LAGER FRENZY!

Entries categorized as ‘Brewing history’

Carl Jacobsen’s lager project

February 11, 2010 · Comments Off

From The Scotsman, February 1870. Showing that Carlsberg was not only exported to Scotland, it was also sold there.

That old man Jacobsen wasn’t too enamoured of his son’s ideas of importing lager beer to Great Britain is clear to see from the letters he sent to Carl while Jacobsen the younger was on his four-year stint around the brewing capitals of Europe.

With the attitude of ‘I’m sure you’ll grow out of it’ he referred to Carl’s plans to sell his beer as The Project, but seemed more pleased by his son’s embracing of the commercial skills he lacked. That didn’t mean he took him seriously, though 

But Carl had something. By March 1869, Theilmann had ordered another six barrels (Jacobsen only sent him three) and asked for more, for another distributor, Russell, but Jacobsen only had 15 available . Russell was also certain that Carlsberg Beer would sell and reckoned that he could easily sell the  2,200 barrels brewed for the following season . Theilmann even went so far as to suggest that Carlsberg Beer would be able to compete on the home market with Bass and Allsop’s Ales and Messrs. W&J Russell of Leith backed him up ordering first 50 and then a further 100 barrels.

By this stage it seems that even Jacobsen was beginning to believe in The Project and the sale of his beer in Great Britain - although only as much as he believed would sell and only at the quality (and maturity) he thought was suitable. He remarked in one of his letters of the alarming trend of delivering “half-matured” lager all year round.

 He did, though, draw the line of selling his beer in a “shop” in London. Far too awful to contemplate.

Categories: Beer · Brewing history · Carlsberg · Lager · UK lager

Letters from home to satisfy a brewer’s thirst

February 2, 2010 · Comments Off

J.C. Jacobsen's letters to his son reveal a wealth of technical brewing details

I’ve been digging into Carlsberg history again – more specifically the letters from J.C. Jacobsen to his son Carl. As a young man Carl was packed off to travel the breweries of Europe for four years as part of his apprenticeship in brewing. The letters published in Danish as Din hengivne Jacobsen (Your devoted Jacobsen) are a fascinating insight into not only the characters of J.C. and Carl, but also into the techniques and practices of brewing at the time (1866-1870).

On his sojourn, Carl gained access to some of the greatest breweries of the time – both on the continent and Great Britain. Zum Spaten, Weihen Stephan, William Younger, Allsopp, Bass, Ushers, Evershed, Barclay Perkins, Lovibonds, Truman and Whitbread all figure in the letters of the father to the son. Carl actually worked for some time in Wm. Youngers and Eversheds  Allsopp’sand had several interviews while in Burton with the noted brewing chemist Horace Brown

The letters illustrate Jacobsen’s thirst for brewing knowledge as he fires off letter after letter with questions about malting, mashing temperature, the cost and construction of pumps and corrugated iron, bottling and especially how English ales were brewed – Porter and Pale Ale in particular. His goal was to open a brewery for English-style beers to get a slice of the lucrative export market.

Some of his last letters in 1870 are with a desperate need for detail before Carl leaves Great Britain to return home:

Have you in Burton received reliable information about the degree of attenuation for Export Ale and Pale Ale in the larger breweries during the main fermentation and at the filling of casks? It is not necessary for me to call attention to how important it is to know the measurements one should achieve during fermentation.

Despite this demand for information about the brewing techniques used in Great Britain he never really got over his dislike of the taste of the beer. He writes about Bass:

Most of the beer types from Bass have, to my taste, far too much dry hopping. In some of the casks there was an unreasonable amount of hops. Is this necessary for its keeping abilities or is it only a matter of taste?

When Carl returned to Denmark he did in fact open a brewery for English styles, but was never convinced that it would take off at home. He preferred to export lager beer, which he considered excellent, despite his father’s worries that it wouldn’t travel well and damage his hard-won reputation.

Categories: Beer · Brewing · Brewing history · Carlsberg
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Lager. Did we jump or were we pushed?

December 13, 2009 · 1 Comment

Lager-market-share-1960s

Lager's market share rose rapidly as brewers spent money on production capacity and advertising (Source: The Economist)

At the end of November 1969, the British Labour government generously allowed a price increase of  ‘not more than 2d a pint’ to the brewing industry. There was little rejoicing among brewers; first because they had asked for double and second because the 2d increase was split two to one in favour of the retailers.

The Prices and Incomes Board was the main instrument of the government’s prices and incomes policy to rein-in inflation, but it was also one of the factors that helped spur the growth of lager.

