Older Traditional Dutch Styles?

[jwynia]

I've been doing a fair bit of digging on Ancestry.com into my heritage lately. That digging has made clear what I already was pretty sure of, that I'm 100% Dutch back at least 1000 years (even though sometimes that same land wasn't called the same thing).

I'm looking to integrate that heritage into my brewing by brewing some of the styles my ancestors are likely to have had as their daily drinking beer. Since my family (on all sides) emmigrated to the US in the 1880's, I'm mostly looking for stuff from before then.

The modern Dutch brewing landscape is obviously dominated by the same forces that dominate here in the US: light lagers like Heinekin. However, I'm looking for good resources to determine what the beer landscape looked like prior to the big corporate beer dominance of the last 50+ years.

Anyone have any pointers? Is it going to basically boil down to modified Belgian or German styles?

If more specific locations help, here's a map of the towns that come up over and over again in my family tree:

Netherlands Map

 

[Bob]

Say no more.

Haarlem Koyt ca. 1501

1503 English Hopp'd Beere

All-malt beers were known then, too. Single-infusion mash at ~152F. Target OG of ~1.048-1.050. Use a darker ale malt like Mild Malt or, in a pinch, Maris Otter. Batch sparge to collect your brew length.*

Hop with something not too refined. Fuggles, Willamette; earthy, grassy flavors are okay. Cascades and stuff are RIGHT OUT. Target a a BU:GU ratio of .4 to .6 for best results. Add a bit at flameout, like 90% for bittering (right after you see break formation) and 10% at flameout.

Ferment with something fruity and relatively underattenuative like S-04 or Windsor.

Boom. Done.

Cheers!

Bob

* Oddly, this is something we homebrewers do all the time that is really REALLY historical!

 

[rhoadsrage]

Why not find out where you came from before Europe was named? Then you can have a reason to brew some Tej.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html

 

[jwynia]

@Bob thanks. I knew if I asked around here, I'd get an actual informed opinion and useful information. I'll take a look at those and give them a shot.

@rhodsrage I have been considering doing genetic testing for just that kind of info. Interesting in a different way than when you actually have birth/death dates, etc., but still interesting and worth finding out.

 

[Bob]

Sure. Historical brewing is my real hobby.

Bob

 

[DelftBlue]

There's a Dutch brewery called Jopen, based in Haarlem which brews based on more traditional styles (including a Koyt). If you can get hold of some of their beers that might give you an idea of what Dutch brewing used to be like. As you say, these days the landscape is dominated by Heineken and InBev.

I live in Delft which had over 100 breweries 500 years ago (not bad for a town which even today only has a population of 100,000), although the last brewery closed in 1922 and the buildings have been converted into residential buildings....

http://www.achterdegevelsvandelft.nl/huizen/Voorstraat 36-40_files/Voorstraat 36-40_1.jpg

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

I live in Delft which had over 100 breweries 500 years ago (not bad for a town which even today only has a population of 100,000), although the last brewery closed in 1922 and the buildings have been converted into residential buildings....

Bet you own a LOT of really nice blue and white china.

I lived in Steenwijk for 3.5 years back in the 80's, when I was in the Army.