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Evolution of Brewing in the Dark Ages
Episode 10 • 27th May 2024 • Respecting the Beer • McFleshman's Brewing Co
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Your favorite history teacher Joel Hermensen comes back to talk with Gary Arndt and Bobby Fleshman about brewing in the Dark Ages.

They discuss the history of beer brewing in Europe, focusing on the impact of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the role of Benedictine monasteries in brewing, the influence of the Vikings, the significance of Hildegard of Bingens, and the effects of the Reformation on beer production. They also touch on the Reinheitsgebot law in Germany and the transition of beer brewing during European expansion into the Americas.

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--

CREDITS

Hosts:

Bobby Fleshman

Allison McCoy-Fleshman

Gary Ardnt

Music by Sarah Lynn Huss

Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow

Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co

Transcripts

Gary Arndt:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of respecting the beer.

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My name is Gary aren't with me

again is the brewer himself.

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Bobby Fleshman.

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How are you doing, sir?

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Bobby Fleshman: Doing well.

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Thanks, Gary.

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Gary Arndt: And once again, we have

Joel Hermansen and we're going to

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be talking more about beer history.

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We talked about the

ancient origins of beer.

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A lot of that we speculate

it's based on archeology.

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It's based on what we can piece together

you know, from, from what they've

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found, and it's always kind of changing.

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We always find something

different, a bit older.

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Today we're going to be coming

a little bit closer in history.

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We're going to be talking about the

history of beer as it pertains to Europe,

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because when we think of beer, we really

think of it as at least the modern variant

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that we drink as having come from Europe

and in particular, Northern Europe.

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Why don't we start with maybe,

I don't know, the collapse

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of the Western Roman Empire?

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Because that was really kind of the

change and it was, if, if that, if it

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was to be like a Star Wars episode,

it would be the rise of the Germans.

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Bobby Fleshman: And this, I was going

to kind of lead into it a little bit

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by saying, why did we land on barley?

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It could have been any one of these

sources of cereal grain and I think

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that's part of the story here.

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Joel Hermansen: Yeah.

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No, absolutely.

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Thanks for having me back, by the way.

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So, one of the, the major turning points

in brewing occurs, as you were saying,

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after the fall of the Roman Empire.

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And I think it really has to do with

the fact that, Rome had been the

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gluten that had kept Europe together.

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And when that collapsed one of the things

that began to fill that void was you know,

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obviously the early Christian church,

and one of the things that stands out

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about that was the establishment of, the

Benedictine monasteries throughout Europe.

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And one of the key, so significant

elements of that monastic movement

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was the fact that they placed such

a great emphasis on hospitality.

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So if somebody would travel to a

region and need a place to stay, you

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know, that they would be able to go

to a monastery or an abbey and they

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might be able to rest and whatnot.

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And the expectation of That monastic

order was that you provided them with

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a meal and, and, and oftentimes beer.

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So the monks at these monastic

orders brewed and they brewed quite

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a bit and still do, and over time

they got really, really good at it.

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Bobby Fleshman: Why don't we have

a nonprofit like that, right?

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In Appleton?

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Yes.

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That you just show up and they

feed you and give you beer.

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Gary Arndt: Right.

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It's time to start a new religion.

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Or just start a chapter.

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Joel Hermansen: So I, to me, that's kind

of where this, when I think about the

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story of European beer, I don't think you

can tell it without that as the context.

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And this isn't something that's,

you know, just isolated to one area.

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This becomes kind of a, a, a continental

movement, you know, where there's these

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monasteries all throughout Europe.

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Germany, Belgium, there were monasteries

in France that did this as well.

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you know, the, the geographic fact

is that Northern Europe is far

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more effective in producing cereal

grains than Southern Europe, which

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we touched on in the ninth episode.

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And you know, when you kind of put

these two forces together, it's pretty

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easy to see, you know, if this was

a Star Wars crawl and, and we're

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talking about the origins of beer,

That's, that's the first thing that's

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going to be rolling down that, that

crawl is that, you know, the, these

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monasteries were places that produced

beer for the extension of hospitality.

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Gary Arndt: In, in a previous

episode, we started talking about

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the different types of beer.

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You know, loggers,

builders, things like that.

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These monasteries were

spread out all over.

