Dutch Lager Styles 1870 - 1960 (part three)

The first Dutch Lagers
The Lagers initially brewed in Holland were called Beiersch and were in the Munich Dark Lager style. Munich beers were the prototypical Lagers and it was only when bottom-fermenting techniques spread outside Bavaria that Lagers began to be brewed in other hues.

Dutch  Beiersch was roughly the equivalent of a Munich Sommerbier or Lagerbier. It had a gravity higher than Pilsener – 13º to 14º Plato, was less lightly hopped and more poorly attenuated than Lager of the Pilsener type.

Gerstebier was originally a top-fermenting style, but Heineken used the name for a cheap and cheerful type of Lager.  Baartz, of Oranjeboom in Rotterdam, described Gerstebier in 1884 as "although a bottom-fermented beer, it is of a low gravity and not lagered, and is a beer quick to make for a significantly lower price" ("een weliswaar ondergistend bier, maar van licht gehalte en geen Lagerbier, maar een bier van snelle confectie en tot belangrijk lager prijs").*

Though this may well just be sour grapes on the part of Mr. Baartz. From other sources it seems that Gerste Bier was lagered.

Gerste Bier was brewed with Heinieken’s D strain of yeast, while the posher beers were brewed with their A strain, the one they still use today.

Beers called Vienna or Wiener – both Amstel and Heineken brewed one at some point – were presumably amber in the Austrian style.

Culmbacher, named after the Franconian town of Kulmbach, was a style brewed in several countries when Lager first began to spread from Central Europe. It was a very dark, almost black, Lager which was hopped at three times the rate of Munich Lagers.

Hopping rate per 100 pounds of beer
place	beer	lbs hops
Munich	Sommerbier	4
Munich	Winterbier	2.3
Bamberg	Sommerbier	8
Bamberg	Winterbier	4.4
Kulmbach	Sommerbier	12
Kulmbach	Winterbier	4
Karlsruhe	Sommerbier	7
Karlsruhe	Winterbier	2.9
Bohemia	Sommerbier	3.3
Bohemia	Winterbier	2.2
Prague	Sommerbier	4.4
England	Porter	12
England	IPA	32
Scotland	Ale	12
Source:
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für öffentliche Gesundheitspflege, Volume 2, 1870, page 276.

Dortmunder, or Export, was originally slightly higher gravity than Pils and not as heavily hopped.

The Culmbacher and Vienna styles didn’t last that long in Holland.


Early Pils
The first mention I can find of Dutch-brewed Pilsener is from 1879. It wasn’t brewed in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, but in Amersfoort:

Het Nieuws van den Dag, 15-10-1879, page 4.

The first advert for their Pilsener I can find is dated 5th March 1879.





* "Korte Geschiedenis der Heineken's Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij N.V. 1873 - 1948", by H. A. Korthals, 1948, page 96.