Heineken hops in 1939

Lots of Heineken full still to come. I have to wring even last drop of blood from their brewing records, given all the time I've spent on them.  

Just as well I don't have a job wasting loads of my precious time. It gives me the room to embark on even more ridiculously detailed research. It's reaping rewards. I'm shocked at how much I missed on my initial sprint through the records. Like the couple of batches of Bok brewed in the summer of 1940. Or the weird watering down practices later in the year.

Now let’s take a look at the hops Heineken employed.

Compared to the practice in UK breweries, the hopping is much simpler. More than half the beers only contained a single type. At this point that would have been very unusual in the UK. Most beers contained at least two types of hops, more typically three or more.

Another difference with the UK is the freshness of the hops. None are more than a year old. Whereas in the UK it wouldn’t be odd to see some hops two or three years old.

Unlike British brewers, Heineken do seem to have bothered to record the variety, or at least the region of origin. Only problem is, I can’t work out what they all are, between the cryptic abbreviations and crap handwriting. I’m pretty sure everything designated by an “H” is Hallertau, as in some examples it’s written as Hall. Or even written out fully as Hallertau. “A” could be Alsace. I’ve no idea what “R” “Ro” or “Rand” might be.

Using mostly German hops would turn out to be useful as the war churned on.

Heineken hops in 1939
Date	Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3
26th Dec	Do	Donker Lagerbier	Rand. 1938	Hallertau 1938
11th Dec	Li	Licht Lagerbier	R 1938
12th Dec	Exp	Pils	Ro 1938	Ro 1938	Belg
6th Dec	P	Pils	Fr. A 1938	Kra R 1938	Kra A 1939
7th Dec	Bei	Münchener	H 1938
18th Jan	Mei	Meibier	Kra H 1938
7th Aug	Bok	Bok	H 1938
Sources:
Heineken brewing records held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document numbers 834 - 1758 and 834 - 1759.