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How much did they have to do with

the creation of the different

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types of beers that arose?

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Joel Hermansen: Well, for that, I think

we can actually, thank the Vikings.

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The Vikings, in many respects, are

responsible for the, the Dark Ages,

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if you will, that period of time

in which Europeans had, you know,

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if you had traveled 10 miles from

your home as a European, you were

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a, you were the Gary Arndt of your

day, you were a global traveler.

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Because everybody was so terrified of

the Vikings and the havoc that they were

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wreaking throughout Northern Europe.

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So people would cluster

into those feudal estates.

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Well, each feudal estate

had its own brewery.

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Each feudal estate had its own

brewing system, its own brewers.

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They had grain production.

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They used their own recipes.

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They used their own, what was called

gruit, which was kind of that, that

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bag of aromatics that they would use to

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Bobby Fleshman: Before

hopping was, the preferred.

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Joel Hermansen: Right.

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So I think every region of Europe was

kind of forced to develop independently.

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And again, I, to me, that's always one of

the cool stories of, of beer is that you

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have two, two B, you know, two regions

adjacent to each other producing, you

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know, different, totally different beers.

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You know, the story, and this is getting

way ahead of ourselves, but the story

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of, of Kulsh beers and Alt beers.

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You know, produce.

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Just a short distance away And they have

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Bobby Fleshman: fantastically different

opinions about each other or yes

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the same, but it opposite yeah.

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Joel Hermansen: Yes, and they're and

they're both excellent and fabulous.

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Yeah, so I think all all around Europe

They develop their own brewing persona

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Based on what they could do locally and

for some people that was, you know, using

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blueberries and raspberries and the beer

as, as a, a sweetening agent and some

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parts it, maybe was, was using early hops.

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We're going to talk more about our

favorite Benedictine Abbess Hildy, I

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would imagine in a few minutes, but

everybody had developed their own persona.

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Bobby Fleshman: I should say on that.

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I was in Cologne once and

saw on the wall a cartoon.

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I couldn't read it, but I could

understand what it was saying.

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And it was a cartoon of someone

having drank an alt beer and

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pissing it out into a latrine.

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And that, that would have been the,

or maybe I had this in reverse it.

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Yeah.

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I've seen the graphic.

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It's a Dortmund.

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Yeah.

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It was, it was a Dortmund.

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It was, that's right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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In any case, they were 10 miles

away, and they had this attitude

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about their neighbor's beer.

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Joel Hermansen: Yeah, and I think that

attitude starts in feudalistic Europe,

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where people developed very localized

identities in a variety of ways.

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I mean, and Gary, you would know more

about this than any of the, the three

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of us would, but even in languages,

In very short distances around Europe.

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There's

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Gary Arndt: In England, you go

20 miles down the road, people

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speak a different accent.

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Whereas in the United States, our

accents have become largely homogenized.

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Even the Southern accent is kind of

dying out in a lot of places, or it's

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not as strong because we've had so much.

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Movement of people.

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We, a lot of the country grow in an

era of rapid communications, which

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didn't exist in medieval Europe.

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You know, things were very

cordoned off from each other.

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So yeah, so it's not a surprise that

you would see different, you know,

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brewing traditions develop as well

as different linguistic traditions.

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A lot of, I mean, my question

back to you guys would be.

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There's kind of a beer, this, this,

we mentioned it before the Reinscheidt

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Kubot, this is the purity laws.

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And so there are these things which are

kind of considered to be a pure real beer.

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But as you noted.

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Traditionally, every place had their

own thing that they put in their beer.

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So like, I know you make some

beers that basically are the,

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you know, malt yeast, hops.

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It's very straight forward.

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But then like I was here yesterday,

you had a watermelon gosa, which is

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probably not something that would, would,

would, you know, meet the purity laws.

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You wouldn't find those ingredients

in the same place, but yeah.

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You know, assuming they did grow

watermelons, you know, if we go back

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far enough, it is probably something

they might put in, you know, a beer.

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Do we have any recorded recipes

from that period for any of these?

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Bobby Fleshman: Yeah.

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The monks were really good

at, at record keeping.

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They are still.

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And, and, and if you fast forward

to Germany and England, In fact,

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maybe we should give some context.