British brewers at the end of the sixties were growing and consolidating. By 1969 the cost of brewing and retailing a pint had risen by over 15%, according to The Economist. At the same, time while beer volumes had risen by round 1% to 2% a year, it wasn’t enough to cover the capital needs for an industry that was rationalising production, refurbishing pubs and expanding overseas.

Brewers were concentrating on cutting costs by brewing centrally, distributing nationally and backing this with massive advertising campaigns. The number of breweries in the UK had fallen from 6,200 independently owned and managed breweries to 200. But the consolidation of ownership meant that these breweries were managed by only 100 different companies.

Keg beer and lager fitted the centralisation plans of the breweries perfectly. They were both pasteurised and easier to brew than draught beer and were ideal for the new outlets, such as clubs, that didn’t have the dedicated facilities to handle hand-pulled beers. They were also ideal for canning, which was slowly replacing bottled beer.

Lager was big business

Many reasons  have been given for the spectacular growth of lager during the seventies and eighties: a change in taste for post-industrial office workers who couldn’t ‘handle’ draught beers, and a series of hot summers are the most popular. They include elements of truth, but underlying them all was that lager was good business for the brewers.

Why? Because they earned more money on lager (and keg) than on draught. During 1969, lager sales grew by 30%. Although they only took 5% of the entire market, a quick look at the Scottish market, where lager had its British stronghold, showed a 20% market share.

Prices per pint were higher than bitter by around 6d, and more was sold outside of the pubs and so the brewers were free to charge what they wanted.  Add to this a slightly lower excise duty and all the benefits of modern rationalised production and it isn’t hard to see why in the few years up to the end of the decade £20 million was spent on building facilities for lager alone and £3 million was spent on advertising keg, lager and canned beers.

At the same time, the number of draught beers was reduced, with The Economist commenting darkly that by the mid-70s it would be impossible to buy draught beer.

With the resources thrown at lager and keg by breweries in search of better profits (between 1966 and 1969 profits grew by only 17% compared with 40% for the rest of industry), is it any wonder that the UK became a nation of lager drinkers?

Categories: Advertising · Beer · Brewing history · Marketing · UK lager

The debt lager owes to Guinness

September 30, 2009 · Comments Off

Guinness led the consortium to launch Harp lager

Guinness led the consortium to launch Harp lager

Lager and ‘container draught’  (later developing the slightly catchier name of ‘keg’) were the two great opportunities for British brewers in the early 1960s. They had been the fastest growing elements of the British beer industry, but it was the creation of draught lager that finally gave lager the mass-market breakthrough it had attempted for nearly 100 years.

At the start of the decade, lager and draught each accounted for no more than 3% of the total beer market. Lager had been brewed on a regular basis in the UK since at least 1879 and draught had been developed by Watney Mann before the Second World War and developed after by Flowers’ under the ‘Keg’ brand name.

In 1950, slightly fewer than 100,000 barrels of lager were drunk, most of them imported. By 1959 and the introduction of Skol by Ind Coope, the total had risen to 500,000. By 1960, 550,000. During this time total beer consumption was stagnant and the brewers knew that if they couldn’t  shift total consumption, they would have to try and shift consumption patterns.

It was Harp, brewed by a consortium of four brewers headed by Guinness, that began the major shift in consumption away from cask-conditioned ales. Guinness began development of its new lager in the late 1950s with the purchase of The Great Northern Brewery in Dundalk. The German brewer, Dr. Herman Muendar, was not overly impressed by the brewery and described it as “like an alchemists’ kitchen”

Harp lager was first brewed in June 1960 and quickly saw success first in Ireland and then a year later in North West England and then national. By 1962 it was the second biggest brand – neck and neck with Carlsberg – but still behind Skol. It was brewed in the UK by Scottish & Newcastle, Mitchell & Butler and Courage.

Initially Harp lager was bottled and did reasonably well, but it was the launch of Harp on draught in 1965 that saw sales really take off. According to brewing historian Martyn Cornell Harp wasn’t the first keg lager, but it was the first one to solve the problem of overfrothing, helping lager elbow its way into the UK.

From the 2% share of the beer market in the early sixties, lager grew to just under 10% by 1971, topping 50% by 1989. Ironically, this was also the year that Harp dropped out of the Top 10 beer brands in the UK. Just 10 years later, seven of the top ten beers in the UK were lagers.

Categories: Beer · Brands · Brewing history · Harp · Lager · UK lager

Light in more ways than one – US lager’s missing ingredients

September 16, 2009 · 1 Comment

Beer and Philosophy. Two subjects that go together surprisingly well. Or not surprising really if you’ve ever spent an afternoon or an evening putting the world to rights over a beer.

