Today is the 73rd birthday of Danish beer writer and lecturer Carsten Berthelsen, who I’ve gotten to know judging at the Brussels Beer Challenge over the years. We also both judge the World Beer Awards, but in different parts of the world. The author of ten books, he hosts numerous tastings throughout the year, and is a fun person to go drinking with. Join me in wishing Carsten a very happy birthday.
Historic Beer Birthday: Carl Jacobsen
Today is the birthday of Carl Jacobsen (March 2, January 11, 1914) who was the son of J.C. Jacobsen, who founded the Carlsberg Brewery, which is now the Carlsberg Group, and named it after his son Carl, who became a brewer, as well.
Here’s how Carlsberg’s website tells the story.
Carl had to be a brewer – family tradition dictated it – and JC Jacobsen wanted him to get a solid theoretical and practical training as well as a thorough knowledge of the international brewery industry.
In 1866 Carl left Denmark for his educational tour of Europe, not to return until 1870. He went to France, Germany and Austria to study and work, and spent a year in Scotland as his father also wanted him to familiarize himself with the top-fermented English and Scottish beer types.JC was moving away from the idea of retiring for Carl to take over his brewery, and decided instead to finance and build a second brewery for Carl to run as a tenant brewer. Carl’s interest in brewing was awakened, and the intense correspondence between father and son now focussed on plans for the new brewery.
When Carl returned to Denmark, JC gave him the new Annexe Brewery to run as an independent business, and the first brew was made on 17 February 1871.
JC advised Carl to produce ale and porter for the home market and for export, as he believed there was no room for two lager breweries in Copenhagen. However, the demand for lager beer increased rapidly, and as porter and ale proved difficult to sell, Carl quickly changed production to the more popular lager beer. – Father and son became competitors.
In 1893, Danish artist August Jerndorff did a painting of Carl.
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol: Social, Cultural, and Historical Perspectives, published in 2015, has a nice overview of the Carlsberg brewery’s history of father and son.
And this is Carl Jacobsen in 1913, the year before he passed away.
Historic Beer Birthday: Morten Meilgaard
Today is the birthday of Morten Meilgaard (November 11, 1928-April 11, 2009). He was born in Vigerslev, Denmark, and received a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering, from the Technology University Denmark in 1952 and a Doctor of Science in Food Science, also from the Technology University Denmark in 1982. He is best known in the beer world for his work in sensory evaluation and the creation of the beer flavor wheel in the 1970s.
Throughout his career, he worked as a research chemist for Carlsberg in the late 1940s and 50s, then opened his own lab, the Alfred Jorgensen Laboratory for Fermentation, Copenhagen, which he ran until 1967. He later did research while working for Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc, in Mexico, and the Stroh Brewery Co. in Detroit, among others.
He received the Master Brewers Association Award of Merit for his research into compounds that influence the taste of beer. Meilgaard also founded the Hops Research Council of the United States, and chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee of the U.S. Brewers Association. He also chaired the Subcommittee on Sensory Analysis of the American Society of Brewing Chemists for 14 years.
This biography of Morten Milgaard is by his son Stephen Goodfellow:
Morten Christian Meilgaard was born on Fyn, Denmark in 1928. His younger siblings, Ida, Jorgen, and Erik, followed in short succession. As their father, Anton Meilgaard, was a country doctor, they were brought up in a rural milieu in Morud. Their school was a considerable distance away, and during some winters, they would ski to pursue their education.
Morten caught the travel bug early, taking a road trip with his friends Finn and Torben, pulling a creaky four-wheeled cart around Jutland in 1944, during the German occupation of Denmark.
After WWII, Morten pursued a degree as a chemical engineer and became rapidly became a research chemist specializing in yeasts for Alfred Jorgensens Laboratorium in Copenhagen. This dovetailed nicely with his love of travel, and his job took him all over the World. He was the Johnny Appleseed of establishing the flavors for beer throughout the World, including in Japan, South Africa, and the Americas.
