Comments on: Pre-Lager Lager Brewing in the Czech lands

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:19:40 +0000

This is a great article, but there’s something I don’t understand: why did someone need to get permission to use bottom-fermenting beer in 1420, before the reinheitsgebot? This sounds reasonable, but I’m wondering if you know what the laws surrounding beer production before that were.

And, my impression was that brewers didn’t knowingly add yeast, or indeed know what was going on. If that’s true, how was the permission asked for & granted? Or is my impression wrong?

Thanks,

Karen

By: Velky Al

Velky Al — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:01:32 +0000

I find it interesting that the phrase translates as the “English Lands” rather than England – I know plenty of Czech mind who refer to all of the UK as “Anglie” or England.

By: Martyn Cornell

Martyn Cornell — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:07:24 +0000

It’s a mystery to me, too … I know of no hint that English berwers used anything othert than top-settling yeast. The recent genetic studies in lager yeast point firmly towards the idea that cold storage of beer came before cold-loving yeasts developed, and as Ron says, English brewers went for warm (or ambient) storage.

By: pivero

pivero — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 14:34:26 +0000

Great article! Very well researched.
I’ve always taken the claim of breweries having been stablished somewhere in the Middle Ages with a pinch of salt, but not only because of the products, but because in many cases production was stopped sometimes for decades.
I think breweries that have been pretty much in the same place since the 14th-15th century, and have been brewing all the time, do have a legitimate claim. The beers they make now are indeed different from those back then, but that is just because products tend to change and evolve (sort of) with time and market conditions. Still is a bit of a marketing gimmick, much like those German beers that claim to be brewed according to the Reinheistgebot of 1516. But not as bad as the “gold medals” on many labels of beers from around the world, those are really hilarious.

By: Evan Rail

Evan Rail — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:00:31 +0000

I’ve only got the 1801 Czech translation of Poupě’s 1794 German original. This is before the Czech language reforms of the nineteenth century, so the spelling is different.

It reads:

“Otázka Kde se waři piwo na spodni kwasnice? Odpověď Po celé baworské a Englické zemi…”

which could literally render as “throughout whole Bavarian and English land.”

Interestingly, I just found a reference to bottom-fermentation in Richard W. Unger’s “Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), in which he suggests that bottom-fermentation might have arrived in Bavaria from Bohemia, not the other way around.

“The typical yeast used in Europe in the Renaissance was the type that rose to the top. In 1420 a brewer in Munich got permission to use yeast that fell to the bottom and regulations from Nuremberg suggest that bottom yeasts which had been identified and to some degree isolated were already in use in the fourteenth century. It may be that the practice started in Bohemia since before 1485, Bohemian workers came to Munich to brew beer in what was called the Bohemian manner.”

By: Ron Pattinson

Ron Pattinson — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:29:09 +0000

The difference between top- and bottom-fermentation was already known in the 18th century. That it was usually called “the Bavarian method” of fermentation says a lot.

I’m pretty certain there was no bottom-fermenting in Britain before 1800. Britain has the wrong climate and lacks sufficient natural ice for cold fermentation to have been practical. I’ve no idea where the author got the idea from. What does it say in the original? “English lands” is a really weird way to refer to Britain.