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Friday, 18 June 2021

Heineken (Rotterdam) hops in 1940

I’m afraid that the hops will be more confusing than revealing. A combination of poor handwriting, odd abbreviations and my lack of comprehension leave me mostly guessing wildly at to what they might be.

I’m only certain about the last two entries in the table. They’re definitely Hallertau. A could stand for Auscha, a hop-growing region in Czechoslovakia. In which case they would be something akin to Saaz. By this point, of course, Czechoslovakia was also occupied by the Hermans. As for Bacha, I’ve absolutely no clue.

Before the war, Heineken seemed to use mostly German hops which meant little changed after the outbreak of war. It would have been a different matter had they been accustomed to employing English or American hops.

Heineken (Rotterdam) hops in 1940
Date Beer Style hop 1 hop 2
14th Nov Do Donker Lagerbier Be LA 1939 Bacha 1939
8th Nov Li Licht Lagerbier ?? 1939 Bacha 1939
8th Nov P Pils A 1938 A 1939
8th Nov Bei Münchener H 1939  
10th Jul Bok Bok Barth Ha 1939  
Source:
Heineken brewing record held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1759.


 

6 comments:

  1. Chris18 June 2021 at 00:57

    Bacha could stand for Backa, the german name in the 1930er for the hop region in Vojvodina. It has its own hop sorts, the so called "Backa Hopfen"

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  2. Chris18 June 2021 at 09:12

    Think the "LA" on 14th Nov is the brewers poor handwriting. Also hop 1 for Li. I would go for "Sa" as it looks like for 183 and 187 when another brewer wrote the logs. So it's maybe Saazer.

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  3. Anonymous18 June 2021 at 14:24

    I am pretty firmly convinced that large swaths of the recorded history of recent generations will be lost forever due to the pernicious influence of cursive writing.

    Advanced AI will be able to drive flying cars and predict the weather to an accuracy of a 100 yard radius in 10 minute intervals. But it will be helpless in reading love letters of famous authors, old brewing records or the recipe cards of grandmothers from 1952.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ron Pattinson20 June 2021 at 03:21

    Chris,

    interesting about Backa. Do you know what that variety is like?

    Saazer would make sense. It's hard to read some of the handwriting at all.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chris23 June 2021 at 07:29

    Backa is on the group of aroma hops. Some say the genetics are near the original Saazer. But the hop oil composition is the one of the Hallertau Mittelfrüh. As the hop prices hat fallen dramatically, they coundn't sell the backa hop in Vojvodina. So they brought it to Nuremberg in order to sell the hop there. Guess one of the reasons the backa finally came to Heineken.

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  6. Chris23 June 2021 at 07:33

    As the origin isn't clear, one of backa's parents could also be an old hop variety from Vojvodina

    ReplyDelete