Morten’s contribution to the field of sensory science cannot be underestimated; it was truly extensive. Amongst his many contributions, He is the major contributor to the flavor wheel, a Rosetta Stone of sensory evaluation science.
Morten’s publication, Sensory Evaluation Techniques, is the educational standard in this field of science. He was quite possibly the foremost expert in his field.
During his work and travels in England, he met Manon Meadows. They fell in love and remained married for almost fifty years, until her death in 2007.
Justin Meilgaard, Morten’s and Manon’s son, was born in England, 1966.
In 1967, the entire family, including Manon’s mother, Doris Meadows moved from Denmark to Monterrey Mexico where Morten worked for the Cuauhtemoc Brewery from 1967 to 1973.
In 1973, Morten was hired by Peter Stroh of the Stroh Brewery, Detroit, where he worked as Peter’s right-hand man until the Brewery was acquired by the Miller Brewing Company in 1999, at which point Morten retired.
Even after retirement, he continued to be active in his profession for many years, doing consulting jobs for the Danish Government, working with his co-editors on a revised edition of his book, and donating his extensive collection of brewing literature to Wayne State University.
In 1979, brewing chemist Morten Meilgaard created the Beer Flavor Wheel to be a standard for beer organoleptic analysis.Soon afterward, the European Brewery Convention, the American Society of Brewing Chemists, and the Master Brewers Association of the Americas all accepted it as such.
This is Scott Bickham’s “An Introduction to Sensory Analysis” from Brewing Techniques for their December 1997 issue, explaining the development of the beer flavor wheel:
The Meilgaard system developed by Meilgaard in 1975, was the first attempt to link flavor characteristics to certain styles of beer. This classification scheme assigned a Flavor Unit (FU) rating to each flavor constituent, defined as the ratio of a given compound’s concentration to its threshold value. Thus, if an American amber ale contained a caramel compound in concentrations twice that of its threshold value, for example, it would have an FU of 2. In this context, the relevant threshold is one of recognition, which corresponds to the lowest physical intensity at which a stimulus is correctly identified. This is to be compared with the stimulus threshold, the lowest physical intensity at which stimulus is perceptible and the difference threshold, the smallest change in physical intensity of a stimulus which is perceptible.
In the Meilgaard system, compounds primarily responsible for “beery” flavors are called primary constituents. These have concentrations above 2 FU (therefore they are generally present at concentrations at least twice the threshold). Removing any primary constituents from the beer would have a significant impact on the flavor. It doesn’t require much sensory training to recognize the essential contributions of alcohol, hop bitterness (technically), and carbon dioxide to any beer’s flavor. Although not as intense, secondary constituents (classified as having 0.5-2.0 FU) constitute the bulk of the flavor and act together to provide the characteristics that distinguish different beer styles. Removal of any of these secondary constituents would result in a lesser but still noticeable change in the flavor.
The next group is the tertiary constituents (0.1-0.5 FU) responsible for contributing subsidiary flavor notes. Removal of these, or of any of the background constituents with concentrations below 0.1 FU, produces no perceptible change in beer flavor, though these compounds nevertheless contribute to the overall character of the beer. Just as if you had removed the spices from a casserole, they may not be a major part of the recipe, but without them the end result will be flat.
Beer Birthday: Mikkel
Today is the 48th birthday of Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, founder of the Danish gypsy brewery Mikkeller. I first met Mikkel in Burton-on-Trent in 2008, during I trip when I accompanied Matt Brynildson to Marston’s where he was doing a collaboration beer. But the last time I ran into him at the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival several summers ago in Paso Robles. Join me in wishing Mikkel a very happy birthday.
Matt Brynildson and Mikkel comparing beards with Sir Thomas Gresham, and wondering if it’s a coincidence?
Me and Mikkel at the recent Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival a few years ago.