The two subjects also go surprisingly well together in a book of the same name, Beer and Philosophy: The  unexamined beer isn’t worth drinking, edited by Steven D. Hales.

What has this to do with lager I can hear you asking? Well, if philosophy is all about the examination of our human lives and how we experience them, then questions such as ‘How  on earth can people brew Budweiser with a straight face’ are extremely relevant. And Beer and Philosophy doesn’t disappoint, with some interesting background on what goes into US lager – or perhaps that should be what doesn’t.

What makes beer good or not good is one of the themes and crops up repeatedly in the book. Is a beer good because I like it, or do I like it because it is good? Also, it questions what makes a beer good.

Quality in, quality out

The chapter entitled ‘Quality, Schmality’ looks at ‘goodness’ by considering what goes into  US lagers in terms of the type and quality of malt and the amount of adjuncts and hops. And the authors reproduce an interesting table that shows that since 1915, the amount of fermentable material has fallen consistently. The amount of hops in US beer fell by 60% from 1935 o 1990. The table by the way comes from a paper entitled The all-American beer: a case of inferior standard (taste) prevailing?

Source: Choi and Stack (2005)

Source: Choi and Stack (2005)


Categories: Beer · Brewing · Brewing history · Lager · US lager · ingredients
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The early days of British lager revealed

July 30, 2009 · Comments Off

Its part of the lager myth that in the late 50s and 60s, lager consumption began the slow build up before exploding in the 70s and 80s. The arrival of homegrown lagers Harp and Skol in the early 6os is one of the big events. But there were also a growing number of regional breweries either brewing their own lagers or under licence from continental brewers.

And thanks to Ron Pattinson’s Summer of Lager and extensive research into Whitbread’s brewing records there’s now some more information about what went on…

Categories: Beer · Brewing history · Lager · UK lager
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Anglo and Bavarian in name, but what about the beer?

July 27, 2009 · 2 Comments

The Anglo-Bavarian brewery opened in 1864. It had the right name but did it brew lager?

The Anglo-Bavarian brewery opened in 1864. It had the right name but did it brew lager?

One of the more controversial UK lager myths is who brewed the first lager. Some maintain it was the Anglo Bavarian brewing company in Shepton Mallett, a company that specially imported a Bavarian brewmaster to do the necessary for them.

Whether he did or not is still uncertain, but by January 1870 an advertisement in the Gloucester Journal read:

Anglo-Bavarian Ales – The Anglo-Bavarian Brewery Company are now prepared to deliver these ales which possess all the essential properties of the highest class ales of Bavaria and Burton on Trent. Prices: India Pale Ale 1s.6d. per gallon. Mild Ales 1s.2d. 1s.4d 1s.6d per gallon. Strong Ales 1s.8d. 2s. per gallon. The Amber Ale. Brewed especially for family use and supplied in kilderkins 18 gallons 21s. and firkins 9 gallons 11s. Agent C.F. Cooksey, 12 Eastgate Street, Gloucester.

There has been some suggestion that the Amber Ale was the recipient of the Bavarian influence, but apart from newspaper cuttings, little is known about the beer. What little is known is tucked away in the official history of the brewery “The Anglo” by local Somerset author Fred Davis, which I was lucky enough to find in the local Martins’ Newsagent (thanks to a tip from local historian Alan Stone). I was on a flying visit to Shepton Mallett to pick up the book so I only had a quick look at the brewery itself – still an impressive building though.

Whether the brewery brewed lager or just used Bavarian know how to produce a better quality beer is unknown. The brewery did become known as a technical innovator and in 1873 won a medal at the Vienna World Fair for the quality of its bottled Amber Ale – one of only two English beers that survived the trip. (Compare that with Carlsberg’s beer that was sent half  way around the world before arriving in Vienna, to be pronounced excellent).

Categories: Beer · Brewing history · Lager

There’s always a beer connection

July 23, 2009 · Comments Off

Lager from Carlsberg was bottled in Fjerritslev

Lager from Carlsberg was bottled in Fjerritslev

Beer follows you everywhere once you’ve started to take an interest, and the past week’s holiday in Northern Jutland (Fjerritslev to be precise) was no exception.
It didn’t take me long to spot that Fjerritslev has a nicely preserved brewery museum. The brewery was opened in 1887 by Peder Kjeldgaard and was run after his death by first his widow and then his daughter until 1982.
Alongside its own beer, P Kjeldgaard also bottled for Carlsberg from 1885 to 1903. It was common practice in those days to ship the beer to the provinces in large oak casks to be bottled by local firms. Often the name of the bottlers shared the label with Carlsberg.
The Danish road system wasn’t so well developed at that time and transport by tramp steamer was the fastest and easiest way to get goods around the country.
I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t get to see the brewery, but looking through the information in the former farmhouse we were staying in I discovered that Peder Kjelgaard had grown up there.