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What era are we talking about when

we're talking about these monasteries?

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Joel Hermansen: These are really

starting in about the 7th century.

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Bobby Fleshman: Okay, so we're

looking at pretty much a thousand

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years of this before we get into

this industrial age of brewing.

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Right.

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But bookkeeping was still extremely

important in those times and Joel

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says they're not, they're not cross

fertilizing, pollinating, and they're not,

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they're not getting outside of their lane

so much for so many hundreds of years.

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Right.

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yeah, that, I don't, I haven't laid my, my

own eyes on them, but these books exist.

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The monks keep them for

hundreds and hundreds and

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Joel Hermansen: One of the reasons

they would have to, these, these

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monasteries are brewing some, you

know, significant amounts of beer.

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And if you are, are, and I don't want

to call this industrializing beer, but

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if you're amping up your production to

this level, just for the ease of doing

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it, you, you have to write things down.

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And they, and they were making.

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And you have to be systematic about it.

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Bobby Fleshman: Yeah, exactly.

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And they were making beer for

the communities, 3 percent beers,

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two and a half percent beer.

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They're called table beers.

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They, they have certain gravity to

them and that, and that constituted

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a pretty good amount of their,

of their volume still, still does

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today, but definitely back then.

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Joel Hermansen: And Charlemagne, I mean,

Charlemagne made a, there was a law in

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Germany, Karl Der Charlemagne had a law

that every estate had to have a brewery.

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You know, just to kind of speak to

the volume of beer that's, that's

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being produced and undoubtedly the

record keeping and the taxation,

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that was happening across this, this

really unique network of, of beer.

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It's, it's kind of exciting to,

to talk about and think about.

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Bobby Fleshman: Yeah.

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And in France, you had Saison, an

agrarian culture there, farmhouse ales.

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Gary Arndt: Let's talk

about Hildegard of Bingen.

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You mentioned her.

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She was the Abbess, she, she did a

whole bunch of things beyond just beer.

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But one of the things she did, it was

the first mention, I think recorded

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mention of the use of hops in beer.

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How did that revolutionize beer making?

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I mean, obviously we're

still doing it today, so.

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Joel Hermansen: I think one of

her things, she, she was really

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big on the medical side of hops.

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Like, she thought it was an antibacterial.

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And this is still a point in

which Europe is wrestling with

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outbreaks of disease periodically.

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This is the pre black death period, but

they're still being afflicted by a number

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of different, you know, disease vectors

and, and to, to put this out there as

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an antibacterial or, you know, a remedy.

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for things was, was absolutely vital, but

then it also has preservative qualities.

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Bobby Fleshman: Right.

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All of these, these, we, we brought

up boiling, we brought up alcohol,

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and now we're talking about hops.

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And really the hops come into play because

they keep your beer from going sour.

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So if it, largely because the bacteria

that caused that could not survive

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that level of bitterness, the, the

acids that are associated with that.

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But yeah, she would have recognized that

there's a flavor stability component here.

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Apart from the, the, the other

factors that makes beer so potable.

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Gary Arndt: Hildegard

lived in the 12th century.

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And so you talked about

the early monastic orders.

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There was a period of time for several

centuries where women were largely

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involved in beer production, many places.

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I don't know if you've heard the

story, but they would often like

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sell their wares at a market.

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And to get people's attention,

they would wear pointed hats.

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And supposedly, I think there's

some been some debate about this.

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This is where the idea of a witch came

from, you know, sitting over a cauldron.

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That was actually be,

you know, a brewing vat.

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The hats were something they wore

basically to kind of like a wacky

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waveable, you know, thing that you'd

see today in front of a car dealership.

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That's what they were to

get people's attention.

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when did that change take place?

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I should say, monastic orders

always kept brewing beer.

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I mean, they're still doing it

today, but it became women's work

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in a lot of villages, I think.

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And then it kind of went away from that.

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Was there an economic reason for it or was

there some sort of change that happened?

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I think it was around the Renaissance

where it kind of stopped doing that.

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Joel Hermansen: I think that

actually might go back even

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farther to the Crusades.

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You know, where you're seeing a lot

of men leaving villages going on

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crusade and a lot of women started

to step into, roles that had maybe

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previously been reserved for men.

