The Munich Baker-Brewer Dispute: Yeast and the Emergence of Lager

A Tectonic Shift

At first blush, the Munich Baker-Brewer Dispute might look like a curious footnote in the annals of medieval history.[1] But it’s much more than that. Flaring up sporadically between 1481 and 1517, this inter-guild dispute is not only a colourful story, it also illuminates a momentous transformation in brewing history: the shift from top fermentation to bottom fermentation in Bavaria, and the emergence of what we now call lager. For when we zoom in and focus on what the decades-long dispute was all about, we notice something interesting: yeast.

Besides furnishing us with documentary evidence confirming that medieval brewers and bakers knew what yeast was, the dispute also reveals that brewers were beginning to practice a different kind of brewing.[2] Significantly, the yeast for this new process required more time and lower temperatures. What’s more, brewers were in the process of learning that more malt, higher hop rates, and long periods of cold storage resulted in a beer that was resistant to souring microbes during fermentation, kept longer, and, most importantly, tasted better.

Wrangling over Yeast

Not long after Bohemian brewery helpers were said to have introduced the first bottom-fermented and hopped “Bohemian beer” into Bavaria,[3] we hear the first stirrings of this dispute between bakers and brewers in a complaint from 1481 to the Munich city council (Stadtrat).[4] Evidently the bakers weren’t happy with the way that the brewers had been delivering their yeast.

Salutary as this new brewing technique was for brewers, the gradual adoption of so-called “Bohemian beer” yielded yeast that was ostensibly less suitable for baking. First, the yeast’s lower active temperature meant longer rise times for bakers, making it less efficient for bread-baking than top-fermenting yeast was. Second, the yeast from “Bohemian beer” arrived at the baker’s door intermixed with more hop matter than the yeast from the lower-hopped, top-fermented Winterbier.[5] More hops meant more bitterness, which, the bakers claimed, had a detrimental effect on the taste of their bread.[6] The city council ruled in favour of the bakers.

The conflict goes quiet in the sources of the fifteenth century’s closing decades, except for a brief mention in a Munich beer ordinance from 1491. Among other things, the ordinance set beer prices and stipulated the proper proportions of grain and water while taking into account a brewer’s costs for things like wood to fire the kettles and to malt the grain. Significantly, the ordinance also took into account what a brewer would make from the sale of spent grain to farmers, and the sale of yeast to bakers.[7]

Signposts on the Road to Lager

Nearly a decade later, Duke Albrecht IV dealt with a complaint brought by brewers in 1500  alleging that the bakers had been producing their own yeast, which resulted in the spoilage of the brewers’ yeast prepared for bakers. Brewers were not impressed with the financial loss.

Sensing an opportunity to strengthen his position in city affairs, Albrecht took the side of the brewers and forbade the bakers from producing their own yeast. Albrecht noted in his ruling that the civic “office” (Brauamt) conferred upon brewers in Munich stipulated that only brewers were allowed to deal in malt.[8] Since the bakers had used malt to produce their yeast, they were in violation of the brewers’ rights.

If this ruling explicitly warns the bakers against producing their own yeast, the duke also imposed certain conditions on brewers, enjoining them to sell only “good” yeast and directing them to build a common cellar where different yeasts could be stored and inspected. He added the following proviso: “In the event of a yeast shortage during the hot months, the brewers are obliged to produce extra yeast at the request of the inspectors.”[9]

Taken together, these strictures indicate that the bakers’ complaints stemmed from the shift in brewing methods occurring around the close of the fifteenth century. The duke’s proviso is also a tantalizing hint that summer brewing was tailing off as more brewers embraced “Bohemian beer,” which required cooler fermentation and cold storage.

Lager Ascendant

Yet the complaints kept coming. The bakers redoubled their efforts to discredit the yeast from this new brewing process. Meanwhile, the brewers dug in their heels, for this hoppy new beer was becoming increasingly popular. That it maintained its freshness and kept longer also catered to their interests.

And so, in 1508, Duke Wilhelm IV was forced to issue a new proclamation, this one signaling a clear awareness that the kind of beer (Biersorte) played a decisive role in the quality of the yeast for bakers: “The brewers shall bring yeast from ‘small beer’ (geringem Bier) into the cellar and shall not mix it with that of ‘Bohemian beer.’ […] Under threat of penalty, brewers shall not supply the bakers with bad yeast, but nor shall the bakers prepare the yeast themselves.”[10]

That still didn’t settle the issue. Bakers continued to bypass the city brewers, even going so far as to procure their yeast from the monasteries.[11] They claimed (with some justification) that the monasteries also possessed brewing rights, so they weren’t in violation of anyone’s brewing rights by procuring (cheaper) yeast from the monasteries.