Categories: Beer · Brewing history · Lager
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Balancing a one-sided view of brewing history

June 9, 2009 · Comments Off

From The Scotsman, February 1870. Showing that Carlsberg was not only exported to Scotland, it was also sold there.

From The Scotsman, February 1870. Showing that Carlsberg was not only exported to Scotland, it was also sold there.

If history is written by the victors, then beer history is written by the exporters. That’s what came to me while reading the excellent ‘Hops and Glory’ written by Pete Brown.

Pete has done a sterling job by digging deep into the history of IPA to reveal a depth and richness that has been lacking in beer writing, instead of relying on the same old repeated stories that haven’t really much basis in truth.

Brewing until very recently has been a national industry that became international in scope, without becoming international in mindset. There has been so much focus on the beer leaving a country that no-one seems to have picked up the story of it arriving in a country. ‘Look,’ they say. ‘See how much beer we’ve sent overseas. Aren’t we good?’

The main reason is that for too many years brewers were just that – brewers. They made the stuff but didn’t waste too much time on the bothersome task of sales, marketing and distribution. That was outsourced to locals, leaving the brewers as the captains of industry, the heroes.
That means the history of brewing is skewed to big countries like the UK, US and Germany, who had huge home markets to supply, leading to a overtly national focus. While in the smaller countries like Holland and Denmark, the heroes are the brewers who produced a lot of beer for export. In both cases there isn’t much information on what happened to the beer when it got to its destination.

A case in point – Carlsberg. Carlsberg started exporting to Scotland in 1868/69 (depending on what you consider as an export -a couple of cases or a ship load). There is very little written about what happened to Captain Jacobsen’s beer once it arrived on the dockside at Leith apart from an advert in The Scotsman in February 1870 and a few scattered references to other distributors.

And that’s just Carlsberg. What about other foreign beers like Becks, Holsten and Heineken? There are loads of good stories out there just waiting to jump out.

Categories: Beer · Brewing history · Lager
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Why is British lager so weak?

June 3, 2009 · 3 Comments

The strength of Carlsberg lager exported from Denmark fell from 1939 to 1952 (Photo: Carlsberg)

The strength of Carlsberg lager exported from Denmark fell from 1939 to 1952 (Photo: Carlsberg)

Ron Pattinson over at his fantastically named blog asks the question about why British lager is so weak . Here’s an excerpt, you can read the rest on Ron’s blog:

“In accordance with the announcement made in the House of Commons by the Minister of Food on March 24th, 1947, arrangements have been made for the importation of beer under individual licence from Continental countries. The maximum gravity permitted will be 1036 degrees (before fermentation).”

According to Ron’s figures, the Original Gravity of Carlsberg beer fell from 1044.5 (around 4.5% abv) in 1939, to 1035.6 (around 3.9% abv) in 1947, to 1031.6 (around 2.9%abv) in 1952. According to Carlsberg’s historian (and former chairman) Kristoff Glamann the change over to 1030 OG beer happened first in 1963. This was when Carlsberg began to export in bulk and have its beer botled and distributed by regional breweries – the first of which was John Smith’s in Tadcaster.

Up until that time Carlsberg (and lager generally) was very much a niche product with around 0.9% of the total beer market. None of the continental lagers owned pubs and needed to find some way of getting into the tied houses owned by regional and national breweries. For Carlsberg that meant agreements with around 20 breweries in England. Its easy to imagine that the high duty on imported lager, together with a small market share allowed these breweries to push alcohol content down as a way of increasing their margins. Especially as lager was a ‘refreshing’ drink rather than a ‘restorative’ in the public’s mind (and the advertisers).

Not that all lager was weak though. Around 20% of Carlsberg was not brewed to 1030 OG and distribution was carried out through its own distribution companies in Edinburgh, Goole (Hull) and London. These continued to operate independently, even after the deal with Watney Mann that eventually lead to the creation of the Carlsberg brewery in Northampton. The opening of the brewry in 1973 also led to the introduction of Special Brew – the first premium strength lager on the British market, according to Carlsberg. However, I don’t have any evidence to back that up yet.

Categories: Brewing history · Imported lager · Lager · Marketing
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