Traditional 1870s Vienna Lager

Andreas Krenmair, author of Historic German and Austrian Beer for the Homebrewer, has spent the past couple of years researching and writing his upcoming book, Vienna Lager. What follows is a traditional recipe adapted from his new book. The recipe is a reconstruction of Vienna lager according to the historic specifications and brewing-process descriptions from the 1870s and 1880s—however, in the Brewer’s Notes below, we describe a variation based on more modern methods.

Krenmair’s recipe includes ranges of temperatures or times to account for differences in the historical records. We include those ranges here; feel free to choose more specific targets, or just aim for the middle.

ALL-GRAIN

liters) 75%

HOPS SCHEDULE

0.9 oz (25 g) Saaz [3% AA] at 120 minutes 1.8 oz (51 g) Saaz [3% AA] at 75 minutes

YEAST

White Labs WLP820 Oktoberfest/märzen about 97–100°F