This put the duke in a difficult position. Relying on a heavy dose of pretzel logic, the duke ruled that the right of yeast production didn’t derive from the brewing right (Braurecht) itself, but was a privilege alone of the burgher brewers who had been conferred an official civic “post” or commission as a brewer in Munich (the so-called “Brauamt”).[12]

A New Brewing Reality

By 1517, Dukes Wilhelm and Ludwig saw fit to put an end to the dispute between Munich’s brewers and bakers. The decision they handed down was a tacit acknowledgment of how dramatically the realities of brewing had shifted over the past decade. Indeed, these realities were already reflected in the provisions of the “Reinheitsgebot” of 1516 linking the higher price set for Märzen beer to its higher production costs in terms of time and ingredients.

Recognizing a fait accompli — most brewing was now happening during the cooler months — the dukes restricted the brewers’ yeast-making privilege to the winter months while permitting the bakers to produce their own yeast from St. Georgi (23 April) to Bartholomäi (24 August). Foreshadowing the all-out prohibition on summer brewing that came later, the dukes also prescribed that the brewers had to end their brewing of Sommerbier (Märzen) by Easter.[13]

The Long Shadow of the Baker-Brewer Dispute

This last in a string of decisions and ordinances adjudicating the decades-long Baker-Brewer Dispute underscores the extent of the demand for beer that was capable of keeping over the summer without spoiling. The dukes’ decision reflected this state of affairs, and also reflected the reality that brewers were now brewing less beer during the summer months, which adversely affected the supply of yeast for bakers. In these circumstances, the brewers were no longer in a position to fulfill their obligations to the bakers.

The Baker-Brewer Dispute is also an example of how brewing history sheds light on larger historical developments. While the dukes’ 1517 decision didn’t put an immediate end to the old arrangements between the bakers and brewers, the dispute serves to delineate the transition from the late medieval system of rights and mutual obligations to a system characterized by a growing division of labour. It also elucidates the increasingly organized nature of the brewing trade, which made possible the concentration and deployment of greater quantities of capital needed to build lagering cellars and larger brewing facilities that could meet increasing demand.

We might also mention a further point that ties into the broader history of Bavaria and its emergence as a powerful modern state: The dispute demonstrates how the dukes and their descendants shored up their sovereign rights in Munich, which they subsequently extended outwards via bureaucracies that enforced legislation promulgated in the Bavarian law code of 1516. These included bureaucracies that enforced the ordinances pertaining to brewing.

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Back to beer. If the ducal decision handed down in 1517 reflected the rapid rise of bottom fermentation and its links with higher-quality beer, the Sommersudverbot (summer brewing prohibition) two decades later provided an even stronger impetus toward the adoption of bottom fermentation.

On 27 March 1539, Duke Ludwig X proclaimed the following: “The brewers must supply the city with good ‘Märzenbier’ until Michaelmas and are not allowed to brew beer after St. George’s Day over the summer. They must therefore close down their brewing vessels and have them sealed.”[14] This proclamation cemented the dukes’ promotion of bottom-fermented Märzen in 1516 and 1517, a stronger beer fermented low and slow and lagered to last the summer.

Ultimately, the 1553 Brauverordnung (brewing decree) would finalize the summer brewing prohibition for the entire Bavarian realm.

A Note on Sources

All direct quotes are from secondary sources that draw upon archival material housed in the Bavarian State Archive and the City Archive of Munich. The bibliographical information for these sources (Karin Hackel-Stehr, Michael Stephan, and Astrid Assél and Christian Huber) is in the footnotes.

Other secondary sources on the early history of bottom fermentation include Michael Nadler (see footnotes for biographical information), and Franz Meussdoerffer and Martin Zarnkow, “Biere des Mittelalters,” in Riepertinger, et. al. (eds.). Bier in Bayern (Regensburg, 2016).

English-language sources are sparse. For a recent account of both yeast and the ordinances that led up to the Reinheitsgebot, see Mark Dredge, A Brief History of Lager: 500 Years of the World’s Favourite Beer (Kyle Books, 2019), pp.16-26.

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Portions of this article appeared in a section of “Rites of Spring, Summer & Autumn: Lager and the Birth of the Bavarian Beer Garden,” Zymurgy, Vol. 6, No.5 (September/October 2023).

Related posts

“A Heavenly Drink, Like Concentrated Sunshine”: Vienna Lager Past and Present

Gruit: Herbs, Spice, and Everything Nice

The Hofbräuhaus and the Origins of Bock Beer

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Endnotes

[1] See Karin Hackel-Stehr, “Das Brauwesen in Bayern: vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert, insbesondere die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Reinheitsgebotes (1516),” Ph.D. diss. (Berlin: Technische Universität Berlin, 1987), pp.46-52, and Astrid Assél and Christian Huber, München und das Bier: Auf großer Biertour durch 850 Jahre Braugeschichte, 2^nd ed. (Munich, 2012), p.42.

