History, Yeast

J.C. Jacobsen’s letter about pure yeast to Gabriel Sedlmayr

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There is another letter from 1884 I came across in the J.C. Jacobsen archive of the Carlsberg Foundation, in which J.C. Jacobsen proudly tells Gabriel Sedlmayr of Spaten about his new pure yeast. I found it fantastic from a historic point of view because it gives insight into the circumstances, the background and what they thought was important about this new method of generating pure yeast. If you can read German, please directly read the original source, otherwise this is what J.C. Jacobsen had to say about this yeast:

J.C. Jacobsen called Gabriel Sedlmayr his “old master teacher” and thus should be the first one to learn about his new experiences in the deterioration of yeast.

Jacobsen brought his first bottom-fermenting yeast from Sedlmayr’s brewery (i.e. Spaten) to Denmark in 1845 and had used it since then without ever having to change it, all while producing excellent lager beer for the domestic market as well as export beer for export to India.

Only in last two years (i.e. since 1882) the brewery started having quality problems and their pitching yeast started getting contaminated by “wild cells”. So of course Jacobsen asked the question why he could keep the same yeast from 1845 until 1882, only for it to deteriorate since then? Nothing has changed in the brewhouse and the cellars, they are cleaner than ever, wort is always chilled rapidly and even the air is cleaned with a spray of ice cold salt water that filters it the point where it’s analytically clean. Even the malt is of fine quality.

The only change was that due to an unexpectedly high demand and insufficient capacity, he had to resort to brewing during more months of the week: until 1874, Carlsberg only brewed in 7 to 8 months “the old Bavarian fashion”, and until 1882, brewing was still limited to at most 9 months, from early October until late June. But from 1882 onwards, this had to be expanded to 12 months as the lagering cellars that were to be built weren’t finished yet.

And exactly these 3 more brewing months were the problem: in the gardens and fields in the wide vicinity of Carlsberg, lots of fruits were ripening during that time, in particular cherries, plums, pears and grapes, which came with a higher amount of fermenting microorganisms, some of them bacteria, others wild yeasts like Saccharomyces Pastorianius (sic!). These led to increased infections on the coolships, in particular since wild yeasts like S. pastorianus kept growing together with the other yeast.

The last few sentences are particularly interesting, as Jacobsen seems to use the “Saccharomyces Pastorianus” name to describe wild yeasts, not bottom-fermenting yeasts which would be the modern use of the name. Later in the letter, he uses “Saccharomyces cerevisiae” to describe the regular yeast at his brewery. This is something I’ve not came across, but seems to indicate how little the specific nature of bottom-fermenting yeast was understood at the time before single yeast cells were isolated and analysed.

Jacobsen then continues by explaining Hansen’s method of isolating single cells in Pasteur flasks (swan-necked flasks), and how Hansen had isolated one pure Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as two wild yeasts, which, when propagated and used for fermentation, all produced very different-tasting beers.

The pure S. cerevisiae was then used as pitching yeast in the brewery and effected a “nice fermentation” that quickly clarified, with a suitable attenuation from 13.5% to 6-7% Balling and quickly clarification and the maturation casks. Jacobsen then proudly proclaimed that “from now on all the fermentation in my whole brewery will be done with this pure yeast, created from a single cell! Truly a triumph of scientific research!”

He also pointed out that because of these observations, he thought that the yeast in all breweries is somewhat infected with “more or less wild” yeasts, as at the time most breweries were brewing during the summer months, and even regular yeast changing brings no improvement to that.

Jacobsen also notes that “in the old days”, when no brewery in Bavaria would brew during the summer, changing yeast was also a rare occurrence. If breweries wanted to continue brewing during the summer, then at least a few breweries or research stations like Weihenstephan or Dr. Aubry in Munich should occasionally isolate Saccharomyces cerevisiae to create pure yeast.

He also announced to to Sedlmayr that he’d send him a sample of enough yeast for one fermenter as express freight so that he could get acquainted with it. Jacobsen hoped it would arrive in Munich in a good state, though he admitted he had no experience sending yeast on such a long journey, and would be happy to send him more of his surplus yeast in the future.

The yeast also came with information how it was used at Carlsberg: the yeast was pitched at 5°R (6.25°C). The temperature increased to 6.5 to 6.75°R (8.12-8.43°C), and then slowly subsided back to 4 to 5R° (5-6.25°C). A 13.5% Balling wort fermented down to an attenuation of 6-7% Balling within 10 to 11 days. Jacobsen also pointed out that Sedlmayr’s wort contained less maltose than his own, so Sedlmayr had to expect lower attenuation.

And finally, Jacobsen announced his travel plans (which he expected to be his last big journey): first he wanted to visit Johann Götz in “Oswiecim near Krakow” (he probably meant Okocim) and then travel from there to Vienna and Munich, and further on to West Germany and hopefully to Lyon and Marseille. He hoped to meet Sedlmayr in Munich, but if he didn’t meet him there, he’d try to catch him in his summer apartment to meet his “friend and master” once more.

I find this letter particularly fascinating for a few reason. First of all, it shows the great admiration Jacobsen had for Sedlmayr who considered to be his teacher from whom he learned about lager brewing and in particular about bottom-fermenting yeast, and how much he thought he owed Sedlmayr for his own success.

Second, it shows how durable repitching the same lager yeast was: as Jacobsen himself said, he never needed to change his brewery’s yeast, which he had gotten from Sedlmayr himself, in 37 years of brewery operation. He also knew that changing yeast, even though it was done, indeed used to be a relatively rare thing. That way, this new pure yeast was exactly the innovation the brewing industry needed, as more and more breweries were brewing beer all year long, and sooner or later other breweries also would have run into the problem of wild yeast contamination in their own pitching yeast. In retrospect, we now know how incredibly successful Hansen’s method of isolating single cells and growing pure pitching yeast really was, as the method was widely adopted by the brewing industry within just a few years.

Nowadays, only very few breweries repitch their house yeast without having purified it. Among lager breweries, all pitching yeast is grown from pure yeast strains, and having a choice in pure strains has become a commodity not just in the industry, but even for home-brewers.

And finally, we learn about the fermentation properties of the yeast itself, which is pretty close to what you’d expect from a bottom-fermenting yeast during the 19th century: relatively quick fermentation (just 10 days) at temperatures of at most 8°C, with a relatively poor apparent attenuation of 50-55%. At least in other beers of that time period, the attenuation only slowly improved during the lager period where the specific gravity dropped to 4 to 5°P and helped carbonate the beer. In my book about Vienna Lager, I put up the hypothesis that becuase of these properties, the lager yeasts at the time were most likely type 1 (“Saaz-type”) bottom-fermenting yeast strains, as they were better suited to the lower fermentation temperatures in fermentation and lagering cellars that could not be finely controlled yet.

J.C. Jacobsen’s letter to Gabriel Sedlmayr dated 7th May 1884 is a great example of what was new, innovative and exciting to brewers at the time that we now consider to be a given. It also shows how closely connected the European lager brewers were back then: Jacobsen and Sedlmayr communicating by mail, Jacobsen visiting Johann Götz and various people in Vienna, Munich and France, the recognition of Weihenstephan as an important beer research lab in Bavaria, etc. They were more than practitioners, but also innovators who were not afraid to share their findings with each other, all with the purpose of bringing the whole industry forward and lifting the overall quality of beer, but also improving efficiency within the industry.

History

The Jacobsens about the Dreher breweries

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Just recently, I came across the J.C. Jacobsen archive of the Carlsberg Foundation. In there, a number of letters written by or address to J.C. Jacobsen are publicly accessible and transcribed.

Going through the archive, I noticed how well-connected J.C. Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg brewery, was in the Central European brewing industry: he considered Gabriel Sedlmayr of Spaten his “master teacher”, he visited the breweries of Munich, Vienna and Plzeň, conferred with Franz Fasbender, the editor of a Vienna-based brewing journal, and even visited Johann Götz in Okocim.

As someone with an interest in the history of Vienna Lager, I was of course curious about what he had to say (if anything) about the Dreher breweries. And I found plenty, with details that I had never read anywhere before.

