Tuesday 23 June 2009

19th-century Munich beer (part two)

As promised, more Munich numbers. All the way to the letter Z.

More exciting beers today, I feel. Look at all those Salvators. God, they must have been chewy. Look at the crap degree of attenuation - not much more than 50%. No wonder the monks used it as a food substitute.

In case you're wondering who Zacherlbräu is, it's now known as Paulaner. Brewers of the original and genuine Salvator.


Fed up with numbers yet? Good. There will probably be more tomorrow.

4 comments:

Bill said...

The low attenuation I would assume is due to the yeast and not the killing of the fermentation at a high gravity. I don't believe there are commercial yeasts available to homebrewers today with such low attenuation but it would be fun to brew such a chewy beer.

Bill in Oregon said...

Nothing better than numbers and tables, but what do you expect from someone whop buys and reads reference books. Thanks.

castempress said...

It's about more than just the yeast. The mashing schedule and the composition of the malt probably have a lot to do with it as well.

If you have poorly modified, relatively low-enzyme malt and/or a mash schedule that encourages bigger sugars, then even the most monstrous yeast available is going to choke on the wort fairly early.

If you look at the low attenuation for the turbid Belgian mashes a hundred or so years ago, a lot of that was because the mash procedure denatured most of the enzymes early on.

Ron Pattinson said...

I've always assume the low attenuation was mostly due to the malt. The ones with the crappest attenuation are the dark Munich beers.