Goofing around with the Firestone Walker logo.
In the cellar at one of the J.D. Wetherspoons in London, with Matt, Toshi Ishi, from Japan, and Australian brewer Richard Adamson, from the now-defunct Barons Brewing.
Historic Beer Birthday: J.C. Jacobsen
Today is the birthday of J.C. Jacobsen, or Jacob Christian Jacobsen (September 2, 1811-April 30, 1887). He “was a Danish industrialist and philanthropist best known for founding the brewery Carlsberg,” which he named for his son Carl Jacobsen.
Here’s a short biography from his Wikipedia page:
He had no formal academic or scientific training (although he had attended some lectures by Hans Christian Ørsted). In the 1840s he had come to realise that production of beer, which had until then been done in numerous small breweries, now had to be based on scientific methods and to be industrialised.
Jacobsen was only 24 when he founded the brewery.Starting in 1847, he established his brewery Carlsberg (named after his son, Carl Jacobsen), in Valby on the outskirts of Copenhagen, on a site where it has remained since. Being extremely scrupulous as for the securing of high quality beer, in 1875 he founded the Carlsberg Laboratory.
He took much interest in public affairs and supported the National Liberal Party – being gradually more of a conservative – both as a Member of Parliament for some periods between 1854 and 1871 and as a strong supporter of the case of defence. Besides he was a well-known patron of art. After the fire of Frederiksborg Palace in 1859 he paid its rebuilding.
1876 he also founded “Carlsberg-fondet” – the Carlsberg Foundation that became his heir because of family problems of the next years. A bitter conflict with his son Carl led to the latter’s foundation of the Ny Carlsberg (New Carlsberg) Brewery 1882. A reconciliation was however obtained 1886. This conflict was the theme of a debated Danish TV drama series aired in 1997.
J.C. Jacobsen, by Danish portrait artist August Jerndorff
Here’s the biography that Carlsberg Group has on their website, entitled “Creating Carlsberg: The Greatest Gift of J.C. Jacobsen.”
It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to dub Jacob Christian Jacobsen, better known to most as J.C., “a legend.” The man did, after all, found one of the world’s most renowned breweries. And well over a century after his death, he remains one of Denmark’s most epochal characters.
It was a Wednesday – November 10th, 1847 – when J.C. Jacobsen’s newly created brewery Carlsberg completed its first brew. Shortly after, his traditional Bavarian lager was introduced to the Danish masses. The name Carlsberg was chosen to combine the name of his sole-surviving son “Carl” and the German word “berg,” meaning hilltop after the hilltop it was built upon.
Established in record time, the brewery used groundbreaking science to bring new brewing methods into the age of industrialization. Twenty-one years later, Carlsberg began exporting beer to Great Britain.
A young boy’s passion for brewing and science
Strange as it may sound today, it was clear from a very young age that J.C. would dedicate his life to brewing. He was, after all, the son of a brewer. It was in his blood.
As a child, J.C. could often be found experimenting in the basement of his father’s brewery on Brolæggerstræde in central Copenhagen. He was completely dedicated to the craft of beer and the intricacies of the natural sciences, both of which he went on to study as an adult at the new Technical University in Copenhagen. He sat in on lectures taught by H.C. Ørsted—a chemist who was particularly interested in the fermentation and brewing industries—and it was these lectures that inspired J.C.’s lifelong journey to “develop the art of making beer to the greatest possible degree of perfection.”
The year was 1836 when, in a wine merchant’s cellar, J.C. tasted his first imported Bavarian lager beer. Impressed and intrigued, J.C. ventured to Hamburg to study the production method first-hand. Upon returning to Copenhagen, he spent the next several years producing and selling small batches of Bavarian beer.
In 1838, J.C. married Laura Holst, a merchant’s daughter, and on March 2nd, 1842 their son Carl was born. But becoming a family man didn’t slow down J.C.’s pursuit towards crafting the perfect beer.