In these notes from the 1860s, we learn this about the brewery in Kleinschwechat:

The malting floors were tiled with “Kelheimer Platte”, limestone tiles from Kelheim in Bavaria, something that was very common in Bavarian brewing and basically considered to be the industry standard. The mash tuns and vats were all made of wood. Jacobsen noted that the “mash machine” (presumably the stirring apparatus) was the same as in the Carlsberg brewery. All kettles were made from copper, while the coolships were made of tinned copper. The cooling apparatus in use was a 10 tube cooler by [Vinzenz] Prick, presumably one similar to this one:

A technical drawing of a wort chiller built by Vinzenz Prick. It was constructed from 10 tubes as a sort of counter-flow chiller through which ice-cold water was pumped in one direction, and wort was flowing through in the other direction.

With the cooling system, wort could be chilled down to 4°R, at most 7°R (5 resp. 8.75°C).

About the Dreher brewery in Steinbruch/Kőbánya we learn which beers they brewed:

  • Kronenbier, “very bitter, like Pilsener”, with an OG of 12.5° Balling
  • Lagerbier at 13° Balling
  • Märzen at 14° Balling
  • Double Märzen at 15° Balling, which he compared to one of his beers in colour, but “finer in taste”, aged for 4 months, and hopped with a mix of Saaz, Auscha and Styrian hops.

For the paler beers, only the finest hops were used, as the malt flavour was not predominant.

Apparently different malts were produced for the beers: for Kronenbier and Lagerbier, the malt was kilned at 45°C (measured between the kilning floors), while for the other beer types, it was kilned at 85 to 90°C.

The cooling apparatus used in Steinbruch was apparently the same as in Kleinschwechat, built by Prick, and the coolships were made of iron.

In 1868, Carl Jacobsen, J.C. Jacobsen’s son, noticed differences in the construction of fermenters: at Sedlmayr’s Spaten brewery, oak was generally used, while Dreher was in the process of switching to fermenters to larch wood. There were apparently two schools of thought: oak was preferred by some because it did not chip and was thus easier to clean, while those who preferred larch said that it was smoother compared to oak and thus easier to clean. Carl had not formed an opinion on it at that point.

He also reported about breweries that struggled with beer turning sour: the previous summer, Sedlmayr’s Spaten brewey had to dump 20,000 Eimer of sour beer, and Dreher in Vienna had also lost enormous amounts of beer that way.

He also made an interesting observation about the Munich beer: he described it as slightly darker than Vienna Märzen (the export beer that was also available in Copenhagen at the time, to provide his father with a reference), and that it must have been darker previously, but always brewed without any roasted malt. Since we know the colour of Vienna Märzen from six years later, we can deduce that Munich beer (or at least some of them) were probably more on the amber side (rather than straight up brown) in terms of colour at the time.

In yet another letter from January 1868, Carl also mentions a glass fermenter at Kleinschwechat, which was in use at the brewery for a few years by then. The bottom was slightly cracked, but overall it was still usable. The yeast settled more firmly than in wooden fermenters. The brewery was happy with the fermenter and working on building two more.

He also had an opportunity to compare malt samples: the malt from the Hütteldorf brewery was very similar to the one from Kleinschwechat, while their beer was somewhere between a Munich and a Vienna lager. In a previous visit, he found their malt to be more strongly malted, but that may have been coincidental. The malt from Liesing brewery on the other hand was poorer in quality, with more hard kernels, which Carl blamed on the construction used mill used at Liesing.

Carl Jacobsen also visited the Dreher brewery in Micholup (Michelob) near Saaz in 1868, and wrote a letter to his father about it. Carl thought the Micholup brewery was a “beautiful and good” brewery, but that the absolute highlight were the fermentation cellars, completely underground, 7 metres high and enclosed in enormous ice containers. The fermentation cellar contained 84 fermenters of 40 Eimer each, so not a large volume compared to the other Dreher breweries. They were all raised so that work could be done underneath them, but at the same time also reachable from the top via a wooden floor.

The fermenters were filled with wort at a temperature of 4°C which rose to 6°C, sometimes 7°C during fermentation. Due to the good cooling capabilities of the cellar, ice floats were never needed, and in fact, none existed within the brewery.

J.C. and Carl sent each other letters about many other lager-brewing-related topics, but even just what I was able to find about Dreher breweries was very enlightening and contained details I had not come across in my research for my book about Vienna Lager (which I highly recommend if you’re further interested in the topic).

Beer Styles, History

1980s Altbier and Kölsch

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I like going to the library, in particular the GGB library at the VLB in Berlin. Less than 15 minutes on the bus, a few minutes of walking, and I’m there. Earlier this week, I spent two days researching for my new book. When you go through a lot of historic material, there’s inevitably some bycatch, random articles in journals or paragraphs or sections of books that you didn’t intend to look up, but stumbled upon, that turn out to be super interesting.

One of these articles is one about top-fermented beers in West Germany in 1980, written by Dr. Karl-Ullrich Heyse and published in Brauwelt (issue 45, 6 Nov 1980), a Germany-based journal for the brewing industry. At the time, 14.3% of the total beer production in the Federal Republic was top-fermented beer, partially driven by Bavarian wheat beer which had a 12.1% share in the Bavarian production output, while other top-fermented styles, in particular Altbier, Kölsch and Malzbier (a barely-fermented malt-based beverage that is very sweet) were quite dominant in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The descriptions of Altbier and Kölschbier (sic!) are particularly interesting because they are essentially a style guideline (before there were any comprehensive style guidelines) and a short guide how to brew both styles.

Altbier was described with an original gravity of 11.2-12%, a colour between 25 and 38 EBC, a pH of 4.15 and 4.4 and a bitterness of 28 to 40 “EBC units” (which I assume are equivalent to IBU). The grist was described as “arbitrary”, while a common suggestion of grist composition was also provided: 70% Vienna malt, 20% Munich malt, and 10% wheat malt for rounding off the flavour. An optional 1% or less of roasted malt (from barley or wheat) could also be used for colour correction. The common mashing methods were ranging from infusion mashing to double decoction mashing. Hops were given in 3 to 5 additions, usually high-quality aroma hops.

Fermentation and maturation are described in greater detail: top-fermenting yeast is pitched at a rate of 0.5 l/hl wort and a temperature of 12°C. The maximum fermentation temperature should be 16°C. When fermented in tanks, fermentation is done under pressure of 0.5 to 0.8 bar. Under these conditions, the yeast can be pitched at 18-20°C and that temperature can be held until fermentation is finished. After chilling the green beer to 14-16°C, some of the yeast is taken off. Reduction of diacetyl should take 2 to 4 days. Only then the beer is cooled down to 0°C. Under more conventional conditions, maturation can also happen at cellar temperatures of 4-5°C. The maturation phase takes about 1 to 2 weeks. If Kräusen (freshly fermenting beer) with bottom-fermenting yeast are available, they can be used for improving secondary fermentation (this is actually permitted under specific circumstances in German beer law).

The characteristics of Kölsch (which the article calls Kölschbier) are a bit different: an OG of 11.2 to 11.8%, a colour of 7.5 to 14 EBC, a pH of 4.15 to 4.4, and a bitterness of 16 to 34 EBC units. The article states that most breweries use 100% Vienna malt (an unusual choice from today’s perspective), while some use up to 20% wheat malt to improve the body and round off the flavour of the beer. As typical mashing methods, infusion mashing and single decoction mashing are named.

Fermentation could be either done in a tank like with the Altbier, or in open fermentation at temperatures of 14 to 18°C, which should take 3 to 4 days, followed by chilling it down to 8 to 10°C and then moving it to maturation tanks. Cold maturation times and temperatures vary, where some breweries mature for 40 to 60 days at 4 to 5°C, while others with cellar temperatures of 0-1°C reduce that time to 14 to 40 days.

Beer Styles, History

Oktoberfest-Märzen in the 1950s

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Earlier this week, I did a bit of research in the VLB/GGB library, and by chance came across analyses of Oktoberfest-Märzen in the 1950s, in particular the beers served at Oktoberfest in 1953, 1954 and 1956.

