Kulmbacher: Strong, Dark, and Hoppy

"Munich Lager was hopped at a rate of 4 pounds per 100 pounds of beer. Bamberg beer contained 8 pounds, while Kulmbach beer had 12 pounds of hops per 100 pounds of beer. Feeding the details into brewing software, Munich Export comes out at 30 IBU."

Just curious, how do you measure pounds of beer, just using water weight, or slightly higher? It seems an odd reference point.

"Hopfenrösten" sounds interesting though. I wonder if that was a kind of "first wort" thing, although boiling it wouldn't be the same as steeping it at all.

 

Kulmbacher Monkshof is probably the reason I got into craft beer (microbeer at that time, 1980's). My college roommate knew about it from his dad and got me to buy some in the swing top bottles. Once I realized that beer didn't have to be pale yellow and fairly flavorless it was on. Article brings back memories.

 

I thought that interesting as well. It will definitely provide some isomerization, but would depend on the other details of the technique as to how much character it would impart, but those seem to be lost to time.

 

That sounds like an insane hop/water ratio, even by NEIPA standards. I think "pounds of beer" must be a typo.

 

Supposedly Schells recently released a Kolmbacher Export- I wonder how closely it correlates with what Ron has written.

 

That's what I thought, but I doubt it's a typo on Ron's part, maybe something in the original material he looked at. I don't know, I trust Ron Pattison. Hopefully he's got an answer.

 

Yeah . . . for the Munich lager that translates into 64 oz. of hops per approximately 12.5 gallons of beer (a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs). Even if you sub in gallons for pounds, that's still 64 oz. of hops in 100 gallons for the Munich, 128 oz. for the Bamberg, and 192 oz. for the Kulmbach.

Depending on how you add them, that's probably going to end up with higher than 30 IBUs, with more than 0.5 oz. of hops per gallon of beer for the Munich.

 

Hey @patto1ro, care to elaborate for the inquisitive posters above?

 

Good point. We should keep in mind however that hops used to be much less potent than they are today.

I wasn't wondering about the bitterness though, simply how they measured in pounds, which I'm assuming was actually a translation from volume - although I don't know. I've never seen beer measured in pounds but I'm not a beer historian, so maybe Ron, or even Jesskidden, or someone else might have some kind of answer.

 

Michael,

Below is information I found on this beer from Untapped:

“6.2% ABV 37 IBU

Added 03/22/18

Based on a recipe dated back to 1879 from upper Franconia, this dark, hoppy lager was a favorite that was often imitated by many breweries. Bock-like in strength, it asserts its dark color and pronounced hop bitterness.”

https://untappd.com/b/august-schell...g-series-no-12-1879-kulmbacher-export/2566132

The metric of “37 IBU” would seem to indicate this beer is a bit ‘light’ on the hops to be a Kulmbacher as detailed by Ron.

Maybe the Schell’s brewer (@bergbrew) can provide more insight here?

Cheers!

@Chaz

 

I thought some BAs might be interested in knowing that American breweries ‘back in the day’ (i.e., before Prohibition) produced Kulmbacher beers. For example Schlitz made a beer brand that they labeled Culmbacher (see in picture below).

I am sure that @jesskidden can provide more examples of American made Kulmbacher beers. And maybe he even has some brewing details like what sort of malt was used to brew these beers. I doubt that he would know what IBU’s they had since the IBU is a later 20th Century construct.

Cheers!

 

The lbs hops/lbs beer looks off. Craft brewers average 2.3 lbs/barrel. In 1898 Munich lowenbrau used around 1 lb/barrel and Sam Adams Lager uses about the same. A barrel is 30 gallons and a gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. A barrel of beer would contain roughly 240 lbs which works out to about 1 lbs hops per 100 gallons. Using the numbers in the article, Munich lager would have 9.6 lbs/bbl; Bamberg would have 19.2 lbs/bbl and Kulmbach would have 28.8 lbs/bbl. That is a humongous amount of hops. I suspect the author may have confused units of measure.

