Heineken beers in 1939

Heineken had a pretty simple range at the start of WW II: a pale and a dark full-strength Lager, a pale and a dark Schankbier-strength Lager, an export Pils and a Bok. With the standard Pils being by far their biggest seller, accounting for around two-thirds of their production.

The Pils was pretty typical for the style. A touch under 12º Plato, and 4.7% ABV. Though, if you look at interwar labels, the strength is given as 5% ABV. (Holland was unusual in having the ABV listed on beer labels in the interwar period.) Yet it was always really 4.7% ABV. I assume they were exploiting the tolerance for error allowed on the ABV to the maximum. A trick still performed by large breweries today.

The hopping rate of the Pils at 0.2 kg per hl is lower than you might expect for a hop-accented beer. It’s the equivalent of around 4.5 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt and 0.75 lbs per barrel. To put that into context, in the same year Barclay Perkins Standard Mild, X Ale, was hopped at 7 lbs per quarter of malt and 0.95 lbs per barrel.

Heineken’s other full-strength Lager, Beierische, was obviously intended to be in the Munich style. It actually pre-dated their Pils, having been one of their first bottom-fermented beers. By the late 1930s its popularity had faded and it was brewed in modest quantities.

Beierische was lightly stronger than Pils both in OG and ABV. It was even more lightly-hopped than Pils, though that was in keeping with the intended style. I’m not sure what colour scale they were using. Based on the colour of the Pils, it looks about the same as old Lovibond or EBC, so about double SRM. Which would make it a little on the pale side for a Münchener.

Licht Lagerbier look much like a light version of Pils. Session Pils, I suppose you could call it. The hopping rate per 100 kg of malt is a little bit higher than that of the Pils, but roughly similar. As you would expect, the colour was a little paler.

Donker Lagerbier was more lightly hopped, but of the same strength as its pale sibling. The colour being the same as Beierische.

Export Pils was much the same as the standard beer, just being a little hoppier. In fact, it was the most heavily hopped of all their beers.

Finally, there’s Bok, a seasonal beer only available in the Autumn. It must have had a reasonable amount of lagering. The example in the table was brewed at the beginning of August but wouldn’t have been on sale for at least another two months. It was by far the strongest beer of the range at 7% ABV. Which is why this is one of the last brews for several years. It wasn’t ever brewed during the occupation. It has the lowest hopping rate per 100 kg of malt of all their beers.

Heineken beers in 1939
Date	Beer	Style	OG Plato	FG Plato	ABV	App. Atten-uation	kg hops/ 100 kg	hops kg/hl	colour
26th Dec	Do	Donker Lagerbier	8.91	2.31	3.50	74.75%	1.10	0.13	15
11th Dec	Li	Licht Lagerbier	8.96	2.36	3.50	74.35%	1.37	0.16	4
12th Dec	Exp	Pils	11.86	2.93	4.80	76.16%	1.50	0.23	6
6th Dec	P	Pils	11.91	3.18	4.70	74.21%	1.33	0.20	5
7th Dec	Bei	Münchener	12.59	3.33	5.00	74.51%	0.98	0.17	15
7th Aug	Bok	Bok	17.14	4.44	7.00	75.36%	0.80	0.19	15
Sources:
Heineken brewing records held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document numbers 834 - 1758 and 834 - 1759.