I. Bartek of Wissenschaftliche Station in Munich conducted these analyses and published them in Brauwelt. They analysed 8 different Märzen beers from the Oktoberfest for colour, specific gravity, alcohol content and unfermented sugars, and derived residual extract, attenuation and potential terminal gravity from it. None of the actual breweries are revealed, they are only numbers 1 to 8. When you look at the raw data, the numbers 1-8 of 1953 and 1954 match up (i.e. it’s the same brewery), but it’s not clear whether the same order was kept up for 1956. Interestingly, the 1954 article says that the beers were from 8 Munich breweries. I was wondering which breweries these were, and could only come up with 7 (Augustiner, Paulaner-Thomasbräu, Hacker, Hofbräuhaus, Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Spaten-Franziskaner-Leistbräu). A report about 1954 Oktoberfest only talks about 7 large tents of the big breweries without naming any specific ones. Did one of them serve more than one beers? Augustiner maybe? Their Wiesn-Edelstoff, the archetypal pale Festbier as we know it nowadays, was only released in 1953, but it’s not clear whether Augustiner continued selling the old-school Märzen beside it. I don’t know.

When looking at the data, a few things stand out: in 1953, two of the beers had an OG of only 13.3 resp 13.5%. While technically a Märzen, it would nowadays not be allowed as Oktoberfestbier, as those need to have an OG between 13.6 and 14.0%. The attenuation was lower than what we’re used to, and this also shows in the alcohol content, which is between 4.6% ABV (converted from ABW) and 5.6%.

In particular beer #1 combines a fairly high OG (13.8%) with a relatively poor apparent attenuation of 63.9% and lots of unfermented but fermentable sugars. That beer was probably very sweet.

Similarly, 1954’s beer #5 has an even higher amount of unfermented sugars with an OG of 13.5% and 5% ABV. Probably also rather sweet. There is also another outlier in the same year, beer #6, with over 75% apparent attenuation. With 5.5% ABV, it was probably still quite malty, but otherwise quite highly attenuated and thus not nearly as sweet-tasting as any of the others.

The same beer was also by far the darkest, with a colour (according to the Brand scale) of 3.0 to 3.5. As a very rough approximation, this would be similar to about 50 to 58 EBC, while most other beers are recorded as 1.2-1.4 °Brand (=20-23 EBC), 1.4-1.6 °Brand (23-27 EBC), 1.6-2.0 °Brand (23-33 EBC) or 2.0-2.5 °Brand (33-42 EBC). Compare this with the BJCP guideline for Märzen, which sets the colour at 8-17 SRM (15.8-33.5 EBC), or the Brewers Association’s style guidelines at 8 to 30 EBC.

Please note that these colours are only rough approximations, as the Brand scale and similar systems were problematic and unreliable. This article explains it all in detail (shoutout to Thomas Ascher for the pointer!).

By 1956, the beers seem to have changed a bit: the OG is now generally at 13.6% or over (all but one are actually in the 13.8-14.0% range), while attenuation is higher: just one beer with 69% apparent attenuation, the rest all 70+%, one even at 78.8%. This also shows in the alcohol content: one beer (the poorly attenuated one) has 5.0% ABV, while the others are all between 5.4 and 5.8% ABV.

For 1956, we also got measurements of pH and carbonation. All but two beers actually had a pH over 4.5, which means microbiologically less stability than the recommended pH of less than 4.5. This is not ideal, but for a beer festival with a large throughput, it was probably not that big of an issue.

The carbonation of the Oktoberfest-Märzen beers is also interesting, between 3.5 g/l and 4 g/l. Compared to modern lager beers, this is pretty low, and closer to the expected carbonation of cask ale or rustic “ungespundet” (unbunged) lager beers in Franconia.

Finally, one observation: as late as 1954, you could drink Oktoberfest-Märzen in Munich which, at least when looking at original gravity and final gravity, and thus alcohol content, was very similar to the Märzen that was served in Vienna in 1876. Only the colour was darker. In that sense, these old-school Oktoberfest beers seem like the remnants of 19th century lager brewing, a proper look into the past. And by 1956, they seem to have been slightly cleaned up to reduce some of the sweetness and further increase the alcohol content.

If you’re interested in all the details, here’s the raw data for 1953 (Brauwelt No. 84, 19 Oct 1954, p.1266):

12345678
Colour (Brand)1.6-2.01.6-2.01.6-2.01.2-1.41.4-1.61.6-2.02.0-2.51.6-2.0
SG1.019681.016601.014531.015171.013621.013471.017471.01541
Apparnet extract [%]5.04.23.73.83.53.44.53.9
Real extract [%]6.76.15.65.85.55.36.25.8
Alcohol by weight [%]3.74.14.14.14.54.13.84.1
OG [%]13.813.913.613.514.013.313.613.6
Apparent attenuation [%]63.969.672.471.475.274.167.371.1
Real attenuation [%]51.356.058.357.560.759.654.257.3
Final apparent attenuation [%]70.773.575.075.082.675.980.874.2
Still fermentable extract [%]6.83.92.63.67.41.813.53.1

Raw data for 1954 (Brauwelt, 19 Oct 1954, p.1266):

12345678
Colour (Brand)1.6-2.01.4-1.61.6-2.01.6-2.01.4-1.63.0-3.52.0-2.51.4-1.6
SG1.016221.017191.016031.016031.016171.0113241.015811.01646
Apparnet extract [%]4.14.44.14.14.23.44.04.2
Real extract [%]6.06.26.06.06.05.45.96.0
Alcohol by weight [%]4.04.14.24.14.04.44.14.1
OG [%]13.614.013.913.813.513.813.813.8
Apparent attenuation [%]69.668.670.770.269.175.570.769.7
Real attenuation [%]56.155.757.356.656.161.157.356.5
Final apparent attenuation [%]73.475.772.573.081.078.478.278.1
Still fermentable extract [%]3.87.11.82.811.92.97.58.4

Raw data for 1956 (Brauwelt, 5 Oct 1956, p.1428):

12345678
Colour (Brand)0.9-1.02.0-2.52.0-2.52.0-2.52.0-2.52.5-3.0ß2.5-3.02.0-2.5
SG1.012781.014901.014761.013901.011501.012871.014301.01661
Apparent extract [%]3.33.83.83.63.93.33.74.2
Real extract [%]5.35.75.85.55.05.35.66.1
Alcohol by weight [%]4.54.34.34.24.64.54.34.0
OG [%]13.813.914.013.613.914.013.813.8
Apparent ttenuation [%]76.572.673.173.878.876.573.569.4
Real attenuation [%]61.758.758.859.863.761.959.356.1
Final apparent attenuation [%]80.675.678.076.979.578.376.977.0
Still fermentable extract [%]4.13.04.93.10.71.83.47.6
pH4.524.564.664.524.634.154.444.57
CO2 [mg/kg]38804100409036503610–35404030

History

Why I think the Reinheitsgebot and its effects are misunderstood

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A few days ago, Jeff Alworth posted about the persistence of what he calls “romantic facts” around beer, i.e. “a story shot through with fascinating, possibly nostalgic details that turn out to be hogwash.“

I know about a few of those myself, such as the often found claim that the Habsburg Emperor of Mexico from 1864 until 1867, Maximilian I., supposedly brought Viennese brewers to the country who in turn established Vienna Lager in Mexico. This is hogwash because it matches nothing that we know about the actual history of beer and lager brewing in Mexico from closer to the time period, namely that Mexican brewing was a late 19th century reaction to US-American imported beer pushing into a market that was previously was very small and mainly served the European expat community in Mexico with lager beer imported from Europe.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. One of my pet peeves of beer myths is the German Reinheitsgebot (purity law). I consider it to be mainly a marketing vehicle that is overloaded with myths and misinterpretations that ultimately are only there to help with marketing German beer, and there are many layers to it that I want to untangle.

The German Reinheitsgebot is a very recent invention. Germany has only had (mostly) unified beer legislation since 1906, and it’s mainly coming from the Southern German states of Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden pushing for it. To this day, the law is implemented ever so slightly differently for top-fermented beers in the south of Germany.

Even the term “Reinheitsgebot” is pretty recent: it is often claimed that the word was first used in parliament in 1918, but that might be a “romantic fact” in itself, as the first use of that word according to the Google Books Ngram Viewer was in 1904. The earliest one I could find was a 1909 Reichstag session report that specifically is in the context of beer and the unified beer legislation of 1906.

Prior to that, the term “Surrogatverbot“, meaning a ban on using surrogates for malt and hops, was commonly used, but even it was less strict than what you’d assume: in an 1870 book discussing beer taxation in the Kingdom of Bavaria, it specifically says that the use of hop surrogates is only banned for brown beers, and that “the use of hop surrogates in the production of white beer cannot be refused.“

A lot of the myth around the Reinheitsgebot also goes back to the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516, and I think here actually lies the crux of the problem: this piece of Bavarian legislation is misunderstood in its geopolitical context, in its importance and in its legal effectiveness.