In 1845 he traveled to the Zum Späten brewery in Munich, where he was introduced to bottom-fermenting yeast. Although he didn’t know it at the time, this was to become the backbone of the beer produced at Carlsberg.
Beyond Beer: Establishing The Carlsberg Foundation
But more than a brewer and entrepreneur, J.C. was a patron of the arts, sciences, and, most notably, his home country of Denmark.
In 1875, he founded the Carlsberg Laboratory to explore and improve the beer-making process. It was here where the method for cultivating pure yeast was discovered—a discovery that J.C. shared with brewers all across the globe to improve the quality of beer everywhere – not just in his own brewery. A year later, using funds from the brewery, he created The Carlsberg Foundation to provide support to the Carlsberg Laboratory and also to Danish research ranging from the natural sciences and mathematics to the humanities and philosophy. The Carlsberg Foundation still exists today as a major contributor to modern science and art. It is run by a team of scientists who are the deciding shareholders of Carlsberg A/S and are also responsible for appointing a handful of the company’s board of directors—including the chairman.
Due to the turbulent nature of the relationship between J.C. and his son Carl, J.C. left his brewery to the Foundation—not Carl—when he passed away. In 1902, about a decade before Carl’s death, the Foundation also claimed ownership of the New Carlsberg Brewery.
Historically, The Carlsberg Foundation has been a part of many momentous projects in Denmark. In 1878, it sponsored the restoration of Frederiksborg Castle during its transformation into the Museum of National History. And in the spirit of J.C. himself, the Foundation continues to provide generous support to Danish pioneers. For example, it funded the building of The Danish Institute in Athens, a research center for archeologists, Greek historians, and philologists. There’s also the Danish Institute in Rome, established by The Carlsberg Foundation in 1967 to facilitate a cultural exchange between Denmark and Italy. In addition, The Foundation awards yearly monetary grants to Danish scientific researchers.
Outside of Carlsberg, J.C. held interests in politics and the arts. He served as a member of the Danish Parliament (“Folktinget”) for two terms. He designed and funded the Palm House at the University of Copenhagen’s Botanical Garden. He also designed his own Villa, which became a meeting grounds for the era’s intellectual elite like author Hans Christian Andersen and chemist Louis Pasteur.
J.C. died in 1887, on a visit to Rome.
His ingenuity and generosity continue to inspire generations of Carlsberg employees, who want to achieve, as their predecessor once said, “the greatest possible degree of perfection.”
J.C. Jacobsen with his entire staff.
Photographed in 1885 at the Carlsberg brewery.
J.C. Jacobsen’s Childhood
Before J.C. created Carlsberg, he was simply the son of Caroline Frederikke Schelbeck and Christen Jacobsen. Caroline was the daughter of a Copenhagen silk weaver, while Christen grew up a farmer’s son in Northern Jutland. In 1801, Christen packed his bags and made way for Copenhagen to start a better life for himself, quickly finding work as a brewery hand in the King’s Brew-House (Kongens Bryghus) and shortly thereafter becoming the director. By 1826 he’d set up his own brewery on Brolæggerstræde in central Copenhagen, in the same building where his son J.C. spent his childhood.
J.C., the first and only child of Caroline and Christen, was born on September 2nd, 1811. Drawn to his father’s work at an early age, J.C. took on many responsibilities as his father’s health began to fail. In 1835, when Christen died, J.C. continued his father’s legacy and ran the family brewery. When his mother died a decade later, J.C. inherited both the brewery and also a great sum of money, which was later invested into the founding of Carlsberg Brewery.
And here’s a promotional video history of Carlsberg, created by the Carlsberg Group:
A few years ago I was in Copenhagen, meeting with J.C. Jacobsen, or at least standing in front of his portrait while Martyn Cornell snapped our photo.
