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Beer Styles

Session 150: Early German Porter As A Health Drink

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This blog post is my contribution to Session 150 to celebrate Martyn Cornell’s epic work about the complete history of Porter and Stout.

I have been interested in specifically German Porter for quite a while, in particular when I first learned about its existence through the 1947 notes of former Groterjan brewmaster A. Dörfel. I previously wrote about what brewing literature said about the specs of German Porter over the course of the 20th century.

Of course none of that is nearly as comprehensive as what Martyn Cornell wrote about. I have to admit, I’ve only read parts of his book, in particular those about Germany and Austria. What I noticed in there was the early association specifically of German Porter with being a Gesundheitsbier, a health beer, that was often also simply called a Malzextrakt. Remarkably, this was very often used in advertising, in which various producers frequently pointed out how good their beer was for sick people. In fact, when I started looking into it more, I noticed that virtually all mentions of Deutscher Porter from the 1860s to the 1880s that I could find made some health reference.

So how did this German Porter compare to English Porter? One German brewer, Hollack, wanted to show how superior their product. So at the Berlin Exhibition of Hygiene in 1883, they provided specific analyses that they handed out, which we have available:

BeerSGABW%Free Acid%
English Porter1.02585.350.275
Malzextract Hoff1.02582.770.252
Malzextract Werner1.03853.350.31
Malzextract Grohmann1.05354.460.315
Malzextract Hollack1.06333.650.39

As you can see, the German Porters had more residual extract and were lower in alcohol. This looks like they were fermented in such a way to be richer in unfermented sugars (with the exception of Hoff’s Porter), while lower in alcohol content.

From a few years later, 1887, we also have a different analysis of Hollack’s Porter:

  • SG 1.0564
  • 3.43% ABW
  • 0.157% lactic acid
  • 0.123% phosphoric acid

While the SG and the ABW is slightly lower compared to the 1883 specs, they are still quite high up there.

In 1890, yet another brewer, Th. Krepper, “German Porter and Lager Brewery” in Burg near Magdeburg, advertised their German Porter by posting the analysis results of the Versuchs- und Lehranstalt für Brauerei Berlin (also known as VLB Berlin):

  • SG 1.01968 (= 4.9°P)
  • 4.56% ABW
  • 0.0882% lactic acid
  • OG 15.36°P

Compared to the specs of other beers, this beer seems much more attenuated, and also quite a bit lower in acid.

Until then, all ads seem to refer to bottled German Porter only, and quite often in a health context. The first ad of cask German Porter I came across was from 1892, when a breakfast restaurant on Unter den Linden 24 in Berlin advertised cask German Porter 1/4 litre for 20 Pfennig, and cask English Porter 1/4 litre for 30 Pfennig.

And even Köstritzer seemed to have brewed a German Porter during the late 19th century, at least it’s listed as what the brewery exhibited in 1892 at an International Exhibition for the Red Cross in Leipzig.

In 1893, we can find another analysis used in advertising, when Freyberg’s Brauerei near Halle (Saale) put their analysis they got from a Mr. C. Bischoff from Berlin in an ad in a medical newspaper:

  • OG 21.27°P (calculated)
  • 5.94% ABW (=7.4% ABV)
  • FG 7.5°P (apparent extract)
  • 0.234% acid

To summarise, even though these German beers were called Porter, they must have been a lot sweeter and richer than their English counterparts, often did not have nearly as much alcohol, and were frequently advertised as a health beer. Some of the description do say that the German Porters are similar to English Porter, and they probably tasted similar, but the numbers suggest quite a large difference.

It would be interesting to work out in greater detail when German brewers moved away from the health claims specifically, and how it turned into the German Porter of later decades that was even codified as part of the East German beer standardisation efforts.

Modern German Porter, apart from the craft beer scene, is just a shadow of its former self. Lausitzer Porter seems to be the only surviving brands, which is a relatively weak beer, with barely any roasted flavours, and also available in fruit-flavoured versions, with cherry or strawberry. And the latest “innovation” that I only came across last week, is “Porter Radlerin”, a dark Radler from Porter and lemonade. Ironically, this is actually something I can get behind, because we could certainly do with more Dunkler Radler.