Quite often, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot is also claimed to have been one of the earliest food safety laws due to a supposed (implied) ban on other ingredients, or that its supposed ban on brewing with wheat was meant to secure the availability of the grain for food. But the truth is that we do not know any of the intentions behind it. To claim a specific intent is purely speculative, and I’ve not seen a single historic source from which such a conclusion could be derived. In fact, concerns about grain shortages were managed differently, such as through requirements that white beer could only be brewed from either home-grown or imported wheat (e.g. Ducal mandate of 1567), or through temporary total brewing bans that included beer made from barley malt (e.g. brewing ban October 1571-1580).

Also: The Reinheitsgebot of 1516 was not a revolutionary new piece of beer legislation. Many places across Bavaria and other parts of Germany had local legislation in place that regulated what ingredients were permitted or banned in beer. What the 1516 Reinheitsgebot did was that it harmonised the existing legislation for all those places that didn’t have a law in place. In particular, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot is virtually identical to an earlier decree from the Munich city council from 1447 that prescribed that only barley, hops and water could be used for brewing, which was later codified by Duke Albrecht IV. in 1487, which nowadays is also described as the Munich Reinheitsgebot of 1487, a marketing term used by the Munich brewing industry.

One problem with Bavaria was that during the Late Middle Ages, it was an absolute geopolitical mess. Bavaria started out as a stem duchy, one of the constituent duchies of the Kingdom of Germany in the 9th century. In later centuries, for various reasons, parts of Bavaria were split off, like Carinthia that was turned into a separate Duchy to reduce the power of the Bavarian Duke, or later the Duchy of Styria and the Marcha orientalis, Bavaria’s “Eastern realms”, the historic core of Austria. The House of Wittelsbach ruled remaining Bavaria after the deposition of Heinrich XII in 1180 until 1918.

But the Wittelsbacher had an issue with succession: they had no primogeniture in place like other noble houses, which meant that there was no customary preference for firstborns in succession. This led to various splits and subsequent mergers of land, and at times up to four partial Duchies of Bavaria existed, namely Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Munich, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Straubing between 1392 and 1429 (if you want to get down a bit of a rabbit hole: Bavaria-Straubing was actually part of Straubing-Holland from 1353 until 1429 which included parts of modern-day Netherlands and Belgium, including the cities of The Hague and Mons).

Anyway, all of that culminated in the Landshut War of Succession 1503-1505, followed by Bavarian reunification in 1506. Hundreds of years of divisions and mergers left behind a complex landscape of local laws that needed consolidation and harmonisation. This was accomplished through the Bayerische Landesordnung that was officially enacted on 23 April, 1516. Does that date sound familiar to you? That’s because it’s often quoted as the date from which the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516 was in effect.

What is usually left out is that the whole legal text contains a total of 160 pages regulating literally everything that needed regulating, like basics of the Bavarian legal system, its procedures, the punishment of crimes, the regulation of policing, Bavaria’s relations to the Holy Roman Empire, and regulations around topics such as blasphemy, public drunkenness, gambling, serving beer, wine and food in pubs and inns, beer brewing, establishing new brew houses and pubs, administration and accounting of church estates, dog ownership, animal farming, fishing (the book even contains prints of various types of fish as a reference for minimum fish sizes), milling, weights and measures, payment of day labourers, etc. etc. Of these 160 pages, how many are related to beer brewing? The section that contains the famous limitation on barley, hops and water as permitted brewing ingredients is less than one page in total, and it’s actually mostly about the pricing of beer.

German beer marketing often enough talks about how this was a complete ban on brewing with wheat. But that’s actually a misinterpretation of the scope of the law itself. An important legal principle at the time was that new laws did not overrule old laws. That meant that when you had the right or privilege to do something, it couldn’t just be taken away from you, and you couldn’t easily be banned from doing it by enacting a new law.

That meant that if you had the right to brew wheat beer before, you didn’t just lose that right. When the House of Degenberg received the “great freedom” to brew white beer in 1548, it was defined as “nobody but the House of Degenberg was allowed to brew and sell white beer between the Bohemian Forest and across the river Danube [meaning the right bank] across a wide area”. When the House of Schwarzenberg received a similar permit in 1586, that actually affected the Degenberger family’s exclusive rights and caused a brief conflict between both Houses.

Later Ducal mandates tried to control or limit the brewing of wheat beer, such as a temporary ban of white beer from 1566, because Duke Albrecht V. thought it wasted an incredible amount of wheat on a useless drink that neither nourished nor gave one strength.

In practice, there was also the question of enforcement, or really lack thereof: despite a ban to brew wheat beer for newly founded breweries since 1516, many of those popped up during the 16th century: in 1579, a Ducal commission found a total of 9 brew houses across the river Danube that brewed white beer (the House of Degenberg only owned and operated 3 brew houses, and it’s not clear whether their breweries were included in that report), and an additional 6 in the Bishopric of Passau, i.e. inside church territory and outside the control of the Bavarian Duke, but still in immediate vicinity. Then there breweries, often communal white brew houses that claimed customary brewing rights, like the one in Viechtach which claimed such rights even though it was only built in 1553, and even had the guts to complain about other breweries opening up in nearby town. Or the white beer brewery of Gossersdorf, which was only opened in 1600 as an entirely unlicensed operation by Georg Woerner, but instead of punishing the guy, the Bavarian Duke simply purchased the brewery in 1602. In 1599, a total of 20 white beer breweries in Lower Bavaria had been recorded by court chamber officials.

White beer brewing really only became restricted in Bavaria from 1602 onwards, but it was not because of a specific Bavarian law that regulated brewing. What happened in 1602 was that the House of Degenberg ended with the death of Hans Sigmund of Degenberg on 10 June, 1602, who had no male heirs. Duke Maximilian I. used this to establish a white beer monopoly for himself by effectively taking over the Degenberg operation and paying all the salaries, and purchasing the old brewing rights from the House of Schwarzenberg. But it also involved the legal question whether the Duke was even allowed to establish such a monopoly for himself. It took until 1607 to settle the legal disputes around that before the Emperor, who confirmed Maximilian’s sovereign right to establish such a white beer monopoly. Only then, the Duke was able to contractually oblige communal brew houses to share their profits with him or purchase communal or market town brew houses outright.

As is evident, Bavarian beer legislation in the 16th century did very little to actually ban brewing with wheat, for the simple fact that it could not touch old existing brewing rights, but also because it seemed mostly unenforced in Lower Bavaria, where white wheat beer had become popular, as long as the Degenberg and Schwarzenberg families’ brewing profits were not affected. The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516 had little to no effect on white beer brewing in Lower Bavaria. What actually changed the white beer brewing landscape was a Ducal monopoly for the Wittelsbach family starting in the early 17th century that had first to be confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor.

And finally, the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516 does not have the historical continuity that it claims it does. A Ducal decree from 1551 permitted the use of coriander and bay leaves while specifically banning certain other herbs, while the Bavarian Code of Law from 1616 also allowed the use of salt, juniper berries and caraway seeds in reasonable amounts while other herbs or seeds like henbane were explicitly banned.

No law is put into effect without a perceived need for it, which means that between 1516 and 1551, there must have been enough brewers to use other ingredients outside the 1516 limitations that required an update or clarification to say that the practice of using coriander or bay leaves was actually fine, while other stuff was no good. The same goes for the time between 1551 and 1616, after which the law was updated to allow even more ingredients. So practically, whether enforced or not, the Reinheitsgebot of 1516 in that exact form was only a law for 35 years after which it was already changed. This is in stark contrast to the Bavarian beer marketing machinery that implies a certain historic continuity that just isn’t there.

And while modern German beer legislation is heavily influenced by the 19th century Bavarian position of a virtuous ingrediental minimalism, it was nothing the average German or even Bavarian beer consumer ever really cared about until fairly recently. Ironically, even regions of Bavaria like Franconia with their own rich brewing history that had nothing to do with the 1516 Reinheitsgebot and only became part of the Kingdom of Bavaria in the early 19th century nowadays claim the 16th century Reinheitsgebot as theirs. And it ultimately even affected mid-20th-century West German beer politics, as Robert Shea Terrell showed in his 2023 paper Entanglements of Scale: The Beer Purity Law from Bavarian Oddity to German Icon, 1906–1975.