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I, cause I shared with both of you guys

a, a strange fact from a book that I had

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that cited that 5 percent of women in,

in one 12th century European, or English

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village rather died in making a beer.

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They would fall into the vats and,

you know, they'd be affected by the

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steam or what, I don't know, whatever.

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Maybe they were sampling.

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Bobby Fleshman: The insurance

companies of those days would

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have stalled at insuring that.

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Joel Hermansen: Yeah.

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So I, I think it probably has to do

with maybe the militarization that

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European states were going through at

that point because that's around the,

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the time in which you really start to

see, you know, in the:

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the bio tapestry and all the unique

things are going on between England

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and France and William the Conqueror.

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So I think men maybe were

joining these national forces.

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Perhaps leaving women behind to occupy

that role, to answer your question.

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That, that to me is

maybe where that started

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Bobby Fleshman: it might've cycled

a couple of times in history,

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which is a long stretch of time.

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It might've been something that women,

it was part of their daily duties.

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And then it may have gone

back to being, I wouldn't say

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industrial, but more heavy lifting.

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So it may have oscillated between

men's and women's work until we

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arrive at the industrial era where

we're talking about the ability

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to, to brew really large batches.

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You know, 300 years ago, 300 batches

that were hundreds of homes worth of

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beer in one spot, the efficiencies

and the cost make that more favorable.

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And so you see less and less

of home brewing at the time.

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Joel Hermansen: Which is where again, I

think we circle back to maybe the second

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chapter of the story with European monks.

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They were responsible for the production

of beer for their community as part of

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basically fundraising for their order.

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They had to do it.

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And then obviously along the way, these

different orders, the Trappists perhaps

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in modern beer lore foremost amongst

them started to, you know, You know,

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maybe brew the finest beer in the world.

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Bobby Fleshman: And cheese.

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We don't, this isn't a cheese

podcast, but you have chocolate,

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cheese, and various breads and so on.

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Gary Arndt: Cheese has, just to go off,

you know, track for about a minute, cheese

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has kind of a similar origin to beer in

that it was largely made by accident.

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Right.

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It was made by storing milk in the

stomach of an animal that had casein and

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emzyme and they wound up with cheese.

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And from there it became,

you know, its own thing.

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But very, I mean, obviously it's

different, but the origins of it

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kind of being accidental thing

that was stumbled upon and then,

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improved over time is very similar.

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Bobby Fleshman: Yeah.

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And the monks association

with it is similar even today.

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Gary Arndt: The other big change that

happened in Europe was the Reformation.

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So we're talking about the religious

aspect of beer monasteries.

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The Reformation takes place and suddenly

there are massive You know, religious

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changes that happen in Europe, there's

massive political upheaval that happens.

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How does that affect beer?

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Joel Hermansen: That's a fabulous

question and a difficult one to

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answer, I think, in a short time,

but we'll, we'll do our best.

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Well, one of the, one of the ways

that, that I think beer was affected

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by the Reformation is the Catholic

Church began to tax the aromatics,

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the berries, those, the, the dried

gruits that they would use in brewing.

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So the Protestants then, thanks

to Hildy started to use more hops.

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as a way of, you know, kind of thumbing

their nose at the, at the Catholics

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who are looking to, you know, profiteer

on the production of beer, which,

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frankly, if you look at the geography

of Europe, the, the Catholic world at

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that point is going to be bordering the

Mediterranean, so it's going to be more

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of a wine producing area, whereas Northern

Europe is obviously more, you know,

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generating and producing far more beer.

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So they viewed this as kind of a personal

affront to, you know, their religious

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way of life, because beer was used

ceremoniously in the Protestant world.

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So this was viewed as kind of an effort to

interrupt Protestant faithful practices.

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So the Protestants said, okay,

fine, we're not going to use the

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things that you're going to tax.

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Bobby Fleshman: Some of those things

were dangerous to their health, right?

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We're talking about bog myrtle.

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And, and I can't remember, there are these

names that I don't have any association

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with, but I, but I've heard of, and I

think that arsenic was also involved

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in, if you go further later in history.

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So they, they were saving

lives by switching to hops.

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Right.

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Joel Hermansen: And obviously

is me probably being the biggest

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hop head sitting around this

table right now because I love

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hops and the flavor of them.

