Let's begin with doubt. I'm not sure what these analyses teach us. Just as well that's not my main reason for publishing them. It's mostly to do with identifying the regional groupings.
In the source, there's a heading to identify beers of a certain region. I don't have that luxury. Each beer is a row in a spreadsheet that I sort into all sorts of different orders. You can forget headers. The rows get shuffled all over the place.
Sorry to bother you with this. Me finding handy places to park stuff I don't want to lose.
When you have as much crap as I do - writings, research material, photos - you have to keep in some sort of order. To be able to find it back. That's why my self-published books exist. So I can keep track of what I've written.
Now I've got that out of the way, on with the beers. First those from Westphalia. As you can see, they're mostly from Dortmund.
Westphalian Lagerbiers 1879 - 1893 | ||||||||||
Year | Brewer | Beer | Style | Acidity | OG | FG | OG Plato | ABV | App. Atten-uation | |
1879 | Unknown | Dortmund | Dortmunder | Lagerbier | 1049.1 | 1015.1 | 12.21 | 4.40 | 69.25% | |
1884 | Unknown | Marienborn bei Sigen | Lagerbier 2 bis 3 Monat alt | Lagerbier | 0.184 | 1051.0 | 1011.3 | 12.66 | 5.16 | 77.84% |
1884 | Barmer Aktien-Brauerei | Barmen-Rittershausen | Lagerbier | Lagerbier | 0.161 | 1053.0 | 1019 | 13.13 | 4.40 | 64.15% |
1887 | Westfalia-Brauerei | Münster | Lagerbier Dunkel | Dunkles | 0.317 | 1053.0 | 1015 | 13.13 | 4.94 | 71.70% |
1893 | Löwenbräu | Dortmund | Lagerbier | Lagerbier | 0.27 | 1055.0 | 1012.0 | 13.60 | 5.60 | 78.18% |
1884 | Gebr. Meininghaus | Dortmund | Lagerbier | Lagerbier | 0.02 | 1056.0 | 1013.8 | 13.84 | 5.49 | 75.36% |
1887 | Westfalia-Brauerei | Münster | Lagerbier Hell | Helles | 0.302 | 1056.8 | 1013 | 14.03 | 5.70 | 77.11% |
1884 | Victoria-Brauerei | Dortmund | nach bömisches Art | Lagerbier | 0.118 | 1059.0 | 1017.5 | 14.54 | 5.39 | 70.34% |
1884 | Victoria-Brauerei | Dortmund | goldfarbig Lagerbier | Helles | 0.152 | 1062.3 | 1019 | 15.31 | 5.62 | 69.50% |
Average | 0.191 | 1055.0 | 1015.1 | 13.61 | 5.19 | 72.60% | ||||
Source: | ||||||||||
Chemie der menschlichen Nahrungs- und Genussmittel by Joseph König, 1903, pages 1102 - 1156 |
My guess would be that most were pale in colour. The one described as "nach böhmisches Art" almost certainly is.
In terms of gravity, they mostly look right for Export, though the source describes them as Lagerbier. I'd expect 13º to 14º Plato, which is what most of them are, with the average 13.6º Plato. At 72%, the attenuation is better than for most of the Lagerbiers we've looked at. Odd, because you'd expect attenuation to be worse in the stronger Export. The high gravity and relatively high level of attenuation mean that the average ABV is the highest so far, 5.19%
At almost 0.2%, the level of lactic acid is again rather high. Two samples have acidity over 0.3%. That's the sort of level you'd expect in a Stock Ale or aged Stout. I'm still trying to get my head around levels like that being in Lager.
Now the Hessian Lagerbiers. They're sort of from Hessen. Or they were back in the 1890's. But today Schmalkalden is in Thuringia. I must confess that I didn't notice. Dolores pointed it out to me when I asked if she knew where it was. She does, because she grew up not that far away. It's weird that so many samples are from Schmalkalden. It's not a huge town - the population now is only 20,000. Yet from the much larger Kassel, there's only one.