To summarise, I think the Reinheitsgebot is misunderstood and its common interpretation as an early food safety law with a long, continuous history that strictly regulated brewing ingredients is one of these “romantic facts”. In reality, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot started out as just a tiny section in a big law book that was meant to harmonise and consolidate the existing laws of reunited Bavaria, and in its original form was only in effect for about 35 years. Due to the predominant legal principles at the time, it could not overrule older brewing rights, and was in practice at most loosely enforced when it came to the ban of brewing with wheat, including other subsequent Ducal bans later in the 16th century.

The Session

The Session #147: Downing pints when the world’s about to end

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For the May 2025 edition of The Session, Phil Cook invited us to write about beer and pubs in art and fiction. This is my contribution to it (spoiler alert: plot details of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy will be discussed).

“Six pints of bitter,” said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. “And quickly please, the world’s about to end.”

One of the more influential works in science fiction for me has been The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I remember watching the BBC mini-series first, in school, in 1999 or 2000, ironically in German class (yes, we watched the German dub), and I have absolutely no idea why our German teacher showed it to us in the first place.

I did purchase the mini-series on DVD a few years later, and I also got an English-language copy of the book including the sequels. Thinking about it, I think I won it as a prize in some nerd competition thing, but I can’t remember exactly. A few years later, I watched the 2005 film version in cinema, and was actually slightly disappointed (I rewatched it since then, and it’s okay). Starting around 2009 or so, I got my hand on a copy of the radio play, so I listened to that on my way to work and back and then relistened to it for literally months. I now actually consider the radio play to be the best rendition.

One scene I vividly remember is Ford Prefect bringing Arthur Dent to the nearest pub, all while Arthur Dent’s house is about the get demolished to build a bypass. Arthur and Ford then proceed to have 3 pints of bitter each as a muscle relaxant and to cushion their system going through the matter transference beam Ford uses to flee onto one of the Vogon ships in Earth orbit shortly before Earth gets destroyed to make way for a hyperspatial express route.

This particular scene was probably my first exposure to British beer culture. Pints, drunk in a pub, poured through a handpump from cask into dimpled mugs. And then them quickly downing 3 pints each, which looked a bit absurd but also somewhat impressive. To refresh my memory for this blog post, I actually rewatched the scene, and there’s obviously been some prop trickery involved, because at some point, Arthur Dent downs two thirds of a pint in about 3 seconds without actually swallowing any meaningful amount of liquid.

Scene from the BBC mini series, showing Arthur Dent (Simon Jones) and Ford Perfect (David Dixon) standing at the bar and waiting for pints of bitters, poured through a beer engine and served in dimpled mugs.
Scene from the BBC mini series, showing Arthur Dent (Simon Jones) and Ford Perfect (David Dixon) standing at the bar and waiting for pints of bitters, poured through a beer engine and served in dimpled mugs.

The beer served in the pub (Horse and Groom in the book, Red Lion in the BBC mini-series), at least what’s visible in the TV version (and only because the pump clip was turned sideways, towards the camera), was Tamplins Bitter. Tamplin & Sons was a brewery based in Brighton, founded in 1821. By 1953, Tamplin & Sons had taken over a number of local breweries both in Brighton and nearby Lewes, and owned about 400 pubs, when it itself was acquired Watney, Combe, Reid & Co. The brewery operated for 20 more years, when brewing on site ceased, but the brand Tamplins seems to have stuck around for longer than that. The Brewery History Society has more details.

Another tap that can be seen is what looks like Ben Truman Export Draught, but sadly, no beer is poured from it. I suppose you had to order by name.

Ford slapped a five-pound note on the bar. He said, “Keep the change.”

“What, from a fiver? Thank you sir.”

The book was published in 1979, while the TV series was aired in early 1981. At the time, the average price of a pint of bitter would have been 34p (1979) resp. 49p (1981). Paying for six pints, the change would have been 2 to 3 quid, depending on which year you assume. Consulting the BoE inflation calculator, these pints would have been fairly cheap compared to the beer prices we’re used to today: 34p in 1979 were the equivalent of GBP 1.65 in March 2025, while 49p in 1981 would amount to GBP 1.86 in March 2025.

The bar in the 2005 film version, with keg taps of Kronenbourg 1664, Guinness, Strongbow and Carlsberg, and pump clips advertising Fuller's London Pride, Fuller's Chiswick Bitter, and a third beer where only "AK" is really legible (possibly McMullen AK?). One man is stood behind the bar (Albie Woodington), and a woman (Su Elliot) is sat leaning against the bar.
The bar in the 2005 film version, with keg taps of Kronenbourg 1664, Guinness, Strongbow and Carlsberg, and pump clips advertising Fuller’s London Pride, Fuller’s Chiswick Bitter, and a third beer where only “AK” is really legible (possibly McMullen AK?). One man is stood behind the bar (Albie Woodington), and a woman (Su Elliot) is sat leaning against the bar, with a plate of sandwiches in front of her.

Now let’s compare the TV mini-series with the 2005 film version: there, the choice in beer is much more varied, with Kronenbourg 1664, Guinness, Strongbow (a cider) and Carlsberg available from keg, and three more beers from cask, in particular Fuller’s London Pride, Fuller’s Chiswick Bitter, and one where I can only recognise “AK” on the pump clip (possibly McMullen AK? at least the colour scheme would roughly match up).

Ford Prefect (played by Mos Def) comes in, and in a broad and very rhotic American accent, says “six pints of bitter and quickly, the world’s about to end!”, pays with a 50 pound note, and tells the barman to “keep the change, you got about 10 minutes to spend it”.

Interestingly, the beers that are served to Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent (played by Martin Freeman) are quite inconsistent. The first one Ford quickly downs (and subsequently apologises for) looks like a pale lager, while the first one held by Arthur looks like a dark amber bitter. Two more pints lined up for them are also amber-coloured, but much paler (this may be due to the lighting and/or the red towel they’re stood on, but I’m not 100% sure). And worst of all, Arthur leaves without drinking a single pint!

Ford Prefect (Mos Def) drinking a pint of pale beer, with Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) looking at him.
Ford Prefect (Mos Def) drinking a pint of pale beer, with Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) looking at him.
Ford Prefect stuffing his face with peanuts, while Arthur Dent hasn't even started his first. The beers sat on the bar for them are amber resp. dark amber.
Ford Prefect stuffing his face with peanuts, while Arthur Dent hasn’t even started his first. The beers sat on the bar for them are amber resp. dark amber. The best in front of them are all in nonik glasses.

What is going on here? Not just different beers poured when only “six pints of bitter” were ordered (what barman would do that?), but also poured rather inconsistently, with one of them very underpoured, and atypically for the West Country of England. To quote the Simpsons, “Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.”

When we look at how much Ford Prefect gave (50 quid), and how much an average pint cost in 2005 when the film was released (GBP 2.13), the tip of presumably GBP 37.22 is even more generous than in the TV series. FWIW, GBP 2.13 in 2005 are GBP 3.71 in today’s (well, March 2025) money. On top of that, Ford also pays for “a round of drinks for everyone, on me.”

Bonus: before going to the pub (for which no specific name is used in the 2005 film version), Ford Prefect bribes the construction workers with cans of John Smith Extra Smooth, bottles of Cobra and packs of peanuts (which he seems to have brought for himself and Arthur) to temporarily halt the demolition work.

Construction workers in hi-viz picking cans of John Smith Extra Smooth and bottles of Cobra from a shopping trolley.
Construction workers in hi-viz picking cans of John Smith Extra Smooth and bottles of Cobra from a shopping trolley.

They still knock down Arthur’s house within minutes, foreshadowing the inevitability of Earth’s destruction in a few more minute’s time.

That said, I’d rather have a pint of Tamplin’s or Chiswick Bitter than a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, supposedly the “best drink in existence”, the effect of which is “like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.”