Historic Beer Birthday: Johan Kjeldahl
Today is the birthday of Johan Gustav Christoffer Thorsager Kjeldahl (August 16, 1849-July 18, 1900) He was a Danish chemist who developed a method for determining the amount of nitrogen in certain organic compounds using a laboratory technique which was named the Kjeldahl method after him.
Kjeldahl worked in Copenhagen at the Carlsberg Laboratory, associated with Carlsberg Brewery, where he was head of the Chemistry department from 1876 to 1900.
He was given the job to determine the amount of protein in the grain used in the malt industry. Less protein meant more beer. Kjeldahl found the answer was in developing a technique to determine nitrogen with accuracy but existing methods in analytical chemistry related to proteins and biochemistry at the time were far from accurate.
A painting by Otto Haslund of Johan Kjeldahl.
His discovery became known as the Kjeldahl Method
The method consists of heating a substance with sulphuric acid, which decomposes the organic substance by oxidation to liberate the reduced nitrogen as ammonium sulphate. In this step potassium sulphate is added to increase the boiling point of the medium (from 337 °C to 373 °C) . Chemical decomposition of the sample is complete when the initially very dark-coloured medium has become clear and colourless.
The solution is then distilled with a small quantity of sodium hydroxide, which converts the ammonium salt to ammonia. The amount of ammonia present, and thus the amount of nitrogen present in the sample, is determined by back titration. The end of the condenser is dipped into a solution of boric acid. The ammonia reacts with the acid and the remainder of the acid is then titrated with a sodium carbonate solution by way of a methyl orange pH indicator.
In practice, this analysis is largely automated; specific catalysts accelerate the decomposition. Originally, the catalyst of choice was mercuric oxide. However, while it was very effective, health concerns resulted in it being replaced by cupric sulfate. Cupric sulfate was not as efficient as mercuric oxide, and yielded lower protein results. It was soon supplemented with titanium dioxide, which is currently the approved catalyst in all of the methods of analysis for protein in the Official Methods and Recommended Practices of AOAC International.
And Velp Scientifica also has an explanation of his method, which is still in use today.
Kjeldahl (center) in his laboratory.
Historic Beer Birthday: Max Henius
Today is the birthday of Max Henius (June 16, 1859–November 15, 1935). He “was a Danish-American biochemist who specialized in the fermentation processes. Max Henius co-founded the American Academy of Brewing in Chicago.”
Max Henius, at left, at Rebild, Denmark.
Here’s his biography, from Wikipedia:
Max Henius was born in Aalborg, Denmark. His parents were Isidor Henius (1820–1901) and Emilie (née Wasserzug) Henius (1839–1913), both Polish Jewish immigrants. His father, who was born in Thorn, West Prussia, now Torun, Poland, emigrated to Denmark in 1837 and continued his work for spirits distillers to improve and standardise production and later – 15 January 1846 – co-founded one distillery, Aalborg priviligerede Sirup- og Sprtitfabrik, that was later, together with several other distilleries, consolidated into De Danske Spritfabrikker in 1881, a Danish distillery which is now – since 2012 – part of the Norwegian Arcus Group, which closed the distillery in Aalborg in 2015, moving production to Norway instead. Isidor Henius also owned a small castle in Aalborg, now called Sohngaardsholm Slot. Since 2005, it has been the site of a gourmet restaurant.
Max Henius was educated at the Aalborg Latin School and went on to study at the Polytechnic Institute in Hanover, Germany He attended the University of Marburg, earning his Ph.D. degree in chemistry during 1881. His father sold the distillery that same year. Max Henius subsequently emigrated from Aalborg to the United States in 1881 at the age of 22, settling in Chicago. His younger brother, Erik S. Henius, (1863- 1926) remained in Denmark where he was Chairman of the Danish Export Association.