A bottle of Porter Radlerin, "beer mixed drink with lemon flavour", "first dark radler from out Porter".
A bottle of Porter Radlerin, “beer mixed drink with lemon flavour”, “first dark radler from out Porter”.

Beer Styles

German Porter

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Porter and stout are certainly beer styles that made their way around the world and were transformed over the last 200 years or so into a vast amount of different sub styles, with dry Irish Stout, English Porter, hop-forward American Porter, Imperial Stout just being a few examples. One sub-style of this hasn’t been picked up that much: German Porter. 19th century beer literature is full of evidence that bottled Porter imported from the UK was a very common beer in Germany, with Porter being almost twice as expensive as Munich lager beers. So naturally, by the early 20th century, and probably earlier, it was brewed domestically.

Several sources exist that describe some very general properties of German Porter. In addition to that, I was able to find three sources that document possible grists and hopping rates.

Original gravity: German Porter was generally characterized as Starkbier, a generic designation in Germany for beer with an OG of 16% or more, and at least 6.5% ABV. Kulitzscher, in the book “Handbuch zur Fabrikation obergäriger Biere” from 1930, describes that OG at 16 to 20%. “Handbuch der Ernährungslehre” from 1920, mentions an OG of 18%. The brewmaster of the Groterjan brewery, Dörfel, mentions an OG of 18% for the pre-war Porter that was brewed in small amounts at Groterjan, but describes the general beer type as going up to 22%. The more recent “Abriss der Bierbrauerei” bei Prof. Narziss mentions a lower range of 13 to 16%.

Grists: three sources describe possible grists. The oldest one is is Kulitzscher in 1930, who mentions Munich malt as base malt, 20% (sic!) caramel malt, and 6% debittered roasted malt. Dörfel on the other hand describes the grist as 70% Munich malt, 20% pale malt, 7% caramel malt, and 3% roasted malt, as well as 400 g of caramel colouring per hectolitre. Narziss describes an even simpler grist: about 2/3 pale malt, 1/3 dark malt (presumably Munich malt), and 2 to 2.5% roasted malt.

Hopping rate: Kulitzscher says 1 to 1.5 Pfund (500 to 750g) of hops (of unknown alpha acid content) per Zentner (50kg) of grist. If we assume an alpha acid content of 3 to 4.5%, this means anything between roughly 23 and 50 IBU. Dörfel on the other hand mentions 500g of hops per hectolitre, which, if we assume the same range of alpha acid content, is equivalent to about 30 to 46 IBU. Narziss mentions 30 IBU of bitterness. Since this is a German beer style, we can assume that German hop varieties were used.

Yeast: remarkably, pretty much all sources agree that Porter needs to be fermented with Brettanomyces. Without Brettanomyces, they agree, Porter doesn’t develop its typical aroma and flavour during secondary fermentation. Dörfel mentions the use of “Porterhefe” (porter yeast), which is described as a yeast blend which contains both Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces and seems to get repitched. He also mentions though that Schönfeld of VLB Berlin was able to create pure cultures of both yeast types in the 1920’s, and that Hochschulbrauerei used pure cultures separately for primary and secondary fermentation. Interestingly, there are two sources that mention that German Porter could also be bottom-fermented: “Handbuch der Ernährungslehre” describes it as “either top- or bottom-fermented”, while Narziss says that Porter is “often bottom-fermented”.

With sources on these parameters, I think it’s quite easy to extract how German Porter was typically formulated. Despite the name, it is certainly closer to Stout due to its higher strength. One important element of British Porter and Stout in the 19th century, the matured character coming from a secondary fermentation with Brettanomyces, was certainly recognized and improved on through the use of pure yeast cultures. And it’s definitely a beer style I’d like to try: the use of large amounts of Munich malt and caramel malt to a certain extent, as well as German hop varieties, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has its very own character on top of what I’d expect from a Bretted Porter.