Food

The Holy Trinity of Cheesy Beer Snacks

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If you’ve ever had a few beers in a pub with friends, you’ve most likely come across the problem that these few beers stimulate the appetite, so usually, you’d want to have some sort of snack with them. In the UK, something like crisps, pickled eggs, pork scratchings or even a more substantial dish like a pork pie or a Scotch egg would be typical, but in Lagerland, there exist 3 regional snacks that are distinctly cheesy and also fairly popular, one of them maybe less so, but I think it deserves to be celebrated more than it currently is. In this article, I want to discuss what I consider to be the Holy Trinity of cheesy beer snacks.

Nakládaný hermelín

This Czech pub classic is an absolutely delight: slightly gooey soft cheese, marinated in a neutral oil together with thinly sliced onions and chili peppers and seasoned with garlic, paprika, optionally cayenne pepper, a few peppercorns and a bayleaf or so.

Hermelín is basically a Czech domestic version of camembert, just with a different name. The real joy of nakládaný hermelín is when it’s marinated and aged sufficiently in oil so that it’s soft and gooey but not too runny, with just a bit of aroma, and not too much of an ammonia note that ripe camembert eventually develops into, complemented by garlic and a hint of spice from the paprika powder and of course the sliced onions that were marinated with it.

When I make nakládaný hermelín at home, I don’t really follow a strict recipe, but what I do is this: I buy a few German-produced camemberts (because that’s what I have available, no actual hermelín in my local supermarket), slice up a few onions (sometimes white, sometimes red), and cut the camemberts in half horizontally. I then rub crushed garlic on the cut surface and then sprinkle some paprika powder and cayenne pepper on. I then reassemble the camembert wheel. Taking a jar, I first add a layer of onions on the bottom, then I put the camembert on top. If it doesn’t quite fit the jar, I cut it into quarters and put it in tightly. I then add more sliced onions and repeat the whole process. To finish it off, I add a few peppercorns and a few bayleafs, as well as a pickled chili pepper or two. I then top it up with a neutral oil (my personal preference is rapeseed oil) so that everything is covered, close the jar and put it in the fridge for a week or so to properly marinate the cheese.

This is a cheese best served with dark rye bread. Ideally, the cheese should be soft enough that it can be spread easily on its own. It’s cheesy, gooey and slightly spicy, and absolutely gorgeous with a few glasses of Czech lager.

I occasionally make this for myself, but I’m also in the fortunate situation that a local Prague-Spring-themed pub in Berlin serves their homemade ones, even with hermelín cheese they import themselves.

Two jars of home-made nakládaný hermelín maturing in my fridge.
Two jars of home-made nakládaný hermelín maturing in my fridge.

Obazda

This is an absolute classic in Bavaria. Originally invented to use up overripe camembert, it has developed into a standard Brotzeit dish in many beer gardens. It’s basically camembert mashed with butter and optionally other creamy cheeses, often with a shot of beer to thin it out a bit, and typically seasoned with paprika powder, finely chopped onions and caraway seeds.

The name isn’t exactly the most appetizing: it refers to how the ingredients have been turned into a mushy mass (“Batz”).

In the EU, Obzada resp. Obatzter (just a different spelling of the same term) is registered as a Protected Geographic Indication, meaning that commercially produced Obazda must be made in Bavaria. It also describes mandatory and optional ingredients, and minimum resp. maximum percentages of the individual ingredients. If you want to commercially produce and sell Obazda, this is the reference for you, but in a home-made version, no Obazda police will come and get you if you deviate a bit.

I do love my Obazda, but even though it seems like a very straightforward dish to make, there can be a massive difference in how intense it tastes. I’ve had fairly bland ones, but a beer garden known for its good beer (at least in my experience) usually also serves a very good Obazda.

If you want to make it yourself, there are some pretty good recipes available out there. According to legend, Obazda was invented in the 1920s by Katharina Eisenreich at the Weihenstephaner brewpub in Freising. Weihenstephaner brewery has a recipe for Obazda on their website which they claim is the original recipe. It’s described as being the right amount to serve 4 people, but in my experience, just making a quarter of the whole amount is perfectly sufficient for 2-3 people.

  • 250 g Brie (or Camembert)
  • 18 g butter
  • 38 g cream cheese
  • 30 g finely chopped onions
  • 4 g paprika powder (I prefer the hot variety, plus a pinch of cayenne)
  • a pinch of caraway seeds
  • a pinch of salt and pepper each
  • a bit of Weissbier

Mix cheese, butter, cream cheese, onions and beer into a coarse cream, ideally with a fork. Season with salt, pepper and caraway seeds. If necessary, add more beer to make it creamier. If you intend to put the Obazda in the fridge a few hours before serving, add even more beer because it will firm up. Serve with dark rye bread or soft pretzels.

In Franconia, essentially the same cheese concoction is known under a different name: “Gerupfter”, meaning “plucked one”, referring to how the cheese is getting ripped or “plucked” apart when mixing through the ingredients. Distinctly local variations of the recipe exist, and in my experience, the Franconian versions are always a bit more pungent. One such recipe is the one from Sternla, a historic pub/restaurant in Bamberg that restarted brewing beer only a few years ago. Besides camembert and cream cheese, it also uses Limburger, a particularly strong, smelly cheese that some describe as smelling like feet, but also cream to add creaminess. A shot of local Bamberg beer such a smoked beer mixed in adds to the local flair of the dish.

Here’s a video (in German) that shows the process of making the dish at Sternla:

I’ve made both the Weihenstephaner and the Sternla recipe, and both have their appeal. While the Weihenstephaner one may seem a bit blander compared to the Sternla Gerupfter, it can be made more intense by complementing the paprika powder with cayenne pepper. The Sternla recipe on the other hand gets its intensity mainly from the very pungent Limburger.

(not so fun fact: I like my cheese, but pure Limburger, even when served “with music”, i.e. marinated in vinegar and onions, is the only cheese that has ever given me an upset stomach)

Kochkäse

This one is especially close to my heart, because it’s the one I grew up with. In Upper Austria, Kochkäse (“Abkochter” in the local dialect, lit. “cooked-off one”) is really more associated with having it with Most, the local version of apple cider, or just generally with having bread, spreads and cold cuts as a meal.

In my family, Abkochter has a special place. It’s a cheese spread that my grandmother on my father’s side has always made whenever we visit her. It’s a slightly sticky cheese spread made from a ripened acid-set cheese, with a very distinct flavour that I wouldn’t exactly call pungent but definitely quite flavourful. If you haven’t tried it, it’s hard to describe.

My grandmother basically grew up with that cheese spread. She mentioned to me that when she was young, her mother would go to the local dairy and buy a special type of Topfen (a low fat acid-set cheese, similar to Quark in Germany) which she would then age at home in a warm environment (apparently a slightly smelly procedure). When the Topfen reached a glassy-looking consistency, she would then melt it down to a spread together with milk and butter, and season it with salt, pepper and caraway seeds (I suppose the irony of this cheese spread is that you take a low fat cheese and add back dairy fat).

Even as recently as 25-30 years ago, local supermarkets in my grandmother’s city sold that type of Topfen at the cheese counter, but according to my grandmother, she stopped aging it herself when my late grandfather started complaining about the intense smell in the kitchen. She then switched to Steirerkäs, a type of acid-set cheese that is basically like the aged version of Topfen. Other alternative cheeses you could use would be Olomoucké tvarůžky (aka Olomouc cheese, a Czech type of cheese relatively popular in Austria; my aunt on my mother’s side uses that when she makes that cheese spread) or Harzer Käse (which is what I use because it’s readily available in German supermarkets).

So here’s our family recipe, in my version:

  • 200 g Harzer Käse
  • 125 ml milk
  • 80 g butter

Melt down cheese, milk and butter until all the cheese has melted. Despite what the name suggests, do not bring this to a boil, but only heat it as long as necessary to melt everything down. Season with salt, pepper and caraway seeds to taste. Optionally, you stir in an egg at the end, but I found that to not make a difference to either colour, flavour or texture, so I just leave it out. Let the cheese cool down before spreading it on dark rye bread.

Home-made Kochkäse in a jar.
Home-made Kochkäse in a jar.

Besides it being a taste of my own childhood, what fascinates me about this cheese spread is how widespread (no pun intended) it is with nobody realising. The first time I came across it outside of Austria was in Upper Franconia of all places, at Knoblach brewery not far away from Bamberg. Even though their recipe tasted slightly differently from my family’s recipe, it was distinctly recognisable as Kochkäse. And they weren’t the only ones to sell it: Schuhmannskeller in Bischberg, just outside of Bamberg, also has it on their menu.

