Circa 1944- Lambic Lager Beer

Jack,
The seventh word in Patrik's post is "article." It appears as a clickable link that directs us to the book in reference.

 

It was an excerpt from Volume 13, Issue 4, July-August 1907.

Link to the abstract page: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1907.tb02196.x/abstract

And here is the link to the main page for the archive: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2050-0416

 

Doh! I must be going color blind; I did not take note that the word “article” was the link.

That article was very interesting to read! It was well written with lots of good information in there. In your original post I was a bit confused by the mention of cold conditioning of an ale. I know that it was in the context of brewing a Cream Ale (or as the author states: “Sparkling Ale”).

Cheers!

 

It's funny, with threads like these I always just scroll down until I see your icon.

 

Thanks very much for that. Great article. And a new process new to me.

Not sure I understand why you'd move it around cellars rather than just cooling it where it was.

That site is a wonderful source with articles written by some of the greats of brewing science. Just search for Brettanomyces and see what you get.

 

“Not sure I understand why you'd move it around cellars rather than just cooling it where it was.” I am unsure of the state of refrigeration technology of 1907 (are there any refrigeration historians out there?) but maybe it was easier to simply maintain a refrigerated temperature for a given cellar:

· Cellar 1: 45°F

· Cellar 2: 35°F

· Cellar 3: 30°F

If you added the beer to single Cellar you would need to be able to ‘control’ the temperature to perform the cooling steps and maybe this control was not easy (or inexpensive) in 1907?

Cheers!

 

According to Wahl & Henius "American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Aux. Trades" blending different batches was simply called "Vatting" and they referred to it as an English method (quoting the author of the UK's Handy Book for Brewers, H. E. Wright):

As such, the terminology of "Multiple Vatting Process" seems redundant -since "vatting" involves by its very definition more that one vat/batch - and why it strikes me as more "PR" than actually a different/unique process of Doelger.

So "vatting" is simply blending - still pretty common in brewing today (even AB does it for consistency of Budweiser), although mixing old and new beer isn't as common as it once was. Mostly because few 'craft' brewers age a significant amount of beer in-house for very long. In "barrels" - yeah, but most won't tie up large multi-barrel casks or tanks for months or years.

As for Doelger, it would seem that refrigeration technology in the late 30s would have allowed them to ferment and age at various temps. within one tank, rather than going through the trouble and expense (extra empty tanks, constant cleaning) of moving beer from tank to tank.

 

Guinness used to blend like that. Except they blended three elements: aged beer, young beer and heading (high-gravity, fermenting wort sort of like Kräusen).

 

And guess who else blends like this? Gueuze producers. Maybe they traveled to Europe or read somewhere that there was a blended, sparkling beer in Belgium called Lambic and decided to use the name for marketing purposes.

 

I don't believe that Lambic brewers use fermenting wort as part of their Gueuze blend.

 

Well, technically the oude lambic is just more fermented than the junge.

 

"Heading" was a high-gravity wort that had only just started primary fermentation.

 

Looks like "Lambic" was simply used as an adjective to connote a stronger beer. Also - nobody seemed to notice the green writing "FREEDOM" printed behind the red writing. Was this something brewed to commemorate WWII with a tie-in to Belgium.

 

I'm reading "PREMIUM".

Color removed, and contrast adjusted for legibility:

 

Yeah, PREMIUM. Don't think anyone was "commemorating" WW2 yet in 1944.

 

Oops. I guess I'd better go for that eye checkup.

 

Belgium was liberated in 1944, several months after D-Day.

 

And the Battle of the Bulge was fought through Belgium from late 1944 thru early 1945 -- and half of the US Army didn't know where Belgium was -- Not a whole lot of celebrating until Spring of 45.

I suppose that if Peter Doelger was of Belgian descent he could have had something to celebrate in September of 44, but I imagine most would wait until victory was clinched.

 

We'll never know for sure, will we?