Bygone beers

Stroh didn't convert their brewery to "Fire Brewing" until after they ordered a new brewhouse built 1912 - inspired by sending their brewery's superintendent/brewmaster Otto Rosenbusch to Europe for research, who saw the direct fired kettles "at the Municipal Brewery of Pilsen (brewers of Urquell)", according to Stroh historian, Peter H. Blum's Brewed in Detroit.

The fire-brewed flagship, released in 1914, apparently kept the name of Stroh's Bohemian Beer, while some of the other beers they brewed previously included a "low alcohol Brown Stout, amber Tivoli and XXX Pale" (Blum).

 

“1848

Many German citizens begin emigrating to America to escape widespread revolutions and war with Denmark. They bring with them a preference for all-malt lagers. At the time, many Americans still prefer lighter beers that include corn or rice in the recipe.

Nope, brewing with adjuncts of rice and corn was not popular in 1848. It would take another 20+ years before brewing with adjuncts became popular and that was a ‘tough sell’ since the German immigrant brewers (and others) were accustomed to brewing all malt.

Cheers!

P.S. I will leave it to another BA to point out the other errors.

 

Didn't realize that the switch over to fire heated kettles took place that late, that's interesting. I found this advertising poster below which was pretty cool, showing both the XXX Pale and Bohemian beer (I guess this would be right around the turn of the century by the looks of the bottles). Nice labels, though the Bohemian was probably intended to be seen as fancier with the clear glass bottle and all.

 

Well, this is nonsense:

The lager beer first brewed in the US was of the heavier "Bavarian" type and could be brewed as an all-malt beer with the available barley malt in the states. The use of corn or rice would be popularized by the German lager beer breweries in the US a few decades later, introduced to them by European-trained brewing scientists, as the brewers attempted to brew the even lighter "Bohemian" lager beers which were gaining favor in the Germany and other European countries with the six-row barley malt found in the US.

But the existing US ales of the period were not "lighter beers which (included) corn or rice". Just the opposite - "of much less specific gfavity: weaker" - as noted in a contemporary newspaper article:


Or, as 1933's History of the Brewing Industry and Brewing Science in America (Arnold & Penman) put it:

It was not uncommon for lager beer brewers and drinkers to claim that one could not get drunk on their beers. Here's a quote from August A. Busch in 1932, on the eve of Repeal:

 

Yeah, it's the kinda thing that "logic" (almost always a faulty way to "figure out" history ) would suggest that, like AB's "beechwood aging" or some other brewers (like a Piel Bros.) continuation of brewing "German style" all-malt lagers, Stroh simply continued to heat its brew kettles with a direct flame as the rest of the industry converted to steam-jacketed brew kettles.

Given the US industry's habit of looking for the "new, modern, efficient" methods, going "backwards" was pretty unusual for the period.

 

In a contemporary book from 1852 (page 20) describing the state of Pennsylvania, there is a brief mention of lager beer which I thought was interesting (the reference to glass mugs piqued my interest, being from the time period that it is).

At this point the lager beer was likely to be little reformed from the Bavarian type: brewed in winter and stored until the beginning of summer until it ran out in late fall. With schenkbier being offered in the wintertime as a short aged and less bitter beer, the two kinds of beverages being familiar to any German who had been drinking bottom fermented beer back in Germany. The lager beer having to be significantly stronger hopped and brewed to a slightly higher gravity than the schenkbier in order to last the long storage period and remain in as good a condition as possible throughout.

As we have discussed in the past, according to One hundred years of brewing, this Bavarian system of brewing was broadly maintained until the 1870s, when advances in refridgeration had made the division obsolete (as it had in Bavaria). What needs to be better understood by alot of people I think is that this Bavarian beer didn't simply disappear by the 1870s and become replaced by Bohemian lager, it continued to exist and travel along its own developmental path, but in an altered form. With the need of storing the beer for a long time removed the beer could be made to be lighter in flavor, the hopping could be reduced, the original gravity reduced (in other words, simply brew it as a schenkbier and not as a lager beer, yet still call it a lager beer), and the color lightened by using a lighter kilned basemalt and or abandoning the use of roasted malt, all in an effort to suit the changing tastes of beer drinkers.

