Tuesday 16 September 2014

Westphalian and Hessian Lagerbier 1879 - 1893

Had my obsessive side passed you by, the current flood of Lager might have surprised. A regular reader would expect the unrelenting tsunami of tables. If such a beast as a regular reader exists.

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:

BryanB said...

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?

A Brew Rat said...

"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?

Ron Pattinson said...

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.

Ron Pattinson said...

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.

Jeff Renner said...

Images, please, Ron.

BryanB said...

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.