Different historic styles of beer are associated with
different cities and regions throughout Europe. This is because different
places traditionally would have most likely used local ingredients such as hops
but would also have been constrained to a certain extent by the profile of the
water supply available to them. The water of Pilsen and Munich is soft and low
in salts making it ideal for brewing pale crisp lagers. Dortmund has a lot of minerals in its water and so beers made here tend to be sweeter,
malty ales, whilst the water of Burton is very hard and lends itself to the
strong, dry, hoppier ales traditionally produced there. The table below shows
the main ionic components in the water supply of different historic European
brewing centres.
Ions (ppm)
|
Burton
|
Pilsen
|
Munich
|
Dortmund
|
London
|
Köln
|
Ca2+
|
268
|
7
|
76
|
260
|
90
|
105
|
Mg2+
|
62
|
2
|
18
|
23
|
4
|
15
|
Na+
|
30
|
3.2
|
69
|
24
|
50
|
|
CO32-
|
280
|
14
|
152
|
270
|
123
|
150
|
SO42-
|
638
|
5
|
10
|
283
|
58
|
85
|
Cl-
|
36
|
5
|
2
|
106
|
18
|
100
|
Nowadays a lot more is understood about the ionic chemistry
of water and the way liquor composition affects the brewing process than when
these cities first rose as great beer producers. Such as the effect calcium has
on reducing mash pH by liberating phosphate ions to the way sulphate ions
increase hop utilisation during wort boiling. Depending on the raw supply used different water
profiles can be mimicked by adding treatment salts such as gypsum to the
brewing liquor allowing different styles of beer to be brewed almost anywhere.
Below is a calculator you can use to determine
the salt additions you require in your brew to copy different historic styles
or tailor your liquor to your brewing needs. Simply enter the volume of your
brewlength and ion concentrations of your water supply then change the amounts
of the various common treatment salts to determine what your resultant liquor
composition will be.