The same process took place in other countries as well where Bavarian beer was introduced in the 1840s and Bohemian type beer in the 1870s. The Bavarian type lager beer often became known as simply "lager beer" in contrast to "Pilsener", even though the Pilsener lagerbier that was being emulated was also a lager beer. After the 1870s the successor to the Bavarian lager beer, the "Lager beer" of many a brewery, was clearly a different beer from that of the 1840s and 1850s, it had been reformed, and many new brands of beer would be launched to capitalize on this lost Bavarian heritage in the form of Münchener, Kapuziner, Kulmbacher etc. etc. in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The parallell paths of development taken by the Bavarian lager beer and the later introduced Bohemian or Pilsner beer should always be kept in mind I think. Bohemian beer didn't replace the Bavarian beer in the 1870s, it began competing with its reformed offspring. When Bohemian type beer achieved dominance in the US is I guess the big question.

Certainly in descriptions of the US brewing industry around the 1890s/turn of the century it seems that beer drinkers generally prefer Bohemian type lager, but it is also noted that it was different in one aspect compared with the Bohemian original, it was less bitter. So the new Bohemian type became reformed in America. Just as the US brewed Bavarian beer of the 1840s was likely close in character to the Bavarian original, and just as it changed by the 1870s and onwards, likely the original Bohemian style lager introduced in the 1870s was close in character to the Bohemian original, but at some point in the decades afterward it starts to change to suit the tastes of beer drinkers.

 

Yeah, it's funny how the modern day beer geek recognizes thousands (OK, maybe an exaggeration) of beer styles but in discussing US 19th century brewing history "lager beer" is good enough, with the implication that it was all the same.

I've often quoted from (and I'm about to do it again...) from the book 25 Years of Brewing (1891) by George Ehret - his NYC firm, Hell Gate Brewery, was the #1 US brewery in the 1870's, altho' soon after was surpassed by Pabst, and eventually Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz by the late 80s:

 

Loved Jack's New Albion. One of the first, that I can remember, that brewed both a Stout and a Porter.

 

Patrik, do you have a specific reference which details this? In the absence of a metric like IBUs, how can this be objectively detailed?

Also, as you well know, the other difference between American Pale Lagers (i.e., Classic American Pilsner, Bohemian) and Pilsner Urquell is the use of adjuncts (rice, corn) which would in all likelihood have provided a lighter body to the beer as well.

As to when CAP beers became more popular than all-malt lagers (e.g., Bavarian Lagers) that is an interesting question. Below is an extract from the article "The Evolution of North American Beer"

"There were two possible ways of achieving lighter color and lighter body: (1) more careful malting and (2) the use of other grains besides barley." Pabst began using small amounts of rice in 1874. In 1878, they turned to corn. The amounts of each varied, but by 1893, Pabst's standard beer began with one part cornmeal to two parts malt.

Cochran writes, "There were still some lovers of fine beer who preferred the old-style German product, and for these, several thousand barrels of pure malt beers, amounting to about a tenth of the total production, were brewed. The cost of materials for these brands due to the larger percentage of malt, and the use of more imported hops, ran as high as 80 to 100 percent more than for the standard product... Yet the great majority of Americans preferred this latter, cheaper type."

In 1899, in testimony before a Senate committee investigating adulteration of food products, a New York City brewmaster testified that he used only malt in 75 percent of his beers, but that he made another beer with the addition of corn grits. The committee chairman asked, "You have some customers that prefer that?" The brewer replied, "Well, I use it to meet competition. Some customers want a lighter beer because I can and do give it to them cheaper. The cost of production is less."

So, at some point the all-malt lagers were only at 10% of the total production of American beer brewed but I am uncertain what year that was.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for sharing, that is one of the WWII tidbits I was ignorant about

 

The quote (below) is from Thomas C. Cochran's 1948 history of The Pabst Brewing Co. (pg. 122):

he is referring to Pabst's production, not the overall production of lager beer in the US. (Pabst was marketing 11 different beers in 1901). A few years later, from 1911's Recollections of America and its Brewing Industry by Prof. Dr. Adolf Cluss:

Have never seen a US brewing historian try to estimate the percentage of all-malt vs adjunct lager in the Pre-Pro era.

 

Strohs signature

 

Anheuser-Busch has constantly changed the recipe for Budweiser, perhaps the most well-documented* has been changing the types of hops and the final IBU ratings.
BUDWEISER's IBU's in the post-Repeal era
1946 - 20
1970's - 17
1981 - 15
1980's - 14
1990's - 12
2012 - 7-8
(See my HOPS POST-REPEAL page for sources)

*Including the brewery itself, in an April 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal article,
After Making Beer Ever Lighter, Anheuser Faces a New Palate

You'd be hard pressed to find an American beer over 20-30 years old that hasn't been "tweaked". It'd be impossible for the US beer brands that date from the pre-Prohibition era given changes in agricultural ingredients, new methods and processing of those ingredients (malting, extracting and pelletizing hops, etc).