[2] The documents surrounding the dispute help dispel the persistent notion that since yeast wasn’t mentioned in the Reinheitsgebot of 1516, Central Europeans had little idea about yeast before Pasteur. But if we have documentary evidence that Bavarians already knew about yeast, why did the Reinheitsgebot of 1516 omit any discussion of yeast? Aside from speculation that brewers and lawmakers viewed yeast more as a result of the brewing process than as an ingredient in its own right, the answer lies with numerous city ordinances from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that fed into the Bavarian law code (Landesordnung) of 1516. What we now call the Reinheitsgebot is but a small section in this compendium. In a word, the authorities didn’t need to reinvent the wheel of previous ordinances. The law code of 1516 was a set of ordinances for an entire duchy that had only recently been reunited. Brevity in particular matters covered (like brewing) was likely a virtue. And besides, the nascent brewing industry was already familiar with the essence of the brewing prescriptions contained in the 1516 compendium.

In discussing the drafts that eventuated in the Munich brewing ordinance of 1487 (what we now call the “Munich Reinheitsgebot”), Karin Hackel-Stehr notes that the Munich city council sought to bring their brewing ordinances into line with those in other cities (pp.34-41). Regensburg (1454, 1466, 1469), Landshut (1409, 1486), and Bamberg (1489) were but a few of the cities in or near Bavaria that had drawn up ordinances to regulate brewing. Content-wise, what sets the Munich ordinance of 1487 apart from earlier municipal ordinances is a sustained focus on brewing from the purchase of raw materials to the distribution of the final product. All of the following (and more) came up for debate for inclusion in the final version of the ordinance: beer prices, the organization of the brewing trade, production (such as pitched barrels for fermentation), the obligation to buy only the “best” grain, the establishment of the “Bierbeschau” (a quality inspection protocol), and — significantly for our purposes, the inspection and sale of yeast. Landshut’s ordinance of 1493 was similarly comprehensive. On the topic of the “Bierbeschau” and other bureaucracies of inspection, see: Michael Stephan, “Münchener Brauer zwischen Stadtrat und Landesherrn: Die Entwicklung der Münchener Braulehen vom Mittelalter bis 1814,” in Ursula Eymold, (ed.), Bier.Macht.München (2016), p.23; and Assél and Huber, p.41.

[3] “Bohemian beer” was introduced into Bavaria in 1480 by brewery workers from Bohemia. See Assél and Huber, p.44.

[4] Stadtarchiv München, Ratsprotokolle, RP 2 (1481).

[5] Winterbier was a lower-gravity beer brewed during the winter and consumed young, whereas Sommerbier (which also went by the name Märzenbier and eventually evolved into lager in a generalized sense) was brewed to a higher starting gravity so that it could hold up longer over the summer months. The terms Winterbier and Sommerbier appear to be related to the “chaltes Pier” (bottom-fermented) and “warmes Pier” (top-fermented) mentioned in the Landshuter Biersatz of 1409. (This is also among the earliest — if not the earliest — documentary references to bottom fermentation. A Munich ordinance from 1420 is another candidate here.) On Winterbier, Sommerbier, and the Landshuter Biersatz of 1409, see, variously; Hacker-Stehr, pp.78-82; Assél and Huber, pgs. 40, 112, and 146; and Michael Nadler, “Reinheitsgebot und Staatssäckel,” in Rainhard Riepertinger, et. al. (eds.). Bier in Bayern. Ex. cat., Haus der Bayrischen Geschichte. (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 2016), p.144.

[6] Hackel-Stehr, p.49.

[7] Brauordnung des Rates (cited in Hackel-Stehr). As a historical side note, this ordinance provides evidence that Hopfenbier (hopped beer) had prevailed over gruit (ale made with herbs and spices) by the late fifteenth century.

[8] Brauamt is a medieval term that refers to a brewer’s officially licensed activity. Functionally, the acquisition of this post meant a brewer’s entry into the guild.

[9] Stadtarchiv München, Gewerbeamt 1179, cited in Hackel-Stehr, p.47. It’s not clear from Hackel-Stehr’s rendering of these sources in contemporary German whether the duke used the word “Hefe” (yeast) or “Zeug,” (a word in the brewing vernacular that was used to refer to yeast right up into the nineteenth century).

[10] Stadtarchiv München, Gewerbeamt 1179, cited in Hackel-Stehr, p.48. Presumably, “geringes Bier” refers here to top-fermented “Nachbier,” or what in Franconia went by the name of “Heinzlein.” I’m indebted to Matthias Trum for his help in decoding this late-medieval brewing term.

[11] Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 1137.

[12] Cf. Hackel-Stehr, p.51. See above for the significance of this commission and its relationship with guilds — and, by extension, the relationship of guilds to the growing power of cities vis-à-vis the monasteries and landed gentry.

[13] Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 1137, referenced in Hackel-Stehr, pp.51-52. It’s worth noting that although Assél and Huber describe the general contours of the dispute in a similar vein, their account conflates the results of the ordinances of 1500 and 1517. See Assél and Huber, p.42.

[14] BayHStA, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 1137.

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