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We're certainly glad that they did, but

that that's really when brewing, I think,

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took a huge step forward as they began

to focus on hops as that bittering agent.

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As that aromatic and as, as Bobby, I'm

sure we'll talk about, or maybe has

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already talked about, you know, you

can layer aromas and, and bittering

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agents within your beer so that

they come out at different times as

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they cross your, your taste buds.

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And that's where this happens.

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Bobby Fleshman: And that's the,

definitely the modern echelon or the

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modern era, the most modern era is the,

that manipulation of hops for sure.

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Joel Hermansen: And we, we wouldn't

have that without that, the policy of,

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of taxation, and again, I think this

is where Northern Europe tends to split

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apart from Southern Europe, and this is

clearly accelerated by the Thirty Years

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War which, unlike almost any of the other

numbered years wars, You know, the seven

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years war actually lasted closer to nine.

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The a hundred years war was 116, but

the 30 years war was actually 30.

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You know, millions of people died

in that war and it was catastrophic,

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but it also had some really

detrimental effects to brewing.

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So brewing kind of goes into a

dark age during that time period.

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That's probably not fully woken up

from until they get to the industrial.

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Gary Arndt: And for people that

don't know 30 years war was arguably

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the worst war in human history up

until the first world war, right?

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Like there were parts of Europe where

50 percent of the population died.

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Joel Hermansen: Right.

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Gary Arndt: I mean it was devastating

and I think a lot of people, especially

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a lot of Americans are just not

aware of how impactful that was.

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Yeah.

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Bobby Fleshman: You said 30 million.

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The entire population probably

wasn't more than a hundred million.

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I mean, we're talking...

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Joel Hermansen: Yeah, it was

catastrophic and you know, you

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also have to layer on top of that.

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You also have a plague outbreak that

that's happening at the same time

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infrastructure is being destroyed.

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Monasteries are being destroyed.

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The mechanisms by which the

brewing world had developed is,

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is largely being compromised.

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So this, this was like.

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Cause beer, I mean, beer still

flourished during the dark ages.

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Maybe there wasn't the cross,

you know, pollination is to, to

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borrow a phrase from you, Bobby.

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But, this was like the, the, this

was the dark ages of beer was

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really that 30 years war period.

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Gary Arndt: We've mentioned

it many, many times.

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So let's explicitly talk about the

Reinscheitgebot, the German beer.

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What was the reason for it?

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Why was it necessary to pass such a law?

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Which I think still

exists today, doesn't it?

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Joel Hermansen: Yeah, 1516.

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They, they amended it in 18

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Bobby Fleshman: We tried, I should

we tried to open in, in, in,:

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We didn't make it.

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We wanted to.

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On the anniversary.

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Yeah, we wanted to say that we opened

500 years, but And we made it end a year.

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501.

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Joel Hermansen: They've,

they've had to amend it.

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They amended it in 1857, I think?

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Bobby Fleshman: When they added yeast.

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Yeah, they've also sort of put a

variation on it where they added wheat.

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Wheat was allowed for one family that

was friends of, of the king and they were

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But what was, what was the reason for it?

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Gary Arndt: Why was it necessary when

beer had been brewed for centuries?

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Joel Hermansen: Right.

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I think part of it is, is standardization.

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The Germans had developed a

much stronger taste for hops.

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And again, just to put this law into

context, this happens three years

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before the Protestant Reformation.

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So it's, it's kind of right on the

edge of that happening in 15, 16, 17.

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And when they, the, the original

one was three ingredients.

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Bobby Fleshman: They

didn't know what yeast was.

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Right.

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So it was water, hops, barley.

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They understood something about

the sludge that remained in the

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tank, needed to remain in the tank.

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There was no word except God is good, I

think it was, and it translates in German,

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but, they called that ingredient God is

good, and they knew that it was part of

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it, they just didn't know what it was.

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:

But you're right, as written,

there were only three.

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Joel Hermansen: Because there were, I

mean, there were 300, and I, I'm gonna

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:

butcher the number, but prior to the

Reformation, there were, you know,

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there was one state in Germany that

was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

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:

Afterwards, it was 380 some.

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:

proto principalities and whatnot.