Then last year, I served the dish to an American friend of mine, and he was so amazed, he asked me for the recipe. He then made this recipe when his Polish mother visited him in Berlin. His mother remembered that her grandmother in Poland used to make a cheese like that, and it was the standard way of processing the milk that they had gotten from their own cows at the time.

That got us interested, and further research showed that the same or similar kind of cheese spread also exists in other places: in parts of Poland, it is known as Hauskyjza (which is not the name my friend’s mother knew it as); in Luxembourg, Kachkéis is the equivalent product, while in France, Cancoillotte is a very similar cheese spread that is popular in the regions of Franche-Comté and Lorraine. Kochkäse is also a thing in the German state of Hesse. The Hesse tourism website has a page about it, including a recipe that starts with aging Quark. I even found some evidence that a dish like that is also known in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile in Austria, there’s only one commercial producer of it, but it has struggled with insolvency in the past.

For a cheese preparation that can be found across such a wide area, from France and Luxembourg to parts of Germany and Austria all the way to Czechia and Poland, it is relatively unknown, even though it seems like a dish that only a few decades ago was probably a lot more common that it is nowadays. And most interestingly, several of these local traditions seem to think that they exist nowhere else. I’ve specifically heard this about the dish in Austria (“Kochkäse is a distinctly Upper Austrian thing and nowhere else to be found”), Luxembourg and Franconia. Is this a pan-european (processed) cheese tradition that has been mostly forgotten?

Summary

In any case, I think all three cheese dishes are absolutely delicious, fantastic snack foods in their own right, and perfectly paired with beer: nakládaný hermelín works especially well with Czech lagers, Obazda is wonderful beer garden food best enjoyed with a Helles, and Kochkäse is great with Franconian Kellerbier (or really any kind of beer, or just as part of Jause or Brotzeit). I’m a massive fan of each of them, hence why I call them Holy Trinity of cheesy beer snacks. If you like cheese as much as I do, you should definitely try them out. They’re all fairly easy to make at home. Even I can do it! (and I’m not a good cook)

Experiment

My Experience with Super F, a Vegan Alternative To Isinglass

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At BrauBeviale in Nuremberg last year, a massive fair of the brewing industry, I very naïvely asked about vegan alternatives to isinglass at the Murphy & Son stand (the main reason to go there was to drink cask ale and maybe score a free t-shirt), and was promptly given a sample of Super F, Murphy & Son’s fining product that can be used in cold tanks and casks just like isinglass, happens to be vegan (it’s silica-based), and according to one sales guy I spoke to a few weeks later in Krákow, is even compliant with the German purity law.

Cask ale served at the Murphy & Son stand. Besides Thornbridge The Union, other cask ales like Timothy Taylor's Landlord were also served.
Cask ale served at the Murphy & Son stand. Besides Thornbridge The Union, other cask ales like Timothy Taylor’s Landlord were also served.

It took a bit longer than originally planned to brew a beer where I could try this out. I eventually settled for a simple recipe for a Pale Mild of 8.5°P (1.034) original gravity:

  • 3.3 kg Mild Malt
  • 0.2 kg Simpsons CaraMalt

And simple hop additions which should end up at about 18 IBU:

  • 22g East Kent Golding (5.8% alpha acid) @ 60 min
  • 18g East Kent Golding (5.8% alpha acid) @ 5 min

Mashing was fairly straightforward: single step infusion mash, though I may have slightly overshot the target temperature, as on brew day, I didn’t feel the best and thus didn’t pay as close attention to the brewing process as usual, which later showed in the final gravity of 3.5°P (1.014). I pitched a sachet of Lallemand Windsor Yeast, which was pretty much finished fermenting rather quickly, within 4 days.

After fermentation, I put the beer in my beer fridge to chill it down to about 5°C. Super F comes with a guide how to use it, and most importantly, how to trial the right dosage for your beer. Having only brewed 22 litres, I unfortunately didn’t want to use up quite so much beer to find the right dosage, so I just eyeballed it and picked the middle of the recommended dosage of 75 to 175 ml/hl – 125 ml/hl, i.e. about 25 ml for my homebrew-sized batch. I measured it out, and added it straight to the cold beer.

Me holding the Super F packaging. On it, it says: VEGAN FRIENDLY. SUPER F BEER CLARIFICATION. 100% clearer beer, 5% reduced water & energy intensity. Super F from Murphy & Son is a silica-based liquid fining added to fermented beer in the cold tank, to greatly speed up the sedimentation of yeast and other haze-forming particles. Beer clarity is greatly improved, meaning it can be served fresher and faster. Our recently reformulated Super F fines your beer even faster, leaving your beer clear with a compact sediment. WWW.MURPHYANDSON.CO.UK
Me holding the Super F packaging.

Normally, the Super F should do its trick within just a few days, but life got in the way and we only managed to bottle the beer two weeks later (bottle-conditioned, of course), with another 13 days of refermentation (at the time of writing) in the bottle.

So just earlier, I poured the very first bottle. Just look for yourself:

A Nonik pint glass into which I poured the amber-coloured beer. Since the bottle is 500 ml, it's not quite full. The glass wasn't perfectly clean, so some nucleation points show. You can recognise a reverse "RS" in the back of the glass, which is from the branding of the glass, and gives an indication how clear the beer is.
A Nonik pint glass into which I poured the amber-coloured beer. Since the bottle is 500 ml, it’s not quite full. The glass wasn’t perfectly clean, so some nucleation points show. You can recognise a reverse “RS” in the back of the glass, which is from the branding of the glass, and gives an indication how clear the beer is.
Me holding up the glass after a few sips. It is pretty much clear.
Me holding up the glass after a few sips. It is pretty much clear.

The beer came out pretty much clear. It was a wonderful colour, which against the light makes it appear absolutely brilliant.

It also tastes really nice: with just a hint of hop aroma, it starts very light but then turns out to be quite full-bodied, with a lasting biscuity finish. Since this beer is bottle-conditioned, the carbonation is relatively light and very well integrated. Together with the clarity that is equal to isinglass-fined cask ales, this is probably the closest I’ve gotten to reproducing something like a cask ale at home where everything is right: the flavour (thanks to British malt and hops), the clarity (thanks to Super F), the carbonation. It drinks exactly like a cask ale, too.

All in all, I’m absolutely impressed. Clarity has always been something I’ve struggled a bit with my home-brewed beers (Irish moss only gets you so far), in particular with chill haze. The Super F was very easy to use and did exactly was the product description said. The provided instructions were clear and got me exactly the result that I wanted.

I sincerely hope that Murphy & Son will eventually make this available not just to commercial brewers, but also to home-brewers. The sample I got at the BrauBeviale industry fair will last me for a few more home-brewed sized batches, but I would actually be willing to pay money for the product, provided the price is right.

(Full disclosure: I was given a sample bottle of Super F for free in November 2024, as well as a Murphy & Son t-shirt and a few half-pint pours of cask ale)

History, Water

An Attempt To Reconstruct Historic Vienna Lager’s Water Profile

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In the reconstruction of everything related to historic Vienna Lager, there is one piece missing that I’ve not been able to conclusively reconstruct so far: its water profile, and in particular, the water profile at Kleinschwechater Brauerei, where Anton Dreher first brewed Vienna Lager.

People who read my book on the subject are probably already aware of this, but for those who are not, a quick recap of the water situation there: the original Kleinschwechater brewery was located next to Kleinschwechat’s cemetery. The cemetery was on Löss soil (wind-blown silt sediment), while the brewery’s wells were dug into soil consisting of alluvial resp. diluvial gravel. By 1869, the brewery had four wells that had gone bad due to contamination from brewery and animal waste, so two further wells had been dug in the garden next to the brew house. Of these two wells, one’s water was used for brewing, for which we have a chemical analysis conducted in 1868 by Johann Karl Lermer. It looks like this:

  • Specific gravity of water: 1.00074
  • Total dissolved solids: 0.380 grams per litre (=380 mg/L)
  • Ash content: 0.296 grams per litre
  • Organic matter: 0.084 grams per litre

The dissolved solids were analysed and their constituents were listed in percent:

  • Sodium chloride: 2.53%
  • Chlorine: 3.86%
  • Sodium: 3.45%
  • Potassium: 3.94%
  • Calcium carbonate: 22.75%
  • Magnesium: 11.27%
  • Iron oxide: 0.30%
  • Sulfuric acid: 18.03%
  • Phosphoric acid: 0.22%
  • Carbon dioxide: 24.42%
  • Silicic acid: 2.52%
  • Organic matter: 1.49%

(please note that I think I previously misidentified the “Kalk” in the original German text as calcium oxide. It more likely means calcium carbonate, which I corrected in this list)

This is fairly detailed, but how does this get us to a modern water profile consisting of carbonate hardness, calcium, magnesium, sulfate, chloride and sodium? So here’s my attempt of trying to reconstruct that. Please be aware is that my last time I had chemistry lessons was 23 or 24 years ago. I also never thought myself to be a particularly good chemistry student.

