Rice in German beer (again)

I know. Obsessing about rice in German beer is weird. I just can't help myself.

There are other things I should be up to. Like researching Dutch Lager styles. I'm supposed to be giving a talk on that soon. Or German sour beers. Another topic I'll soon be lecturing about. So far I've only piled up Dutch brewery histories on the floor behind me. I spent a big chunk of yesterday hunting for  a Heineken history, only to find it within reach of where I sit. That's the main drawback of my way of sorting my books. The just-remembering-where-it-is method.

But I digress. I'm supposed to be telling you aboout rice in German beer, amongst other things. Spinning a tale around a table of dull statistics from a hundred year old chemistry magazine. (Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie, if you're interested.)

I guess first I'd best explain what the statistics are for: the Brausteuergebied. What was that? The part of the German Empire with a unified beer tax regime. It literally means Beer Tax Area. It's easier to explain what it wasn't, rather than what it was. Everywhere except Bavaria, Baben, Württemberg and Alsace-Lorraine. Most of the country, really, but missing the major brewing areas in the South.

Right, what to tell you first? One of the most obvious is the rise of Lager. While the output of top-fermenting beer was flat, the production of bottom-fermenting beer more than tripled. The result was that the chare of top-fermenting beer more than halved from 36% to 16%. It was a trend that continued in the 20th century.

Use of taxable raw materials and beer production in the Brausteuergebied
tax year 1 April - 31st March	use of taxable brewing materials
	grain		malt substitutes				quantity of beer brewed				in 1 hl of beer
	total	ground barley malt	total	rice	all types of sugar	all types of syrup	top fermenting	bottom fermenting	top fermenting	bottom fermenting	grain and rice	malt substitutes
	hk	hk	hk	hk	hk	hk	hl	hl	%	%	k	k
1882	4,469,280	4,328,286	22,611	3,755	13,591	1598	7,901,207	14,211,973	36	64	20.23	0.09
1887	5,503,903	5,354,779	43,312	9,684	25,434	2358	8,503,919	18,971,927	31	69	20.07	0.12
1892	6,330,765	6,168,393	87,164	50,767	28,649	2129	7,664,889	25,498,919	23	77	19.24	0.11
1883	6,553,787	6,356,370	91,535	51,074	27,468	1641	7,522,307	26,854,999	22	78	19.15	0.12
1894	6,435,636	6,246,062	109,090	67,805	27,922	1651	7,111,305	26,856,048	21	79	19.15	0.12
1896	7,029,267	6,824,308	119,382	75,782	28,551	1757	7,884,114	29,841,501	21	79	18.83	0.12
1896	7,118,439	6,914,923	121,055	75,957	29,576	1558	7,544,730	30,803,611	20	80	18.76	0.12
1897	7,590,880	7,380,322	142,067	98,669	31,732	1474	7,777,049	33,654,123	19	81	18.55	0.12
1898	7,644,366	7,444,983	157,596	102,254	36,720	1606	7,566,770	34,698,630	18	82	18.33	0.13
1899	7,810,734	7,619,275	157,663	98,090	42,123	1515	7,280,851	35,925,271	17	83	18.30	0.14
1900	8,007,273	7,811,851	149,809	89,573	42,112	2009	7,428,980	37,300,826	17	83	18.10	0.13
1901	7,964,681	7,782,839	149,620	87,371	42,571	3013	7,322,999	37,712,996	16	84	17.88	0.14
Note:
The taxed export beers of Bremen are not included
Source:
Jahresbericht über die Leistungen der chemischen Technologie, 1903 page 446.

On a side note, you can see how barley was pretty much the only grain used. Which is interesting, as many of the old North German top-fermenting styles contained wheat. They were clearly being brewed in tiny quantities.

Rice was by quite a long way the most popular adjunct, though in comparison with barley malt, not a great deal was used. I'm surprised at how little sugar was used. It's such handy stuff. It would be great to have figures for how much sugar is used in German brewing today. I can't remember ever seeing statistics for that. The Deutsche Brauerbund probably isn't keen on advertising the fact German brewers use sugar. Even though they always have. (The Reinheitsgebot allows sugar in top-fermenting beers.)

Just for fun, I've calculated the average OG of the beers. I've based it on 80 brewers pound per quarter of malt. A hectokilo, the unit used in the table, is just about exactly two hundredweight, or two-thirds of a quarter. You can see that it looks much like modern German beer, strength-wise:

year	average OG
1882	1049.1
1887	1048.7
1892	1046.4
1883	1047.4
1894	1046.4
1896	1045.3
1896	1045.1
1897	1044.5
1898	1044.0
1899	1044.0
1900	1043.5
1901	1043.0

Was gravity really falling or were they just getting more from the malt? I'd suspect the latter, but could be wrong.