Meibier in 1939

I’m not sure how many breweries participated in the Meibier experiment, but at least six did. Of these six, five were located in the Randstad, that is the large cities in the West of Holland. The exception being Grolsch, which was close to the eastern border with Germany.

The ones for which I have analyses all look generally similar to each. They’re generally towards the lower end of the recommended gravity range, all but two being under 16º Plato. The attenuation is a little lower than for Pils, leaving them mostly at around 6% ABV, though ZHB’s example is a little less than that.

There is a fair bit of variation in the colour. I’m not exactly sure which colour scale Heineken was using. But in other analyses, Pils is around 0.4-0.5, Donker Lagerbier 7.5 and Münchener 10.3, and Bok 13-16. Meaning even the palest Meibiers were darker than Pils, but the darkest were still far short of being brown.

Meibier in 1939
Brewer	Town	OG Plato	FG Plato	ABV	App. Atten-uation	Colour
Grolsch	Groenlo	16.03	4.77	6.03	71.53%	0.85
ZHB	Den Haag	15.91	4.85	5.81	70.82%	0.92
Amstel	Amsterdam	15.66	4.35	6.03	73.43%	2.2
Oranjeboom	Rotterdam	15.78	4.44	6.05	73.09%	2.1
Van Vollenhoven	Amsterdam	16.43	4.95	6.13	71.20%	1.3
Heineken	Rotterdam	15.83	3.84	6.40	76.86%	2.1
Source:
Rapporten van laboratoriumonderzoeken naar producten van Heinekenbrouwerijen in binnen- en buitenland en naar producten van andere brouwerijen hels at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document number 834 - 1794.