost eight years now), I’m also interested in historic beers of Germany. Especially with the “anniversary” of 500 years of purity law that were celebrated earlier this year, I think it is more important than ever to really more closely look into German beer history, and the surrounding culture. One thing that I definitely learned when researching German historic beer styles is that German beer culture used to incredibly diverse and rich, much more so than today, and not only in the styles themselves, but also in terms of ingredients that were used and socially acceptable to be used to brew beer. It also gave me a perspective about what’s modern, recently developed beer, and what German beer styles available today actually go back much further and are remnants of this large diversity of local beer styles. Munich Dunkel, Bavarian Weißbier, Gose, or Berliner Weisse are such remnants, and just give you a little hint into the diversity and complexity of what and how beer used to be in the past, just 200 or 250 years ago.

Where am I going to go from here on? My plan is to start work on an English language book about historic beer styles. It will contain the beer styles that I’ve already included in my first book, but at the same time, I also plan to expand it with more background information, and even more beer styles and a more thorough discussion of various brewing techniques. I will do this in my free time, so I obviously can’t say how long this will take. If you’re nevertheless interested in brewing historic beers from Germany, Austria, Great Britain, or Belgium, like Broihan, Horner Bier, Scottish India Beer, or Antwerp brown beer, and aren’t afraid to read (or auto-translate) German, you’re more than welcome to download my ebook for free. As always, feedback is absolutely welcome.