Today, I am thankful for the oldest and most spectacular recipe for a beverage.
Nearly a decade ago, I attended a medical conference in the heart of Bavaria, in the lovely city of Munich, Germany. Although I’m confident the learning and lessons gleaned from that scientific gathering were put to good use over the next few years, I cannot remember any specific aspect of the actual meeting itself. However, I do recall skipping out of the conference one afternoon with a friend (don’t tell my boss!) to visit a historic site nearly 40 kilometers west of Munich. In the town of Andechs, Upper Bavaria, resides a historic Benedictine monastery at the top of the long, windy climb. The trek from the station to the top of the Holy Mountain where the monastery resides is a reasonably lengthy hike, one bound to work up a sweat, especially on an unusually sultry day in May. Fortunately, when we reached the top of the monastery what we encountered was beyond glorious. Since 1445, the monks residing in the monastery have been producing the only beverage that matters. Each year, thousands of tourists make the pilgrimage to visit their brewery, where the monastic community makes its own beer. After a visit through the Rococo church on this site of a famous old castle, one then makes their way into the ‘bier garden’ of the Andechs brewery (known in German as Klosterbrauerei Andechs). There, one can partake of a variety of beverage offerings, including Doppelbock Dunkel, Helles, Bergbock Hell, and, my favorite, Hefeweizen. That day, my colleague and I enjoyed our lovely brews (notice the plural at the end of the last word). We relished our beverages accompanied by some delicious German cheese and scrumptious schnitzel in the spacious outdoor restaurant. As we sat overlooking the quaint village below, we marveled how all the products we consumed were reared and bred by the monks. Eventually, after a few visits back to the counter, we departed down the mountain for the train that would take us back to urban civilization. I’ll never forget that day; more importantly, I’m never forget how delectable and succulent my unfiltered wheat beer was.
I am somewhat amazed to learn that beer is regarded as the oldest recipe in the world. First brewed nearly 10,000 years BC in Mesopotamia using grains fermented by wild yeast, beer has remained a continuous staple of human existence ever since. Nearly 5,000 years later, the ancient Egyptians realized they had something worth savoring in beer, so they began to chronicle the recipes for this beverage on papyrus scrolls. Many of their ‘brews’ included items that we might find a bit unusual, such as the combinations of grains with sour fruits, such as dates and pomegranates, to cut the sweetness of the alcoholic brew. With the advent of the Middle Ages, beer made its way into Northern Europe, where the monks in modern-day Bavaria made a glorious discovery. They realized that if one added bitter, wild ‘hops’ to their fermented beverages they could better balance the sweetness of the alcoholic offering. Moreover, they serendipitously uncovered that the hops serves as a natural preservative that protects the beer from spoiling. They would also learn that cold storage, a process known as ‘lagering,’ also assist in the preservation of their treasured jewel. These two astounding miracles are probably sufficient to bestow sainthood on these deserving early monks. I’m not sure why Pope Benedict XVI did not follow through on this recognition, but I digress.
In due time, beer would make its way west to Belgium, and then across the English Channel into the United Kingdom. There, the British would continue to improve on this ‘liquid gold’ with new varieties, such as ales, porters, and stouts. In an effort to ship beers to the far distant reaches of the British Empire, such as the Indian subcontinent, brewers would learn to increase the content of both the alcohol and hops. With such measures, brews such as ‘India Pale Ales’, one of my favorite varieties, came into existence. As the British colonized America, they also brought their tasty concoctions to the New World. Although the early colonial beers were reminiscent of potations drunk in the pubs of London, the eventual migration of immigrants from Germany and Czech Republic to the cities of the Milwaukee and St. Louis led to the birth of the Pilsner-style beer so famous in commercial offerings from Budweiser, Miller, and other Midwest breweries.
Beer and its aftereffect of public drunkenness became so popular in the late 19th Century that temperance efforts to curtail its production, transport, and consumption were introduced in the early 1920s. Fortunately, as we will learn in a future segment, those measures were repealed. Today, the ‘rebirth’ of beer continues with thousands of American microbreweries throughout the fifty states of the Union. Much like the beer gardens one might find in Bavaria, these microbrews have transformed the world and their offerings have moved beyond the Pilsner. So, as we officially celebrate Columbus Day (or Discoverers Day) on this specific date in the United States, let’s also take a moment to praise the birth of the first Oktoberfest, first held as well on this day (Oct 12). The first Oktoberfest was a 16-day celebration in 1812 to commemorate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The tradition continues strong long after the wedding ended. Today, I plan to celebrate both the discovery of the New World and the discovery of the greatest beverage recipe known to humankind with a tribute to the wonderful monks of the Benedictine order in Andechs.
I’ll start with a hearty Hefeweizen in their honor, and I’ll see where we go from there.
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