Initially he was employed by the Northern Pacific Railway on an assignment to test the waters between Fargo, North Dakota, and Bozeman, Montana. In 1886, he opened a drug store. Subsequently he formed Wahl & Henius, an institute for chemical and mechanical analysis, with his former schoolmate, Robert Wahl (1858-1937). Founded in 1891, the Chicago-based American Brewing Academy (later known as the Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology) was one of the premier brewing schools of the pre-prohibition era. This institute was later expanded with a brew master school that operated until 1921.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Max Henius became interested in Danish-American organizations in Chicago. Funds were being raised by Danish Americans to purchase 200 acres (0.81 km2) of heather-covered hills, located in part of Rold Forest (Danish: Rold Skov), Denmark’s largest forest. In 1912 Max Henius presented the deed to H.M. King Christian X as a permanent memorial from Danish Americans. Rebild National Park (Danish: Rebild Bakker) is today a Danish national park situated near the town of Skørping in Rebild municipality, Region Nordjylland in northern Jutland, Denmark. Every July 4 since 1912, except during the two world wars, large crowds have gathered in the heather-covered hills of Rebild to celebrate American Independence Day. On the slope north of Rebild, where the residence of Max Henius was once located, a bust was placed in his memory.
And here’s Randy Mosher’s entry from the Oxford Companion to Beer of the Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology:
Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology
is a brewing research laboratory and school in Chicago that operated between 1886 and 1921.Founded in 1886 by Dr Robert Wahl and Dr Max Henius as the Wahl & Henius, the name was changed to the Scientific Station for Brewing of Chicago and then to the Institute of Fermentology before becoming the Wahl-Henius Institute. Its educational division, the American Brewing Academy, was created in 1891.
The school and laboratory operated successfully until Prohibition, when the near dissolution of the brewing trade forced its closure and sale to the American Institute of Baking, which retains the nucleus of the Wahl-Henius library.
Wahl-Henius would perhaps be mostly forgotten today if it were not for its role as publisher of two important beer texts. The Wahl-Henius Handy Book of Brewing, Malting and the Auxillary Trades, coauthored by Wahl and Henius, is a comprehensive and wide-ranging view into American brewing in 1901. It also contains basic chemical analyses of many contemporary American and European beers, providing an unusually valuable window into the brewing past. J. P. Arnold’s 1911 Origin and History of Beer and Brewing is an exhaustive romp through thousands of years of beer history.
And this bust of Henius is in the Rebild National Park in Denmark. Henius organized fund-raising and “in 1911, almost 200 acres of the hilly countryside were bought with funds raised by Danish Americans. In 1912, Max Henius presented the deed to the land to his Majesty King Christian X as a permanent memorial to Danish Americans. Later the Danish government added to the land, that now features a beautiful natural park.”
And this is from the Chicago Midwest Rebild Chapter:
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Rebild Society, I find it fascinating to look at the lives of its builders in the context of their times. It is hard to imagine a more dynamic time of porous borders and explosive growth than the late 19th century. Probably the name most closely associated with the founding of the Rebild Society is Max Henius. I had the good fortune to come across a biography of Henius written by his associates shortly after his death, and much of what I have written of Henius is largely based on that biography.
The first Europeans to come to Chicago were Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673 when they claimed Midwestern North America for Nouvelle France. Marquette and Joliet traveled up the Illinois River and portaged to the Chicago River and down to Lake Michigan. Joliet called for a canal to be built to connect the Illinois and Chicago rivers to stimulate trade and help France establish an economic empire in the New World. It was a prescient recommendation. Such a canal would indeed be built almost 200 years later, and an economic empire was ignited. Chicago would become the transport hub for a new nation, and not for New France.
In 1838, ten years before the canal was built connecting the Great Lakes and Mississippi watersheds, Max Henius’ father immigrated to Denmark from an impoverished Jewish family in Torun, Poland, traveling on foot to Aarhus, where his brother Jacob lived. The journey took six weeks. The elder Henius rose quickly in the distillery business first in Aarhus and then in København. He launched his own his distillery, Spritfabrikken in Aalborg in 1846, with money loaned from partners. In 1854 he returned to Torun to find a bride.