 

Any idea why Budweiser is listed among their brands there? The rest all seem like Schlitz made beers but maybe I am off on that. I know Erlanger was.

 

I find it interesting that they've spelled every town right, even Wiener, but not Kulmbach. I can find no reference to Kulmbach ever having been spelled Culmbach, nor does that seem very German to begin with. Of course these were German-Americans, so there must be a reason for it.

 

Yeah, and a few were brewed after Repeal, as well. Probably the most well-known/distributed and longest-lived being Blatz Culmbacher, which Heileman actually "revived" in the late 1980s when they built their Milwaukee "microbrewery" (now operated by MillerCoors' Leinenkugel). In California, Grace Bros. - a brewery that also grew its own hops and operated its own malt house - also offered one briefly in the '30s.

Of course, given the era, who knows how "authentic" the recipes were. Rahr Malting suggested this grain bill for a Kulmbacher right after Repeal (per barrel):

15 lbs. Munich
1½ lbs. Dark Caramel
1½ lbs. Black Malt
½ lbs. Dextrine
Balance Pale Malt for all malt beers.

Until Anheuser-Busch got done suing everyone*, the rest of the US brewing industry considered "Budweiser" a type of beer, not a brand name, just like Pilsner or Kulmbacher, etc. (Same for "Erlanger", for that matter- other brewers also used the term for their beers). And Schlitz wasn't alone in Milwaukee with one:

* Well, in the US, anyway, which was around the late 1960s when Dubois (PA) Budweiser disappeared after years in court (Pittsburgh Brewing Co. eventually bought the Dubois brand and settled with AB). Still not done with the lawsuits in the rest of the world.

 

The units that would typically be used in kilograms for the hops and hectoliter for volume (see below extract from the book American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades by Robert Hall & Max Henius, 1902 pg. 783).



Permit me to translate to English units from metric for the case of “Bavarian beer”:

0.3 kg/hl x 2.2 lb/kg x 1 hl/0.8 barrel = 0.825 lb/barrel.

This value of 0.825 lb/barrel is in the ballpark with Munich Lowenbrau at 1 lb/barrel.

Cheers!

@pat61

 

Jim, as you can read in JK's post above it was not just Schlitz that spelled Kulmbacher with a "C". So did Blatz:

 

JK, should that recipe you posted be for a 5 gallon batch? Those malt amounts are too low for a barrel (31 gallon batch).

As a FYI below is a recipe that Ron Pattinson posted on his blog a beer he labeled as “1879 Kulmbacher Export”. I assume this is for a 5 gallon batch.

1879 Kulmbacher Export

Munich malt 20L 15.25 lb

Carafa III 0.50 lb

Hallertau 60 mins 3.50 oz

Hallertau 30 mins 3.50 oz

OG 1065

FG 1018

ABV 6.22

Apparent attenuation 72.31%

IBU 80

SRM 30

Mash Kulmbach method

Boil time 90 minutes

pitching temp 48º F

Yeast WLP830 German Lager

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2017/07/lets-brew-1879-kulmbacher-export.html

The malt bill is fairly similar to the Rahr Malting recipe you posted – the bulk of the grain bill is Munich Malt (e.g., 15/15.25 lbs.). The Rahr Malting recipe has two types of specialty malts (Dark Caramel, Black Malt) while in Ron’s recipe he chooses to use just one specialty malt (Carafa III).

A person commented in his blog that using 15.25 lbs. of Munich 20L would be problematic in this recipe since it lacks diastatic power (DP) to fully self-convert. It would need to be a lesser percentage with another base malt which has high DP to ensure that the starches would properly convert during the mash.

Cheers!

 

“Pounds Per Barrel of Rahr Special Matls to Be Used for Popular Types of Beer” according to the maltster, leaving the amount (balance) of pale malt - or, obviously, adjunct if they so chose - up to the brewery.