Posting silly things on Facebook …

So what waas the cream of tartar for? Was this a sodium bicarbonate impregnated water, and adding Weinstein gave a fizz to the Horner?

German historical orthography is fascinating, but to try to bring this back to the main point, does anyone know anything about Horner Bier, either the original or the modern recreation?

Since this post went up I’ve found more results in Google Books. It sounds like Horner Bier might have been made from only oats (and potassium bitartrate, see below), no wheat, which would agree with Ron’s theory and thus make it a Weißbier which is not a Weizen.

From Neuestes Conversations-Lexikon (Wien, 1829): “das weiße und säuerliche, in Wien beliebte, Horner Bier wird aus Hafer und Weinstein gebraut.”

It says Hafer, or oats, with no mention of wheat. Forget about movies: Weinstein should be cream of tartar, aka potassium bitartrate.

Here’s another Google Books result, from Der Scheidekünstler im Brau- und Brennhause (Frankfurt am Main, 1816):

“Das Resultat dieser Arbeit ist nun ein weißes hopfenloses Bier, ein wahrer Broihan, wie es im Hannövrischen, in allen den Ländern von Nordheim his nach Hamburg, in Berlin, und selbst in Wien unter dem Nahmen Horner-Bier so vielen Beyfall findet.”

That’s comparing it to Broihan or Broyhan, and saying it is without or largely without hops. Another result which gives only a snippet view says it is made with “weniger Hopfen.”

Someone has to have some info about this beer. Where’s Conrad Seidl when you need him?

I think there is plenty of evidence that wheat beers came out of Bohemia but you have to be careful about equating weiss/white with wheat. Per usual, Ron Pattinson has the best explanation:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2008/03/weissbier-and-braunbier.html

Balling’s first name probably doesn’t have anything to do with 20th century language reform: as I wrote, Balling’s name was spelled both Carl and Karl in the same book from 1865. In Czech it’s Karel, of course. Given that he lived in Prague but spoke German, I imagine the local preference for K over C influenced the orthography. I’m going to stick with Carl in English, at least for now.

“perlend” means sparkling and not pearlescent.

For Carl or Karl Balling. I guess it’s might be Carl and changed to Karl after Germany has reformed its spelling rules in the beginning of the 20th century. A lot of German words changed from C to K because they were pronounced as K anyway.

cheers,
Maik