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Lots of Heineken full still to come. I have to wring even last drop of blood from their brewing records, given all the time I've spent on them. Just as well I don't have a job wasting loads of my precious time. It gives me the room to embark on even more ridiculously detailed research. It's reaping rewards. I'm shocked at how much I missed on my initial sprint through the records. Like the couple of batches of Bok brewed in the summer of 1940. Or the weird watering down practices later in the year.

Now let’s take a look at the hops Heineken employed.

Compared to the practice in UK breweries, the hopping is much simpler. More than half the beers only contained a single type. At this point that would have been very unusual in the UK. Most beers contained at least two types of hops, more typically three or more.

Another difference with the UK is the freshness of the hops. None are more than a year old. Whereas in the UK it wouldn’t be odd to see some hops two or three years old.

Unlike British brewers, Heineken do seem to have bothered to record the variety, or at least the region of origin. Only problem is, I can’t work out what they all are, between the cryptic abbreviations and crap handwriting. I’m pretty sure everything designated by an “H” is Hallertau, as in some examples it’s written as Hall. Or even written out fully as Hallertau. “A” could be Alsace. I’ve no idea what “R” “Ro” or “Rand” might be.
Using mostly German hops would turn out to be useful as the war churned on.


Heineken hops in 1939
Date Beer Style hop 1 hop 2 hop 3
26th Dec Do Donker Lagerbier Rand. 1938 Hallertau 1938
11th Dec Li Licht Lagerbier R 1938
12th Dec Exp Pils Ro 1938 Ro 1938 Belg
6th Dec P Pils Fr. A 1938 Kra R 1938 Kra A 1939
7th Dec Bei Münchener H 1938
18th Jan Mei Meibier Kra H 1938
7th Aug Bok Bok H 1938
Sources:
Heineken brewing records held at the Amsterdamse Stadsarchief, document numbers 834 - 1758 and 834 - 1759.




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