Remember me saying the other day that someday I might be arsed to harvest the Far East beers from Heineken's Gravity Book? Against all expectations, I actually did get off my arse and do the work. At least the stuff from 1939 and 1940. For some reason there's then a big gap until 1946. I wonder why that might be?
I now realise that Heineken were financially involved in many of the breweries whose beers they analysed. The list from 1946 is longer than in the 1939 annual report.
Sint Servatius Bierbrouwerij N.V., Maastricht;
Polar N.V., Maastricht; (soft drinks)
Distilleerderij en Likeurstokerij P. Hoppe N.V., Amsterdam;
Van Vollenhoven’s Bierbrouwerij N.V., Amsterdam;
Brasserie Leopold S.A., Brussel;
N.V. „Cobra”, Amsterdam;
Malayan Breweries Ltd., Singapore;
Archipelago Brewery Cy. (1941) Ltd., Singapore;
N.V. Heineken’s Nederlandsch-Indische Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij, Soerabaja;
Nederlandsch Indische Glasfabrieken „Niglas” N.V., Soerabaja;
Heineken’s Curacaosche Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij N.V., Willemstad;
S.A. des Bières Bomonti & Pyramides, Cairo;
Crown Brewery S.A., Alexandrië;
Société Internationale de Brasserie (Interbra), Brussel;
Brasserie de Leopoldville Sté Cong, a r. 1., Leopoldville (Belgisch Congo);
Bouteillerie de Léopoldville Sté. Cong, a r. 1., Leopoldville (Belgisch Congo);
The Nigerian Brewery Ltd., Lagos;
minor investments:
Brasseries & Glacières de l’Indochine, Saigon;
Société des Brasseries du Maroc, Casablanca;
Société des Brasseries de l'Ouest-Africain (Soboa), Dakar;
Palestine Brewery Ltd., Rishon-le-Zion;
S.A. Brasseries de la Meuse, Parijs.
Heineken annual report 1946, page 5.
Pretty much all the beers are Pilsners with one exception: those from Singapore are all Stouts. Not sure why that was.
In addition to breweries with which Heineken was financially entangled, there are a few from others involved heavily in the export trade to the Far East: Tennent, Allsopp and Carlsberg. Plus, weirdly, a Swiss-owned brewery in Accra, Ghana, the oddly-named Overseas Brewery.
| Foreign beers analysed by Heineken | |||||||||||
| Date | Year | Brewer | Town | country | Beer | Style | Colour | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
| 24th Jun | 1939 | Malayan Brewing | Singapore | Malaya | Tiger Stout | Stout | 44 | 1088.0 | 1017.6 | 9.14 | 79.96% |
| 24th Jun | 1939 | Archipelago Brewing | Singapore | Malaya | Lion Stout | Stout | 66 | 1082.9 | 1012.0 | 9.25 | 85.54% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Leopold | Brussels | Belgium | White Star | Export? | 0.41 | 1056.0 | 1010.2 | 5.90 | 81.77% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Leopold | Brussels | Belgium | Bock | Bok | 0.37 | 1048.3 | 1008.8 | 5.09 | 81.85% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Leopold | Brussels | Belgium | Pilsen | Pils | 0.65 | 1028.5 | 1008.5 | 2.70 | 70.28% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Leopold | Brussels | Belgium | Stout | Stout | 30 | 1068.9 | 1023.3 | 5.95 | 66.16% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Heineken | Soerabaja | Indonesia | Pils | Pils | 0.42 | 1049.9 | 1009.7 | 5.15 | 80.46% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Heineken | Soerabaja | Indonesia | Rex | Pils | 0.32 | 1050.7 | 1009.6 | 5.29 | 81.10% |
| 21st Nov | 1939 | Heineken | Soerabaja | Indonesia | Java | Pils | 0.35 | 1050.4 | 1011.1 | 5.05 | 77.94% |
| 27th Dec | 1939 | Bomonti & Pyramides | Cairo | Egypt | Stella | Pils | 0.39 | 1051.2 | 1010.8 | 5.19 | 78.80% |
| 27th Dec | 1939 | Bomonti & Pyramides | Cairo | Egypt | Pilsner | Pils | 0.43 | 1048.3 | 1009.6 | 5.00 | 80.07% |
| 3rd Jan | 1940 | Malayan Brewing | Singapore | Malaya | Tiger Stout | Stout | 0.38 | 1049.4 | 1010.6 | 4.99 | 78.52% |
| 3rd Jan | 1940 | Carlsberg | Copenhagen | Denmark | Pilsner | Pils | 0.58 | 1049.7 | 1011.4 | 4.89 | 76.99% |
| 3rd Jan | 1940 | Allsopp | Burton | UK | Pilsner | Pils | 0.6 | 1044.1 | 1008.7 | 4.56 | 80.29% |
| 3rd Jan | 1940 | Cascade | South Hobart | Australia | Special Lager | Lager | 1.2 | 1049.8 | 1018.5 | 3.98 | 62.74% |
| 17th Apr | 1940 | Allsopp | Burton | UK | Pilsner | Pils | 0.62 | 1044.7 | 1008.6 | 4.64 | 80.72% |
| 19th Apr | 1940 | Tennent | Glasgow | UK - Scotland | Pilsner | Pils | 0.55 | 1049.2 | 1010.0 | 5.04 | 79.72% |
| 19th Apr | 1940 | Overseas Brewery | Accra | Ghana | Club Lager | Lager | 0.65 | 1050.7 | 1010.3 | 5.19 | 79.69% |
| 19th Apr | 1940 | Carlsberg | Copenhagen | Denmark | Pilsner | Pils | 0.6 | 1049.6 | 1011.8 | 4.93 | 76.26% |
| Source: | |||||||||||
| Rapporten van laboratoriumonderzoeken naar producten van Heinekenbrouwerijen in binnen- en buitenland en naar producten van andere brouwerijen held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1794. | |||||||||||
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5 comments:
It is interesting that they have OGs for breweries they don't have an interest in. I'm curious if that is due to some kind of deduction and calculation, publicly available information, or if brewers were willing to share their records.
Anonymous,
as the title says, these were beers analysed by Heineken in a lab. Even for their own beers, the information doesn't come from brewing records.
I admit I'm unclear on how much a lab in 1939 could know vs. how much they have to assume . I would guess that it's fairly straightforward to look at FG and ABV for a beer that is likely to be almost all pale malt and calculate the OG. It's not as clear to me how sophisticated the analysis would be if a beer had a lot of odd adjuncts and they didn't know a lot about the yeast. I could be wrong about sophisticated they were in pulling out the types of sugars and other elements remaining in a finished beer, I admit.
Anonymous,
I have amalyses from over 100 years earlier. The early method was pretty simple: boil off the alcohol to work out the ABW and calculate the OG from that and the FG. It's not particularly complicated. It's irrelevant what the ingredients were. Sometimes they'd also work out the dextrose content, but mostly not.
Interesting that the Leopold pilsen is such a weak beer. Though not that surprising, as oddly, before WWII 'pilsen' was usually some kind of table beer in Belgium. Bock was the stronger blond lager, just after WWII it was Export, and only in the 1950s would pils(en) come to mean the average 5% ABV blond lager in Belgium.
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