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So I, you know, leaders are certainly

wanting to put their stamp on things.

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And I think this law in part was an

effort to standardize this production,

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:

which was important for You know,

community life, ceremonial life,

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Bobby Fleshman: Well, German brewers

are nothing if not high quality brewers.

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And the definition of

quality means repeatability.

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And in order to do that, you

need to establish a national law.

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Joel Hermansen: These are at their

standards, is really what it amounts to.

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Bobby Fleshman: Yeah, exactly.

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You can make anything in Germany

that doesn't subscribe to those

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:

rules, but you can't call it beer,

so you can't market it as such.

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Now So the thing that the biggest thing

that I take home with that from the

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Reinheitzke boat is that there was an

identification that if beer were made in

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:

the summer months, it would tend to sour.

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:

And so they, another piece of this

was they were only allowed to make

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:

beer in the colder months and store

it for consumption in the summer.

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:

And in doing so, and I mentioned

this previously, they, they

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:

started to select out lager yeast.

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:

Lager yeast does well in the

cold, ale yeast does not.

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:

And then we bring about the,

the, the most modern, revolution

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:

in beer, which is lagers.

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:

Joel Hermansen: Which again,

can't happen without refrigeration

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:

south of this climate.

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:

Bobby Fleshman: Right.

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:

If for 12 months out of the year.

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:

Right.

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:

Yeah.

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:

Joel Hermansen: Which is one of

the other reasons jumping to U.

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:

S.

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:

history, why Milwaukee became such

a prolific lagerring area in the

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:

early, in the early 1800s, because

we have the geography to, to lager.

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:

Gary Arndt: Before we get to that,

let's, let's talk about a transition.

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:

As you get into the 16th century,

the 17th century, you see European

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:

expansion into the Americas, different

parts of the world, and they bring

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:

with them beer and brewing obviously

probably too bulky and difficult to.

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:

You know, transport beer across the

sea, although sailors did drink.

439

:

I think they had ale was one of the

things that they were often given

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:

as part of their daily allotment.

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:

It's quite a bit, actually.

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:

I think it's like a gallon a day.

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:

Bobby Fleshman: And ales

probably wasn't hopped.

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:

The definition is probably

more like a gruit.

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:

Something else was using the spice.

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:

Yeah.

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:

Gary Arndt: So were there any changes

that happened to beer as they spread?

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:

Joel Hermansen: I think the bigger

changes after that Colombian

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:

exchange in beer happened on the

western side of the Atlantic.

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:

I think when you, when you look at

the, at the things that migrated,

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:

because the Columbian Exchange is the

biological migration of plants, animals,

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:

and disease across the Atlantic.

453

:

The migration of barley went

from Europe to the Americas.

454

:

There were wildly grown

hops here in the Americas.

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:

I think that's probably where, We're

going to see the biggest change because

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:

European hops, you know, are different

from American hops just because hops

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:

are so dependent upon the soil in which

they're grown and the alpha acids from

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:

the, from the area that they're produced.

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:

what that, that change is probably a

long time, you know, in the making.

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:

In fact, I, I don't think Europeans, cause

they don't, Europeans are not IPA people.

461

:

They're not, You know, brewing

with a lot of Cascades and

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:

Centennials and Simcoes and

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:

Bobby Fleshman: Right, right, yeah.

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:

Generally, they're sticking

with their practices.

465

:

Joel Hermansen: But even if you

look at early, you know, Mexican

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:

beers, everybody talks about like,

you know, Corona and Modelo, etc.

467

:

the Modelo Negro is a Vienna lager.

468

:

Right.

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:

For the most part, it's just

using a different grain base.

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:

In this case, it's using corn.

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:

so I, I think the Atlantic world on the

Western side, so the Americas, they're the

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:

ones that are being more affected by it.

473

:

They're being introduced to beer

and, you know, this is going to

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:

transition us into if we can do

another show, we could definitely do

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:

one on the American side of things.

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:

I'd love to come back and

talk with you about that.

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:

Gary Arndt: All right.

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:

I think that's good for now until next

time, make sure to join our brand new

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:

Facebook group, where you can talk to

other beer aficionados, as well as the

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:

other guests and hosts of the podcast,

and until next time, join us for

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:

another episode of Respecting the Beer.

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