Grätzer comes alive

Remember me making some comments in my post about Grätzer Breweries that I was looking at Grätzer again for a reason? I'm going to tell you what the reason was.

It's another one of my projects. In fact the day I'm going to write about sort of included two of my projects, but more of that later. Let's take it one project at a time. The Grätzer project is what I'd started on. It's a collaboration between Michel Ordeman (of Jopen), Alice van der Kuijl, Sebastian Sauer, Evan Rail and me. We've brewed up (the brewers at Jopen have to be completely accurate) brewed up not just a Grätzer but also a Grodziskie. I know, same thing, different language. But we have made a disticntion between the two.

This is starting to get like a memory test. Do you remember me posting about Grätzer containing white willow bark? It sounded too good an idea to pass up. We were already wondering whether we should call the beer Grätzer or Grodziskie. The solution was simple: brew one with willow bark and the other without. Then we get to see what effect the willow bark has, and we can have both a Grätzer and a Grodziskie.

I'm going to go out on a limb here. I think they're the most authentic Grätzer/Grodziskie to have beeb brewed commercially since the brewery in Grodzisk closed in 1993. Why? Because we managed to put together all the key elements of the beer. The recipe is pretty simple. 100% smoked wheat malt and 100% Lublin hops. Now here's the really important bit: fermented with the real Grodzisk yeast strain.

When the brewery in Grodzisk closed in 1993, the head brewer was farsighted enough to send a sample of the yeast to a lab in Poland to be preserved. Somehow, Pivovarský Dům in Prague (a brewing institute as well as a brewpub) got hold of the yeast, too. They have samples of all sorts of yeast, so it isn't that odd. Evan Rail arranged for them to culture up enough to brew several batches and drove from Prague to Haarlem with 3 kegs of yeast in the boot of his car.

The beers have been brewed to the classic 8º Plato strength, with a good dose of hops to balance out the smoke. I can't wait to try them. I'm still kicking myself for never tracking Grodziskie down in the early 1990's when it was still being brewed in Groszisk. This should make up for that terrible ommission.

Exciting, isn't it? The beers were brewed the first weekend in October. Being low gravity, they'll be ready pretty soon. Just another couple of weeks. It'll be a very special day when I take my first sips. Knowing me, gulps more like. I'll be sure to let you know they taste.

That other project? While we were at the Jopenkerk for the brewing, we tried some Porters brewed from historic types of brown malt. I've been working with Ben Heaven for a while on the3 malts. I say working with, but really he does all the work. Kilning the malt (using straw as a fuel sounds pretty scary) and brewing beer with it. I just cheer from the sidelines. He seems to have cracked making diastatic straw-kilned brown malt. Do you know what that means? For the first time in a couple of hundred years it's possible to brew an 18th-century London Porter. What could be more thrilling than that?

Danziger Joppenbier

I'm always a happy as a pig in muck when I find a new, weird, extinct beer style. Danziger Joppenbier fits my excitement requirements perfectly.

Spontaneously fermented, immensely high gravity, an extremely slow fermentation, an ridiculously long boil. It scores highly in the odd stakes. It sounds like it might be a relative of Braunschweiger Mumm, except with more alcohol.

"Danziger Joppenbier.
Joppenbier is in many respects very interesting. It is made from a highly concentrated wort - the Saccharometer degree is about 49 percent.

From 1000 Kg malt and 5 Kg hops approximately 10.5 HL beer is produced.

The mash is made by the infusion method and the wort which is drawn off is - to obtain the specified concentration - often boiled more than 20 hours. The wort is cooled down to down to 12.5 º.

The fermentation is a so-called sponataneous fermentation. Fermentation usually begins in July - although it is the same whether the beer is brewed in January or April. The wort is first covered with a thick blanket greenish-white mould; when the mould spores are in sufficient quantity to force their way into the wort and to grow to a very characteristic yeast, then the fermentation begins, which only in September subsides enough so that the beer becomes clear and can be drawn off. The attenuation is during this period up to only about 19.

The resulting beer is dark brown, extremely rich (but here also partly arises from not broken down glucose) and sweet - the smell is pleasant (which is probably a consequence of the extremely slow fermentation). It is not possible to drink much Joppenbier - it is full-bodied, extremely suitable for mixing with other beer and is also for such purpose exported to England.

The clear beer can be left a year in the vat on the yeast without being damaged - of course, however, the degree of attenuation will increase."
"Schule der Bierbrauerei" by G.E. Habich, published in 1865, pages 402 and 403.

I'm assuming the gravities mentioned are Balling. That makes the OG about 1196 and the FG 1076. Even more than the craziest Scotch Ale. The hopping rate, at only about half a kilo per Zentner malt (or per hectolitre beer), is very low. About the same as Berliner Weisse, which usually has no hop character at all. My guess is that Joppenbier tasted pretty malty.

How Joppenbier relates to Jopen Bier, I'm not sure. The latter was an early type of hopped beer, which, if I recall correctly, originated in Hamburg. There is currently a version of Jopen Bier brewed for the Dutch market in Belgium.

Here's confirmation that most Joppenbier (or Jopenbier) was exported to Britain:

"Danzig. The demand for Jopenbier was very limited, as in the English manufacturing distrcts, the main sales locations for this article, most workers were unemployed because of the American war. The sale price was 70 fr. per 1/4 T. free on board. Manutactured were 22300, exported 24300 1/4-T. Value of 56700 Th; of the shipped amount a great part was sent to England on credit and stored there unsold. The stock at year-end was 8000 1/4-T.""Preussische Statistik" 1863, page 101.

Tomoorrow much more about Dantzig Black Beer. Much, much more. Really.