Vienna Lagers

Since there has been discussion of historical Vienna Lager beers in this thread I am guessing that folks would be interested in knowing that the Anton Dreher Vienna Lager of 1869 had an original gravity of 1.062 and a final gravity of 1.019 which would yield a calculated ABV of 5.64%.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=Iv...IMTAB#v=onepage&q=gravity Vienna beer&f=false

Cheers!

@Crusader @patto1ro @jesskidden

 

Maybe?

Have you tasted Stiegl Goldbrau? If so, what are your thoughts?

Cheers!

 

Ah Pilsner Urquell was what they were all trying to achieve... I think I'm gonna go and drink one right now actually, git a couple in my fridge.

 

Randy, JK discussed this topic in a past thread:

"I don't know what malt(s) a pre-Pro US brewer would have used for their Vienna beer, but in 1934 Rahr Malting recommended these specialty malts to make a US Vienna beer (quantities per barrel):
5 lbs. - High Dried 3.0 Lovibond
1 lb. - Medium Caramel
½ lb. - Dextrine Malt"

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/samuel-adams-boston-lager.196003/page-3#post-2614824

Needless to say but no mention of corn in that above recipe.

Cheers!

 

FWIW, that is consistent with my recollection of my drinking experience of Stiegl Goldbrau.

Cheers!

 

I think that, in most cases, it is safe to suppose that any US-brewed lager (as well as most ales) in the pre-Pro era wasbrewed with 6-row malt and an adjunct - unless otherwise stated to be "all malt" by the brewer of course. There were cases (Anheuser-Busch the biggest) in which a brewer disparaged "corn beers" while at the same time using rice.

Which leads us to some Repeal era ads for the aforementioned Coors Export Lager, in which they draw a distinction between “corn and malt beer” and “a true barley malt beer” and then state:

The post-Repeal "Nugey" US beer formulas doesn't list one for a Vienna beer (or an all malt lager, for that matter, either), but did
define the style as:

I've discussed this with @Crusader, and IIRC we both agree that the "Austrian" influence on lager brewing in Mexico is over-emphasized. (Sure, perhaps their was still some lingering demand on the consumer end). Most sources have Mexican lagers first being brewed in the late 1880s-1890s, with many US brewers (sure, often German/European trained, just like other US lager brewers) working in the breweries. It wouldn't surprise me if the Vienna-ish lagers in Mexico were first developed by US ex-pat brewers based on similar beers being brewed in the US. Rice also seems to have been the primary adjunct used in Mexico at the time.

Yeah, but there are no adjunct listed for any of the "recipes" in that Rahr publication - being a maltster, they were only giving suggestion on what sorts of their specialty malts a brewer should add to their basic recipe to create those beer styles - they did not list amounts of the base malt or adjunct.

 

The only one that I like as much as Eliot Ness is Short's Totally Noche.

 

Just to make sure, do you have any specific information that US brewed Wiener beers pre-prohibition used adjuncts to brew those beers?

Cheers!

 

No I have not. I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks.

 

To weigh in here on some things regarding the Austrian beers.

I lived in Salzburg for six months some time ago, so Stiegl was my go-to beer. I would say that it is closest to a Munich Helles, rather than a Vienna. Not really all that hoppy except for the hallmark Stiegl sourness, fairly dry and prickly. It makes sense to be Munich-styled, as Salzburg has always been somewhat closer to Bavaria than Austria culturally. I would reckon that the closest thing to a Vienna by them is the Herbst, which by the name, is an autumn seasonal brew, but for that reason it could like an Oktoberfest. I haven't tried that one, since I wasn't around for that part of the year unfortunately.

There aren't a lot of Vienna Lagers floating around Austria anymore, unfortunately, except for some rarer varieties that aren't distributed well. Ottakringer Wiener Original is meant to be fairly close, but I was never really fond of it despite liking other Vienna Lagers. Schwechater, apparently the brewery of Anton Dreher himself, makes a good Vienna Lager I enjoyed quite a bit, but I think only some supermarkets like Merkur stock it. Unfortunately that particular brewery's rather cheap and generic Euro Lager is much more widely available.

Overall Austrian beer-naming designations are weird. Like how Gösser and Zipfer call their main beers a Märzen although I think it's far too pale like most Euro Lagers to be considered Märzen at all.

 

Nope - but as you know, the use of adjuncts in the US Pre-Pro era was very seldom referred to on the label or in advertising (unless the beer was "all malt", which was relatively rare), so one would need actual recipes to prove it one way or another.

Likely, some of the US beers just referred to a "lager" or "beer" in a brewer's portfolio (esp. ones with a number of different lagers) were loosely of the Wiener/Vienna style. It is pretty much a given that the majority of US "pale lagers" were brewed with adjuncts and that designation covers the Wiener beer.

 

Come on Mr Kidden. Everybody knows that Blind Pig IPA was the first beer brewed in the US.

 

Thank you for confirming that.

Cheers!

 

I agree with that statement but as we know there were exceptions like the original Michelob lager beer.

Cheers!

 

I really liked your post, but keep in mind that Marzen isn't necessarily a term that implies a color even though it is often used as such (as opposed to simply a strength class let's say). When American fans use the term, color is almost always part of the equation, but I think that reflects the overall American homebrew/craft approach to style terms and how they use them - typically grounded in a selective reality. So for example, it wouldn't make sense (to me at least) if an American critic claimed that this German beer was doing it wrong:



To your point, I have read that Austrian Marzen tends to be relatively light in color while also using caramel malt.

 

Märzen has meaning as a strength class in Germany. I am uncertain whether that applies to Austria.

Perhaps Ron (@patto1ro) can provide additional insight here?

Cheers!

 

Well, sure there were many all-malt lagers of several different styles from many Pre-Pro US brewers, that's why I qualified my statement by writing "...the majority of US "pale lagers" were brewed with adjuncts...". Or as Prof. Dr. Adolf Cluss wrote in his Recollections of America and its Brewing Industry [1911]:

His book's primary example of an all-malt brewer being Piels Bros. - which does not appear to have not brewed a Wiener Beer, but did offer Dortmunder, Münchener, Pilsener, and Kapuziner.

And of all the other notable all-malt brewers I find none off-hand that claimed to brew an all-malt Wiener Beer. Doesn't mean they didn't exist (I'd assume some did) I just have no confirming evidence of one either way. Just not a lot of info on US-brewed Wiener beers, compared to Bohemian/Pilsner and Bavarian style beers brewed in the US.

Yeah, I keep forgetting. Named in honor of an Indian restaurant that delivered to the brewery any time of day, just outside of Santa Rosa, California, IIRC?

 

Feels like Austrian style guidelines are about as clear as mud. Not like I really care. I like what I've had, so I can live without properly classifying them