Hessian Lagerbiers in 1893 | |||||||||
Year | Brewer | town | Style | Acidity | OG | FG | OG Plato | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
1893 | Bühner | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.211 | 1044.5 | 1012 | 11.11 | 4.21 | 73.03% |
1893 | H. Wiegand | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.137 | 1045.1 | 1013.2 | 11.26 | 4.14 | 70.73% |
1893 | Messerschmidt | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.262 | 1045.4 | 1012.5 | 11.33 | 4.26 | 72.47% |
1893 | Kaufmann | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.271 | 1045.5 | 1012.0 | 11.35 | 4.35 | 73.63% |
1893 | C. Wolff | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.137 | 1045.9 | 1014 | 11.45 | 4.14 | 69.50% |
1893 | Falk | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.218 | 1046.0 | 1013.3 | 11.47 | 4.24 | 71.09% |
1893 | Cramer | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.232 | 1046.3 | 1013.7 | 11.54 | 4.23 | 70.41% |
1893 | Wwe. Köhler | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.152 | 1047.1 | 1014 | 11.74 | 4.29 | 70.28% |
1893 | Ritter Sauer | Hersfeld | Lagerbier | 1048.1 | 1011.3 | 11.97 | 4.79 | 76.51% | |
1893 | G. Wolff | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.270 | 1048.3 | 1011.0 | 12.02 | 4.85 | 77.23% |
1893 | Hessische Aktien-Brauerei | Cassel | Lagerbier | 0.185 | 1048.3 | 1012 | 12.02 | 4.71 | 75.16% |
1893 | Rückert-Siemen | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.179 | 1050.0 | 1018 | 12.42 | 4.14 | 64.00% |
1893 | Lederer | Marburg | Lagerbier | 0.14 | 1051.4 | 1015.5 | 12.76 | 4.65 | 69.84% |
1893 | Wwe. Lesser | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.232 | 1051.5 | 1014.2 | 12.78 | 4.84 | 72.43% |
1893 | A. Wiegand | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.148 | 1051.7 | 1009.8 | 12.83 | 5.46 | 81.04% |
1893 | W. Engelhardt | Hersfeld | Lagerbier | 0.179 | 1052.6 | 1015.7 | 13.04 | 4.79 | 70.15% |
1893 | Missomelius | Marburg | Lagerbier | 0.21 | 1057.0 | 1013.2 | 14.07 | 5.70 | 76.84% |
1893 | Kühn | Schmalkalden | Lagerbier | 0.137 | 1060.3 | 1017 | 14.84 | 5.63 | 71.81% |
1893 | Missomelius | Marburg | Lagerbier | 0.097 | 1060.6 | 1015.0 | 14.91 | 5.94 | 75.25% |
Average | 0.189 | 1049.8 | 1013.5 | 12.36 | 4.70 | 72.70% | |||
Source: | |||||||||
Chemie der menschlichen Nahrungs- und Genussmittel by Joseph König, 1903, pages 1102 - 1156 |
The Hessian Lagerbiers have a much lower average gravity than the Westphalian ones - more than 5 points lower. Though they share a similar degree of attenuation, about 72%. Though the average seems about right for Lagerbier, some at the bottom end are a bit weak and the top two far too strong. Again, the average acidity is on the high side.
The table fun just doesn't end today. I've put together a table to compare the average values for Lagerbiers from different areas.
Bohemian, German and Austrian Lagerbiers | ||||||
Beer | OG | FG | OG Plato | ABV | App. Atten-uation | lactic acid % |
Bohemian Dark Lagers 1890 - 1895 | 1044.4 | 1014.2 | 11.09 | 3.91 | 68.13% | 0.172 |
Bohemian Lagerbier 1876 | 1046.2 | 1013.3 | 11.51 | 4.26 | 71.25% | 0.130 |
Bohemian Pilsener 1880-1890 | 1049.0 | 1013.6 | 12.18 | 4.59 | 72.09% | 0.212 |
Bohemian Pale Lagerbier 1880-1890 | 1049.2 | 1014.9 | 12.22 | 4.44 | 70.06% | 0.140 |
Hessian Lagerbiers in 1893 | 1049.8 | 1013.5 | 12.36 | 4.70 | 72.70% | 0.189 |
Dresden Lagerbiers 1878 - 1880 | 1052.0 | 1013.4 | 12.90 | 5.01 | 74.37% | |
Lower Austrian Lagerbier 1876 | 1053.3 | 1017.0 | 13.20 | 4.70 | 68.17% | 0.140 |
Hannover region Lagerbier 1878 - 1891 | 1053.4 | 1015.6 | 13.22 | 4.90 | 70.81% | 0.134 |
Nürnberg Winterbier 1887 | 1053.6 | 1016.4 | 13.28 | 4.82 | 69.30% | 0.232 |
Westphalian Lagerbiers 1879 - 1893 | 1055.0 | 1015.1 | 13.61 | 5.19 | 72.60% | 0.191 |
You can see that the Hessian ones slot in just above the Bohemian ones. They're quite a bit weaker than any of the other German ones. While Westphalian Lagerbiers are, on average, the strongest. Not sure what the table tells us, other than that gravities were low in Bohemia.
Not sure what's next. Erfurt, maybe.
6 comments:
As you say, these were probably all blond (or at most amber) lagers. Does the books lisy any non-lagerbiers, any Alts, Braunbiers or Landbiers say?
"At almost 0.2%, the level of lactic acid is again rather high. Two samples have acidity over 0.3%. That's the sort of level you'd expect in a Stock Ale or aged Stout. I'm still trying to get my head around levels like that being in Lager."
Would acid rests produce that level of acid?
BryanB,
the book has pretty much every type of beer in it. Though you won't find anything called Landbier. That's a recent invention.
A Brew Rat,
I've no idea.
Just looked at some Berliner Weisse analyses that had lower levels of lactic acid. It's very odd.
Images, please, Ron.
Oops, I think I meant to say Kellerbiers - Landbier is just a marketing term, not a style. It's like those signs outside UK pubs touting "Fine Country Ales" or somesuch.
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