I started off with the individual weight of each of the chemical compounds: 380 mg/L is equal to 380 ppm. Applying the percentage to the 380 ppm of should give us the respective ppm of each compound. Please note that I only listed the ones relevant for our water profile:

  • Sodium chloride (NaCl): 9.6 ppm
  • Chlorine: 14.7 ppm
  • Sodium: 13.1 ppm
  • Calcium carbonate (CaCO3): 86.4 ppm
  • Magnesium: 42.8 ppm
  • Sulfuric acid (H2SO4): 68.5 ppm
  • Carbon dioxide (CO2): 92.8 ppm

I then looked up the molecular formulas for each of the chemical compounds, as well as the molar masses of all the elements found in each of the compounds.

So now let’s use this data to reconstruct what we need in our water profile.

Carbonate Hardness

Carbonate hardness is basically the concentration of HCO3–(hydrogencarbonate) ions. While we do not have this one available directly, we can reconstruct the amount from the amount of CO2. The molar mass of CO2 is about 44.0088 g/mol, so adding the mass of one H and one C gets us about 61.01604 g/mol. When we apply this to the ppm of CO2 (92.8), we get an HCO3– concentration of 128.7 ppm, or 5.9 °dH (German degrees of hardness).

Calcium

For the calcium content, we need to go the other way, and look at the calcium content of the calcium carbonate. CaCO3‘s molar mass is about 100.0088 g/mol, while Ca’s molar mass is just 40.08 g/mol, so the 86.4 ppm of calcium carbonate should translate to about 34.6 ppm of calcium, or 4.8 °dH.

Magnesium

That one is easy, because it’s listed directly, with 11.27%, which translates to 42.8 ppm.

Sulfate

The sulfate ion is SO42-, so we should be able to reconstruct it from the sulfuric acid (H2SO4) content, following the same approach as with the calcium. H2SO4‘s molar mass is about 98.08 g/mol, while SO42- is about 96.06 g/mol, so the reconstructed sulfate content should be 67.1 ppm.

Chloride

Chlorides are either chlorine ions or chlorine atoms bound to molecules by a single bond. In Lermer’s analysis, we have two chemical compounds that involve chlorine atoms: chlorine, and sodium chloride. From the chlorine, we can simply assume the same ppm (14.7 ppm), while for the sodium chloride, we need to calculate its portion (5.8 ppm). When we add both, the total chloride content should be 20.5 ppm.

Sodium

Similar to the chlorides, we have two chemical compounds that involve sodium atoms: straight up sodium, as sodium chloride. Following the same approach, we can take the ppm of sodium (13.1 pm) and add the sodium portion from the sodium chloride (3.8 ppm). This means we end up at 16.9 ppm sodium content.

The final water profile

With all this, we end up with this water profile:

  • Carbonate hardness: 128.7 ppm, or 5.9 °dH
  • Calcium: 34.6 ppm, or 4.8 °dH
  • Magnesium: 42.8 ppm, or 9.9 °dH
  • Sulfate: 67.1 ppm
  • Chloride: 20.5 ppm
  • Sodium: 16.9 ppm

My question to all you people out there with a better knowledge of basic chemistry than me: does this make sense? Provided the German terms for the individual chemical compounds that I translated to English mean exactly what I think they mean, does it make sense to derive the amounts of ions in the water from the amount of molecular compounds determined in that chemical analysis?

Please let me know in the comments whether this attempt of reconstructing the historic water profile of Vienna Lager at Kleinschwechater brewery (at least as analysed in 1868) makes sense or not.

(thanks to Ben for proofreading the article before I published it)

The Session

The Session: The Best Beer I Can Drink At Home Right Now

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I unfortunately missed very first relaunched Session last month as I was away on holidays. But this month, it’s hosted by Boak & Bailey, with the prompt of what’s the best beer you can drink at home right now.

Let me just say that I’m in an extremely privileged situation.

One, I live in Berlin, Germany, and I can get quality beer for a rather low price in the local supermarket, literally 2 minutes away from my flat. The selection is not super varied, i.e. mostly German industrial pale lagers, but for some choice, we have Spätis, small shops that are open late and sell beer, among other things, and often a greater variety (and at almost any time of the day) than at supermarkets.

Two, I’ve been home-brewing for over 10 years now, with a focus on lager beers in recent years, and I now am experienced enough to brew beer that I consistently like to drink even with a heightened sense of self-criticism (and self-doubt!), and I usually brew the beer styles that I cannot easily get or that interest me from a technical perspective.

Three, I have a beer fridge which I use for storing bottled beer as well as for fermentation and lagering of my home-brewed beer. So I always have a stash of a variety of beers at home.

That said, these are the best beers I can drink at home right now that I chose for each of the categories of privilege:

Supermarket/Späti beers

  • The number 1: Augustiner Lagerbier Hell. I mean… it’s Augustiner. Some people may find its slight sulphur note a bit divisive, but it’s a Berlin staple for a very good reason, in a place that previously was dominated by German Pils for decades.
  • The contender: Tegernseer Hell. People who like Helles but aren’t as much of a fan of Augustiner usually like Tegernseer a lot. Personally, I sometimes prefer Augustiner over Tegernseer, sometimes the other way around. Either way, both are great beers. Usually, it’s easier to find Tegernseer Hell in Spätis than in supermarkets.
  • The wildcard: Wicküler Pils. I consider this beer to be the better Jever. As dry and bitter as bottled Jever, but with a smoother bitterness, and significantly cheaper, too. Former neighbours of ours used to do an annual beer blind taste test among their friends. Wicküler Pils consistently came out as the best by far. That’s how I learned about the beer, and I’ve been a convert ever since.

Home-brewed beers

Just to be clear, since the question is “best beers you can drink at home right now”, I’m not listing my best home-brewed beers I ever brewed, but literally what I have in my fridge at the time of writing.

  • The number 1: the 2024 batch of my Czech Dark Lager. It is just sooo good. I wrote about this in late 2022, and even though the 2024 is slightly different, it’s just as good as previous years.
  • The contender: my 2024 Kellerbier experiment. Not the freshest anymore, and only very few bottles left, but since the bottles were always refrigerated, it kept well.
  • The wildcard: random bottles of Barley Wine that I brewed 5 to 10 years ago and kept in a crate my work room. They’re oxidised, but last time I tried one of them, it was oxidised in a good way, with lots of dried fruit and sherry notes.

Beers from the beer fridge

This is all the weird and wonderful stuff that I keep in my beer fridge. What I have in there was definitely in there at the time of writing.

  • The number 1: Krug-Bräu Lager. A insanely drinkable dark lager from Breitenlesau in Franconia. Only a few places in Berlin sell this beer (I got mine from the Ambrosetti beer shop), but when I stop there, I will usually bring one of those back home, and that’s what’s currently in the fridge.
  • The contender: Thornbridge Nouveau, brewed in collaboration with BRŁO brewery, a DDH Session IPA. Funnily enough, this was a free sample handed to me at the booth of Totally Naturally Solutions at BrauBeviale last year, as two of their products (hop extracts) were used in brewing that beer (hashtag not an ad). I’m usually not someone who often drinks pale ales or IPAs, but this one was pretty amazing when I had the first of two cans they gave to us.
  • The wildcard: Goldfinger Danube Swabian. When Tom Beckmann, who brewed a historic Vienna Lager with malt made by Sugar Creek Malt using some of the historic descriptions of the malting process from my book, handed me a four-pack of that beer last year, I drank three of them and thoroughly enjoyed them, but I just can’t bring myself to have the fourth and last one.