Beer Infinity Beer, Brewing & Beyond
| Lars Garshol has an interesting post on a question that has bothered me for the last four years: how sour were pre-20th century beers? His post is well worth a read because he tackles it from a few angles. The portion I’m interested in, though, is the survey of historical materials, which often indicate that 16th-19th century beers were not soured. For example, Lars cites a typical 16th century Swedish account by Olaus Magnus, an archbishop:
He describes both sweet and sour wines, but of beer he says that people brew it sweet or bitter according to preference. He says winter water is the best, as it never makes the beer go sour. Today we can see what was really going on, but he was right that beer was less likely to go sour in winter, due to lower temperatures. He says winter water is used in the brewing of Danzig beer, “the noblest and healthiest beer”. It’s clear from the text that to Olaus Magnus, beer is a sweet or bitter drink, and mainly sour by accident. So here’s the thing: … |
Source: Beervana
Read the full article here.