Born in 1859, Max was educated at the Aalborg Latin School and went on to study at the Polytechnic Institute in Hanover before matriculating at the University of Marburg, Germany. 1881 was a pivotal year for Max Henius. His father sold the distillery that Max had hoped to take over, and he had fallen in love with Johanne Heiberg. Both families disapproved of the relationship and Max Henius decided to immigrate to the US and subsequently send for his fiancée to come and marry him. Interestingly, a contemporary who would also become a very famous Danish-American, Jens Jensen, would immigrate to the US three years later partly because his prospective partner also did not meet family approval. A fellow student from Hannover and Warburg, Robert Wahl, told Max of the multiple opportunities available in the US, and later would partner with Henius in a very successful business.
Already in 1870 immigrants made up a larger proportion of the city’s population (48 percent) than any other place in North America. Chicago was quickly rebuilding after its massive destruction by fire in 1871 and Danish immigration was beginning to swell. Max Henius arrived in Chicago in October of 1881. Although he was a well educated and degreed chemist, his first jobs were as a door to door book salesman, errand boy for a pharmacy, and as a coal trimmer. Two years later he was employed by the Northern Pacific Railway to test the waters between Fargo, North Dakota and Bozeman, Montana but returned to Chicago to marry Johanne on June 4, 1883. With his savings he opened a drug store and subsequently formed Wahl & Henius, Analytical and Consulting Chemists with a lab at the back of the store. They established themselves as authorities on yeast culture and brewing.
Chicago was at this time one of the most rapidly growing cities in the world, the Shanghai of the late 19th century. Population growth was meteoric, fueled by decade after decade of immigration. But it was a wide open and divided city and hardly immune to the controversies of its time. May 1, 1886 saw a massive demonstration by workers (well advertised in the immigrant press) in favor of the eight-hour working day. Three days later the conflict culminated in a violent confrontation. The 1886 Haymarket Massacre took place in Chicago when an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed a public meeting. Chicago police fired on workers during a general strike for the eight-hour workday, killing several demonstrators and resulting in the deaths of several police officers. International Workers’ Day is the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre. Ironically this would become a holiday officially celebrated throughout the Soviet bloc in the next century.
Henius did become involved in some of the public issues of this time. In 1892 a typhoid epidemic broke out in Chicago. Sewage was discharged into the Chicago River and subsequently found it way into Lake Michigan where Chicago’s water supply was tapped. Henius examined milk samples that were watered down and publicly spoke out on his findings. The waters of Lake Michigan were mapped bacteriologically so the water cribs were moved farther out in Lake Michigan.
Henius was very active in various Danish immigrant organizations, including the Danish-American Association, formed in Chicago in 1906. The idea for a Danish-American festival to be held in Denmark actually came from Ivar Kirkegaard, a Danish-American poet and editor. The first Danish-American rally was held in 1908 at Krabbesholm Folk High School on Skive Fjord. En route to the Krabbesholm festival, Henius was visiting Aarhus, when he learned of the planning for a national exposition to be held in Aarhus the following summer. He proposed to his fellow association members that they organize a Danish-American meeting for July 4, 1909. They filled an auditorium and persuaded the crown prince, later King Christian X, Georg Brandes and other noted Danes to speak at the event. Three years later Rebild Park was purchased by Danish Americans and set aside as a park, with the understanding that the site would be used to celebrate the 4th of July. Rebild Park was dedicated in 1912, and the first festival in Rebild was held on August 5, 1912.
Later Henius would found and head the Jacob A. Riis League of Patriotic Service to act as a clearing house for patriotic activities for Danish Americans during the First World War. The League grew out of a committee that managed the 3rd Liberty Load drive in Chicago among Danish-Americans. It also had among its objectives the preservation of Danish culture in America. Its influence was used with President Woodrow Wilson to include the question of the Danish border with Germany in the post war peace settlement. Henius would also be instrumental in establishing and supporting the Danes Worldwide Archives in Aalborg, initially housed in his childhood home of Sohngårdsholm.
