Most “Historical-Tasting” AAL?

I found a few different advertisements from a German language paper from Pennsylvania in the late 1860s-early 1870s. The first one is from December 1866.

"Lucas König's
City Beer brewery
Chestnut street, inbetween 2 and three.
Harrisburg, Pa.
The brewery is equipped with all the newest improvements and is set up to satisfy all orders inside and outside of the city for excellent sommerbier and schenkbier."


The next one is from December 1872

"JJ Sprenger's Brewery, Chestnut Street, inbetween 2 and 3.
(formerly König's brewery)
Harrisburg, Pa.
I hereby give notice to an honorable public, that I have taken over the above mentioned brewery. From this week forward I will present to my visitors a good, substantial and wholesome self-brewed Schenkbier, for which neither malt, or hops have been spared, and through which I will give proof to the inhabitants of Harrisburg, that it is not because of the "water", that no genuinly good beer is made in Harrisburg. (not due to the quality of the water anyway, but rather the quantity: too much is hurtful sometimes)."


Next one is from March 1873:
"New
Lager beer brewery!
Gustav E. Reichmann hereby give notice to the esteem public, that he has purchased the brewery which was previously owned by Mr. Leonh. Schütz in Middletown, Pa. The brewery is equipped with all of the newest improvements and is set up to satisfy all orders for excellent sommer and schenkbier within and outside of the city."

The ads read like they could be from a Bavarian newspaper of the same time period and were clearly aimed at German immigrants and German speaking Americans, using the terminology in use in Bavaria at the time. Would an English language ad have been written differently? I suspect as much. Not many English speakers would have known what sommerbier was, or schenkbier for that matter.

 

Patrik.

You have many times discussed “schenkbier” in this thread. Perhaps it would be helpful to summarize this concept for others (including me).

Schenkbier as brewed in Germany

My understanding of what a schenbier as brewed in Germany in the 1800’s is:

· Lower Original Gravity value (e.g., 10.5 °P)

· Fermented with a lager yeast

· Sold younger (i.e., not cold conditioned as long as Lagerbier)

· Higher attenuation

· Typically brewed during the winter months

Is the above list correct? If not, please let me know where I am off.

Schenkbier as brewed in America (by German immigrant brewers)

I am guessing that you are hypothesizing that there may be an ‘overlap’ between the use of the term “schenkbier” in America with the beer style of Common Beer (or ‘Present Use’ Ale) available in America in the 1800’s.?

Are you thinking that the beers the immigrant German brewers were detailing as “schenkbier” were brewed with ale yeast strains with the intention of being consumed young?

Cheers!

 

It's pretty much in line with what Häcker describes a decade later. I found a description of life in Milwaukee from the 1840s written by a German who writes:

"There exists several breweries established by Germans which, even when they are run small and incomplete, still give to the proprietor a handsome profit, since the German population of the city takes care of the consumption of this substance valiantly. Lager beer breweries do not exist, due to a lack of capital and cellars, even though the latter could be constructed quite well in the clay soil with brickwork. Providing a good top fermented beer, would be that much more profitable here, since besides consumption in the city one can count on shipments to Southport, Chicago etc. against cash payments, this advantage could be further enhanced by the cheap price of wood (a Klaster costs up to 1.25 Dollar) and by the use of machines. A barrel of beer (circa 128 Prussian quarts) is made from 100 pounds malt and 1½ pound hops and sold for 5 Dollars."

A lack of capital and naturally occuring cellars might go some way towards explaining the adoption and retention of top fermented common beer in some areas. It probably took some time to save up money to invest in the cellars needed, and some might have been more risk averse than others, prefering the less risky venture of selling common beer.

 

You're in the ballpark. My list would look like this for Bavarian schenkbier:

Lower original gravity than lager beer but not substantially lower (Austrian schenkbier was lower OG, I suspect due to more punitive Plato based taxation)

Fermented with a bottom fermenting yeast

Sold young - stored in a cold cellar for x number of weeks as opposed to x number of months

Low attenuation, due to a short secondary fermentation during the colder months of the year

Brewed from September 29th until sometime in April and sold and consumed throughout this period (lager beer was sold from May first until it ran out in late autumn)

My thinking is that schenkbier in America was bottom fermented, as a complement to lager beer just as it was in Bavaria, and that American common beer was top fermented. However, I suspect that in some English language sources what is called common beer, was in actuality bottom fermented schenkbier, because it would make more sense to an English speaker reading it. And just to be clear here, the only such instance as of yet that I suspect this of is that list of production numbers for St Louis breweries for the years 1857-1858.

 

For some context to the number above and some food for thought I gathered some interesting excerpts from Richard Braungart's book Der Hopfen: aller hopfenbauenden Länder der Erde als Braumaterial from 1901. His overall thesis was that, at the time, modern technology in the form of ice cellars starting in the 1840s and onwards, and later artificial ice production and artificial cooling in the late 1800s had had a large impact on the beer being produced, primarily that which was being produced by the largest, and thus the most advanced breweries. Primarily as it pertained to the role of hops in the brewing of lager beer.

