Tuesday 4 February 2020

Belgian beers 1839 - 1898

This is a sort of companion post to my recent series about Belgian beers in the 19th century.

Turns out I have rather more Lambic analyses than I thought. Though, sadly, only three give the level of acidity. Unsurprisingly, it's pretty damn high in all three examples.

What is a shock is the strength of some of the examples of Lambic. Only two of the seven are below 6% ABV. Even all the Faro is above 5% ABV. The strongest Lambics are almost 10% ABV - way, way stronger than any modern version.

Knowing how it was produced, the extremely high level attenuation is to be expected. All the bugs would have eaten through just about anything fermentable. The attenuation is particularly impressive if you know that before 1900 most continental beers were below 70% apparent attenuation.

Gerstenbier, in case you're wondering, is the same as Bière d'Orge. It's just the Dutch-language version of the name.


Belgian beers 1839 - 1898
Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation Acidity (%) pH
1839 Unknown Lambic 1085.1 1011.5 9.72 86.49%
1850 Unknown, Brussels Lambik 1058.4 1013.2 5.89 76.39%
1850 Unknown, Brussels Faro 1051.2 1011.2 5.20 77.17%
1850 Unknown, Louvain Petermann 1069.6 1015.6 7.06 76.47%
1870 Unknown Faro 1055.1 1013.5 5.41 75.50%
1871 Unknown Lambic 1070.7 1008.7 5.60 86.95% 1.06 3.37
1872 Unknown Lambic 1059.7 1003.3 7.42 94.47%
1889 Unknown Lambic 1088.2 1011.1 9.71 86.46% 1.11 3.36
1889 Unknown Faro 1055.9 1012.6 5.41 76.47% 0.9 3.4
1890 Unknown Lambic 1061.4 1003.3 7.43 94.63%
1890 Unknown Faro 1055.4 1013 5.41 76.54%
1898 Unknown Lambic 1059.4 1003 7.43 94.95%
1898 Unknown Faro 1054.5 1012.9 5.41 76.32%
1898 Unknown Gerstenbier 1048 1002.5 5.96 94.79%
Sources:
"Bericht über die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie während des letzten Jahrzehends" by August Wilhelm von Hofmann, 1877, page 382
Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie by Justus Liebig, Johann Christian Poggendorff, Friedrich Wöhler, 1858, page 1038
"Bericht über die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie während des letzten Jahrzehends" by August Wilhelm von Hofmann, 1877, page 382
American Handy Book of the Brewing, Malting, and Auxiliary Trades by Robert Wahl and Max Henius, Chicago, pages 823-830
"Handbuch der chemischen technologie" by Otto Dammer, Rudolf Kaiser, 1896, pages 696-697
Brockhaus' konversations-lexikon, Band 2 by F.A. Brockhaus, 1898 http://books.google.de/books?id=oZ5PAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA999&dq=bierdruckapparat+konversationslexikon#PPA1000,M1

1 comment:

Jeff Renner said...

The 5.60% abv for the 1871 lambic can’t be right for 1070.7 OG 1008.7 FG.