Monday 22 June 2009

19th-century Munich beer

I haven't posted enough tables recently. What do you mean, you hadn't noticed? Fewer than five in a week and I don't consider I'm doing my job properly.

There are two features of the beers that stand out: low degree of attenuation, modest ABV. The average attenuation is 66.53% - way less than modern lagers. Though it should be borne in mind that these are all dark beers.


This is the sort of stuff that's in "Numbers!". Hence the book's title. I've still loads more. If you're good, there will be more Munich numbers tomorrow.

1 comment:

mentaldental said...

It's often quite noticeable with "old" recipes/beers that the degree of attenuations seems low. I wonder if this was deliberate? The high mash temperatures in old brewing books would certainly account for it but were they used to keep attentuation down?

On the other hand there is the yeast. Presumably old brewers knowledge of yeast and ability to control it was less that contemporary brewers but were yeast strains selected for low attentuation or is this the best that was possible?

I recently made a 1055 IPA which was mashed at 70°C which is the sort of mash temperature you see in old books. The attentuation seems to be headed towards the 66% mark which suggests the mash temperature may have been more significant than the yeast strain.