Here's a list of conversions between degrees reaumur (R) used in the excerpts and fahrenheit:

5R=43.25F
6R=45.5F
7R=47.75F
8R=50F
9R=52.25F
10R=54.5F
11R=56.75F

I found the pictures below of Swedish lager cellars to be interesting, and fitting, in showing on the one hand a cellar cooled with ice blocks in an adjacent room, and then another cooled with more modern artificial cooling where it appears as though the barrels and some of the pipes are partially covered with frost.

 

I loved Schlitz Gusto a great deal. I drank some of the regional and old man beers later in their history. The continuous brewed Schlitz was very inferior to the Gusto. When Gusto became available in Eastern Tennessee, I bought a lot of it. As someone who began drinking regularly in the early 1990's (and quite earlier on before legal age, when things were more lenient). I got to enjoy Sterling, Schlitz, Falstaff, Little Kings, Andeker, Lowenbrau, Miller Reserve, Falls City, Weidemann, Schaefer, Ballantine, and a few other departed or heavily different beers. And some of the ones which stayed available haven't been the same like Pabst Blue Ribbon, Stroh's, Michelob, Budweiser, and others. I used to as a teenager occasionally repair coin operated arcade games in the city of Athens, Tennessee on summer vacation there, lots of more electronic pinballs, jukeboxes, and videogames. Many location owners once I repaired them, would offer me beer if it was a bar. And I could usually have any beer i wanted, was very well paid. I occasionally enjoyed one. I was well versed on digital logic when many route technicians were learning to cope with them. Different times, different attitudes. Things were more lenient if you didn't go overboard or make a fool of yourself. These older times was when Tennessee was an 18 drinking age.

 

We were 16 going into bars in Trenton, MADD wasn’t invented yet, if you got caught by the police they sent you home for the night, as long as you didn’t look like trouble or start any trouble they took your money. Act like a fool you get tossed out and maybe caught a smack too. It was 21 then, then it went to 18 and our draft cards were out ID, t age 18 everyone had to register for the draft even though the draft days were well over.

 

Still the law... although I expect compliance is pretty low.

 

Really, I had no idea. Seriously Nam was still going on when I applied but it was an easy ticket into about any NJ bar, so we were happy to do so, but we didn’t mess in PA.

 

As a longtime homebrewer I assure you a recipe is not enough to get an idea. We once had about 50 brewers brew the exact same recipe, with ingredients from the same supplier and none of the beers tasted the same. Over the years barley has changed, malts have changed, hops are different today and who know what they used for yeast 100 years ago. Brewing technology is different today-all of these things make the beers of today different.

 

Were you part of the Realbeer.com group brew, I think it was an English bitters?

 

I was not. I don't know if I even remember the event.

 

My club did something similar. Malt, hops, yeast were identical. Water, brewing process, equipment, and fermentation control were all what the individual homebrewer would do making the beer. The beers were judged using BJCP guidelines and judges in the club. The end result was a 20+ point spread in the scores.

 

40 or 50 of us collectively created a recipe, Austin Homebrew made the kits for us(all grain and extract versions) and somebody created a distribution database so that every participant sent 2 bottles to 4 people. The results were areal eye opener.

 

Man, I really don't recall that. Would have been fun to see the results. Maybe it was after I left RB.

 

Jeff (@hopfenunmaltz) basically beat me too it but permit me to emphasize the aspect of process. We brewers made a myriad of brewing process decisions when we produce our beers. Some of those process decisions are explicit (e.g., mashing regime choice, mash temperature(s) choice, mash pH value, how we build our brewing water, fermentation choices (yeast pitch rate, fermentation temperature profile,...)) but there are many little things we decide (some unconscientiously) and in aggregate they will make a noticeable difference as well.

The above is true for both homebrewers and commercial brewers. I have heard a commercial brewer state that he once was going to document all of his brewing steps (when to turn knob A, what setting to apply to control step B,...) but he quickly gave up since it was just a too time consuming thing to do.

Cheers!

 

A final remark on this table. In the book "Lost Caves of St. Louis" the author notes on page 77 that in 1858 Pittsburg brewery was making 3000 barrels of lager and 2000 barrels of "schnek", two years later production was 8000 barrels (the total found in the table above).

On page 78, of the Jackson brewery he notes that in 1858 the brewery made 1000 barrels of lager and 1000 barrels of "schnek", two years later the numbers had dropped to 900 and 600 barrels of "common beer" (the totals found in the table above).

Of the Gambrinus brewery he notes that in 1858 the brewery made 4000 barrels of lager and 2500 barrels of "schnek", but by 1860 the production had fallen to a total of 2500 barrels (the total found in the table above).

And of the Stumpf brewery on page 65 he writes that in 1858 they made 5000 barrels of lager and 3000 barrels of "schnek" annually.

I suspect that this schnek is actually schenk misspelled. Interesting also to note how production of lager and schenk in one year can be turned into lager and common beer two years later in the case of the Jackon brewery.

 

Haven't the large macro brewers done this, though?

They make exactly the same beer time after time and at all breweries around the globe.

Automated equipment needs to know exactly what to do and when and with how much and at what temperature and for how long, what it is measuring for, and how to adjust.

 

This thread makes me want a can of Schlitz right now. A beer we despised as kids would flip my switches today.