Tuesday 1 June 2021

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.


 

14 comments:

Chris said...

I'm from Stuttgart. Few know there was a hop region south west of Stuttgart till the 1970s with its own hops. The region was called Rottenburg/Weil der Stadt. It can be find on the map in Karl Hennies "Brauer Handbuch" for example (you quote the book on your european beer guide) The most famous hop was the "Rottenburger Spät". Luckily it survived somehow and is cultivated again. So RO at Heineken maybe stands for Rottenburg

Anonymous said...

"I’ve no idea what “R” “Ro” or “Rand” might be."

South Africa maybe? Ro for Rhodesia.

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,

pretty sure it's not Rhodesia. Did they even grow hops there?

Ron Pattinson said...

Chris,

that sounds a possibility for the ones where it says "R" or "Ro". Not for "Rand", though.

Chris said...

In the hop reports of this period 1934 and later there's "Raudnitz" listed as one of czech hop regions. They also use "Randstaaten" as a term for some occupied countries as Norway, NL, Belgium etc in the german hop reports. But I don't think Heineken would use it in their blogs 38/39.

Yann said...

A for Alsace was my first guess too, it being my home region... But it's Elsaß/Elsass in German and Elzas in Dutch, so that wouldn't match.

Cheers,
Yann

Anonymous said...

Shot in the dark here, could rand refer to "randstaat"/"randstaaten"? That is, if the word is also used in Dutch. The English word is apparently limitrophe state/states. Refering in this case to the border states, or in some cases "states" (some more or less independent than others), inbetween Germany/Poland/Russia at the time. There was hop growing and exports of hops in that general area at the time. So perhaps a case of hops being labeled by their general geographical origin? Again, just a shot in the dark without more information.

Chris said...

Last one for Heineken hops. Browsing through the log 39/40. The word before the letter of origin could also stand for the hop distributor Heineken bought the hops from, I guess. Seems like in Alsace f.e. they have more than one distributor in that year. With the logs you can always check the current stock and the quality of the used hops in the different batches.
Hope I could help you a little bit. As a enthusiastic home brewer I've learned so much. your work is just incredible.

Chris said...

Hop areas around 1938 with A -at least in german writing- Aischgrund (near Nürnberg), Aucha (Czech/ Sudetenland) and Alost (Belgium). How they called in Dutch? Aucha was around 25% compared to Hallertau harvest.

Chris said...

Can't stop thinking about the Heineken hops. I quote sure that the first word stands for the hop distributor. "Kra" stands for "Krakenberger", "FO" stands for "Forchenheimer". Two of the biggest hop distributor those days. With hop houses in Aucha and Raudnitz, I think A stands for "Auchaer Hopfen" and "Raud" = "Raudnitzer Hopfen"

Ron Pattinson said...

Chris,

you're probably right about Krakenberger and Forchenheimer. The hop descriptions are in two parts, first the distributor and then the region of origin. I know this from one which says "Barth Hall.". Barth still being big in the hop business today.

Chris said...

1939/40 in Oktober they write for batch 82 they wrote "Aus" (p.101). I'm quite sure this stands for "Auscha" how it is written in german (dutch?). So "A" stands for Auscha

Chris said...

Full german namen was "Raudnitz an der Elbe". As there is a blank between "R and." it also could be a short form of the full name. Hard to say after all these years.

Ron Pattinson said...

Chris,

I'm pretty sure you're correct that "Aus." stands for "Auscha", so "A" probably does, too.