Bock Beer: What Is & Is Not

Bock Beer: What Is & Is Not

With Octoberfest just mere hours away perhaps now is the time to discuss the primary beer of Germany and thus of Oktoborfest! That is of course, bock beer! Bock is a malty German lager that has been brewed since Medieval times. Bock is a tasty brew beverage that is well known & worth knowing.

It Al began In Einbeck
Einbeck, Germany, is a small city in Lower Saxony. Einbeck is home to just 1 brewery, Einbecker. Both the town as well as the brewery have long histories that go way back into the middle ages. Both the town & the brewery are tied inextricably together. Einbecker’s slogan presumes the reader is aware of this connection when it actually promotes the city but not the brewery: “Without Einbeck, there would be no Bock Beer.”

An interesting slogan, you could actually be forgiven for believing that Einbeck invented this distinctive style of beer that is called 'bock.' There is nothing untrue about that statement but it is not quite clear exactly where or when modern bock first appeared on the beverage scene. Surely there would be no bock beer without Einbeck’s historical role in the development of this great beverage.

Truly, Einbeck is where we must start the telling of bock’s story. This small medieval city developed as a resort for the nobles of Hamburg. It grew and thus reached a point in the early to mid-13th century it was large enough that it became recognized as a proper city, with a mayor & a council of burghers. From the commercial standpoint this was a very fortunate time for Einbeck to come into its own. Hamburg was then the center as well as a primary member of a strong trading federation known as the Hanseatic League. Traditionally, power in Europe flowed from the Church or was briefly siezed by various medieval rulers until his neighbors banded together to bring defeat him. It was centuries before the nation of Germany would come into existence but the growth of these alliances, such as the League, signaled the growth of a new power, an economic power. Being part of the Hanseatic League, Einbeck was able to realize the advantages of this new power along with being able to thus reap the rewards.

Dame Fortune smiled upon Einbeck in another way. The city developed right in the middle of a prime hop producing region at the time when hops were first being added to beers. Previously brewers added various herb blends to beer. These were distinctive proprietary blends that were passed down verbally to protect their secrecy so the recipes for most such herb-brewed beers have been unfortunately lost to us today. When given the rapidity & completeness with which hop-brewed beers replaced them, hops must have proven that they were far superior to any of the herb blends both in terms of balance & preservation. As ypu already know, Einbeck was right there brewing beer in the middle of a big hops field!

Einbeck’s fame as a producer of quality beer began to grow. With the strength of the Hanseatic League behind them, Einbeck's brewers saw their beer shipped all over Europe & as far away as Rome, Constantinople, Acre & Jerusalem. Many of these ports built separate depots exclusively for the storage & distribution of Einbeck beer because they received so much of it so regularly. This testament was not only to the appeal of the product but also to the supurb quality and this in a time before refrigerated ship holds, trucks & railcars were ever conceived.

Einbeck held dominance as a primary beer producer until early in the 17th century when the Hanseatic League that supported it began to disintegrate due to the Thirty Years War combined with the rise of competing economic alliances in Holland & Poland along with threats from rising powers in Sweden, Prussia & Denmark. Without the Hanseatic League & the support of its long established trade routes, Einbeck beer could not be shipped. This was just the beginning of trouble for Einbeck brewers as we shall soon see. Not too long after turn of the century most of the town burned taking the breweries with it. A new brewery was constructed but it also burned down. It was replaced by 2 separate breweries that operated with success until the 1920’s when they merged to form what is now known as the Einbecker brewery and is still in operation today.

Munich - Muenchen
Now we must depart with Einbeck smoldering there in the early 17th century so we may follow bock’s story on to Munich in Bavaria. Much of Einbeck’s famous beer had found its way into steins in this Bavarian city. By the end of the 16th century the very same pressures that would eventually cause the Hanseatic League to collapse began to interrupt shipments of this tasty & very good northern beer.

As the beer from the north began to reduced to a trickle, Duke Maximillian I became aware that he had to do something about the situation. His predecessors had hired a brewer from Brunswick hoping of reproduce the tatsy northern beer. They had even built the Hofbräuhause München brewery but the great demand for the imported beer only increased as the supply dwindled down to a mere trickle. In 1612 Duke Max invited the foremost Einbeck brew meister to Munich. Even as the League was collapsing around him, Brew Meister Elias Pichler packed his bags & headed to the south. Pichler was warmly ushered into Munich where he found that he was not quite so welcome to leave. His knowledge of brewing was much too valuable for him to be allowed to return home to Einbeck. Certainly you can truly imagine Duke Max telling him, “Vee haf vays of making you brew!” it was a short 2 years later that the Hofbräuhause München was brewing a fair approximation of Einbeck’s prized bock beer.

