Beer Historians - anyone know of "Vienna Brown Ale"

I have been reading about Beethoven (one of my other hobbies) and came across several quotes about a "brown beer" or "brown ale" or "Austrian brown beer". He was in Vienna in the first part of the 19th century. This was around the time of the Napoleonic wars.

I'd like to find out what beer he is talking about. I don't know if it is still made or if there is a recipe out there. I"ve tried looking and can only find vienna lager at a style guide. I have seen some mention of brown ales served in Vienna but no recipes or descriptions.

Sounds like Schwarzbier.

EKennett said:

Sounds like Schwarzbier.

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Except that schwarzbier is a "black" lager.

The beer described in the OP does sound very interesting. When was lager yeast discovered? I think alts (old) are so named because they use ale yeast (the yeast they used way back before lager yeast was discovered). Could it be like a vienna lager except that it was fermented with an ale yeast?

Lager yeast was only "discovered" in the late 1800's, but the concept and its usage go WAY further back than that. Early 19th Century is definitely well within the time of lager yeasts being a separate entity from ale yeast.

Likely they are referring to the Vienna Lager, which could certainly be considered brown.

Airborneguy said:

Likely they are referring to the Vienna Lager, which could certainly be considered brown.

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Come to think of it you are right... It was developed by brewer Anton Dreher in Vienna in 1841

So Vienna lager is the most likely target. Given I've never done a lager and I live in southern California and I don't have the extra fridge space to lager anything, is there a recipe for vienna that would use ale yeast so can ferment in the 60s?

Patirck said:

So Vienna lager is the most likely target. Given I've never done a lager and I live in southern California and I don't have the extra fridge space to lager anything, is there a recipe for vienna that would use ale yeast so can ferment in the 60s?

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Well it wouldn't be a true vienna lager......It would be a vienna lager grainbill brewed with ale instead of lager yeast. It wouldn't be as clean. But would still be a decent beer.

I have a vienna lager that took an award in my recipe pulldown. You could brew that with us-05 and keep it in the 60's and it would be a tasty beer.

It's kind of funny but the last brew I made was a new recipe for me - Munich Malt Bomb. It is mostly Munich malt with 18 ibus or so of Hallertauer and wyeast euro ale. I think this made with vienna malt instead of munich would be super close.

Reading thru some OLD books from the early 19th century, Vienna had "nut brown maids" who served "nut brown ale".

And like these very ancient ale recipes, ingredients used were what was locally grown.

DY

The term "ale" wasn't much in use throughout Germany by that period. Likely you are reading a writer not from Germany who is writing about German beer, and using the terms he is familiar with. If the beer was made in that area, in that time period, it was likely a lager.

Well if this was mentioned around the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) then it would not have been Vienna lager. Anton Dreher didn't even start using lager yeast until the mid 1800's. I came across an Austrian beer called "obergahrig" which seems to be a top fermented beer that is intended to be consumed pretty quickly. Though with the number of indigenous beer styles of that age, it's pretty hard to know exactly what it could be.

We do have a resident historian, I hope he shows up soon. This is my favorite thread this weekend I'd like to figure this out. Bierhaus's post has got my brain a tizzy with possibilites of digging into some of these styles....

Oh BOB!!!!!! Get in here and help us!

I'm about to finish "Beer in the Renaissance", which covers the period from about 1250 to 1750 and mostly northern Europe.

Now of course this isn't specific to Vienna, but this book specifically mentions that lagers were being produced much earlier than commonly thought, but that the brewers themselves really didn't realize what they were doing.

I've also read two specific German beer history books, and neither one mentioned much about ale brewing in Germany, other than wheat beers, after the early 1500's, probably because of that oh-so-famous tax law...

I still bet the writer the OP is referring to is not German and not a brewer, was using terms he was familiar with to describe Vienna Lager.

Revvy who are you referring to? I'd love to hear what an expert has to say also. This is a great thread.

Airborneguy said:

I've also read two specific German beer history books, and neither one mentioned much about ale brewing in Germany, other than wheat beers, after the early 1500's, probably because of that oh-so-famous tax law...

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Germany has a pretty rich tradition of ales, even through the 19th century. Lower Saxony in particular was well known for it's ales, including the now gone erntebier (harvest beer) and still popular Altbier. Other German ales included, Broyhan Alt, Einbeck, Gose, Lichtenhainer, Grodzisk (still produced in Poland), Malzbier, Süßbier, and forms of braunbiers or "brown beer."

The only problem I have with calling an Austrian beer from the Napoleonic Wars period a "vienna lager" is that this style wasn't around for another 30 or so years after the war. Also, it wasn't until the mid 1800's that lager brewing began to overtake the native ale brewing in the areas outside of Bavaria. For instance, Bohemia was primarily an ale brewing nation until 1860 or so when you have a dramatic shift to lager-bier. This is important, as we all know that Pilsner was invented in 1842 (it would start to become popular following the World Exposition in Paris, 1867). There were, however, types of lager-ale hybrids brewed during this same period and I concede that Austria was one of the first nations to take up lager brewing outside of Bavaria. Yet, how many took it up lager brewing and exactly when, we don't know.

Aside, we must remember that lager brewing does not make for inexpensive brewing, as you need large support structures for lagering (and ice) and the capital (money) to fund such production. Ale production is much less demanding, meaning more people brewing ales (especially for domestic use) and more ubiquitous.

Here is an interesting piece on Vienna "Ale" Brewing in the 1830's. Ron is pretty much the definitive beer historian around...

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2009/05/brewing-in-vienna-in-1830s.html

The writer of the quotes is no doubt more of a Beethoven and music historian than a beer historian and he is translating german to english (200 year old german no less). So there certainly may be something in the translation. Based on the context of the quote, I think Beethoven was speaking of a faily common beer - he was known for being a particularly nasty guy and was speaking in anger about how the people of Austria won't care about Napoleon one way or another as long as they had an ample supply of they're "Vianna Brown Beer".