Why “bock?”
What exactly were they calling this beer? The origin of bock’s name is impossible to prove but some very entertaining & interesting explanations have been told & suggested over the years. Most of them focus on the fact that 'bock' in German also means billygoat & thus many bock beer labels feature goats. Where is the beer-goat connection? One legend puts forth that the traditional time to brew bock beer was under the sign of Capricorn, the goat. Another legend tells an amusing story of a drinking contest between a Bavarian duke & a knight from Brunswick. Each was given a cask of beer from his opponent’s beer supply. After a few drinks the knight found himself on the ground while the Bavarian remained in his seat. The embarrassed knight blamed a goat that had found its way into the courtyard, saying "That damned gost butted me!". The Bavarian, who also happened to be a brew meister, laughed then told the knight, “The Bock that threw you over was brewed by me!”  Typically, the most amusing or interesting stories about such things, are usually the hardest to believe. The most widely accepted explanation of bock’s christening holds that bock is simply a derivative of Einbeck. This makes a lot of sense especially when you consider that to order a bock in German you would say, “Ein Bock.”

Bock's Legacies:

Dunkles Bock, Doppelbock, Hellesbock & Maibock

Doppelbock
It is easily assumed that doppelbock a.k.a. double bock was developed when a brewer produced a bigger bock. Guess what? That is not the case! Doppelbock developed quite on its own & only after having become very popular. It was then that the bock-comparing nomenclatures began to appear.

Munich means “home of monks” and it was for the brothers of St. Francis of Paula. These vegetarian monks from Italy observed 2 fasts each year, the first during Lent & the second for the month leading up to Christmas. It has commonly been told that European monks of this time relied on dark beers to sustain them through their long fasts & these Paulaners were no exception. They developed a particularly dark beer with a lot of protein along with carbohydrates derived from the mash that served them well during the times when solid foods were prohibited.

When this beer first became available in Munich, the public noted its superlative nature & similarities to bock. They began calling it 'doppelbock.' The Paulaners had always called it Salvator & this is the name still applied to the beer made by the Paulaner brewery.

Salvator as abeer name is another unsolvable mystery. Some hint that the monks referred to their sustaining & gladdening brew as Saintly Father Beer or Sankt-Vater-Beir from which Salvator derived. Another legend tells that it comes from a passage in the Paulaner’s benediction, “ad sanctum Salvatorem.” How it made the leap to beer in this scenario no one has a clue.

Hellesbock & Maibock
Hellesbock is a product of the 18th century brewing revolution that gave us pale ale & Pilsner. It is a much paler beer but retains a lot of flavor as well as the alcohol levels of father bock. Unlike doppelbock, hellesbock appears to have been a very determined & very deliberate attempt to improve bock. Hellesbock & its seasonal sister beer, maibock, create much loved sub-styles for themselves but their very existence made it necessary to change the name of bock itself. Bock, is considerably clearer & lighter in color than other contemporary beers when it was first brewed centuries before. Now it is the darker of the beers. Thus, bock is now known as dunkles or dark bock.  Hellesbock demonstrates the absolute mastery of German brewers. A good helles will deftly walk the line between pale color & lots of flavor. In the very processes that filter & reduce color also reduce flavor so this can sometimes be a most difficult balance to strike. Helles also tends to have a bit more hops than dunkles or doppelbock. Maibock is basically a special seasonal brewed Helles. It is shows up only during the spring months so thus the name May-bock. It is pale like Helles & certainly can be a bit spicier.

Sources:

The Secret Life of Beer!: Exposed: Legends, Lore & Little-Known Facts
By: Alan D. Eames
ISBN: 1580176011

Bock: Classic Beer Series #9
By; Darryl Richman
ISBN: 9780937381397

Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation (Paperback)
By: Stephen Harrod Buhner
ISBN-10: 0937381667

The Beer Guide
By: Josh Oakes
ISBN: 1892588161

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/homebrew/bock.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/beer-faq/part1/section-7.html
http://beeradvocate.com/articles/295
http://www.epicurean.com/articles/pleasures-of-bock.html

Copyright © 2009 Donald R Houston, PhD. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the author's consent.