Immigration has always been a controversial subject and resisted with varying degrees of success throughout history. But looking backwards one can only conclude it has been to our good fortune, and that our societies have been quite enriched and rejuvenated by the dynamism that immigrants have brought to us.
And Gary Gillman also has a nice overview of Henius’ life in a blog post a few years ago, entitled Max Henius, Star of American Brewing Science.
Historic Beer Birthday: Emil Christian Hansen
Today is the birthday of Emil Christian Hansen (May 8, 1842-August 27, 1909). Hansen was a “Danish botanist who revolutionized beer-making through development of new ways to culture yeast. Born poor in Ribe, Denmark, he financed his education by writing novels. Though he never reached an M.Sc., in 1876, he received a gold medal for an essay on fungi, entitled “De danske Gjødningssvampe.” In 1879, he became superintendent of the Carlsberg breweries. In 1883, he successfully developed a cultivated yeast that revolutionized beer-making around the world, because Hansen by refusing to patent his method made it freely available to other brewers. He also proved there are different species of yeast. Hansen separated two species: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an over-yeast (floating on the surface of the fermenting beer) and Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, an under-yeast (laying on the bottom of the liquid).
Here’s his entry from Encyclopedia Britannica:
Danish botanist who revolutionized the brewing industry by his discovery of a new method of cultivating pure strains of yeast.
Hansen, who began his working life as a journeyman house painter, received a Ph.D. in 1877 from the University of Copenhagen. Two years later he was appointed head of the physiology department at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, where he remained until his death. His research was concerned mainly with yeasts that convert carbohydrates to alcohol, and in 1888 he published an article that described his method for obtaining pure cultures of yeast. The yeast grown from these single strains was widely adopted in the bottom-fermentation brewing industries. Further investigations led him to the discovery of a number of species of yeast. He defined the characters of the different species and devised a system of classification. After further study he devised additional methods for the culture and isolation of certain species.
Emil Hansen as a young man.
This is how Carlsberg describes Hansen’s breakthrough in 1883:
The Carlsberg Laboratory made its first major scientific breakthrough when Dr. Emil Chr. Hansen developed a method for propagating pure yeast.
Fluctuations in the beer quality were not unknown at the time, but had until then been solved by thorough cleaning of all installations after suspension of production. If a brew failed, there was no use in pasteurising it; it had to be destroyed.
In 1883, the Old Carlsberg beer got infected with the beer disease and all efforts were made to find a solution to the problem.
Dr. Emil Chr. Hansen who joined the Carlsberg Laboratory in 1878 was examining the beer, and he found that it contained wild yeast. Through his studies and analyses, he discovered that only a few types of yeast (the pure yeast) are suitable for brewing, and he developed a technique to separate the pure yeast from the wild yeast cells. The problem had been solved, and the new Carlsberg yeast – Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis – was applied in the brewing process.
The propagating method revolutionised the brewing industry. Rather than to patent the process, Carlsberg published it with a detailed explanation so that anyone could build propagation equipment and use the method. Samples of the yeast – Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis – were sent to breweries around the world by request and young brewers came to Carlsberg to learn the skills.
This is the entry from Wikipedia on the history of Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis:
So-called bottom fermenting strains of brewing yeast were described as early as the 14th century in Nuremberg and have remained an indispensable part of both Franconian and Bavarian brewing culture in southern Germany through modern times. During the explosion of scientific mycological studies in the 19th century, the yeast responsible for producing these so-called “bottom fermentations” was finally given a taxonomical classification, Saccharomyces pastorianus, by the German Max Reess in 1870.
In 1883 the Dane Emil Hansen published the findings of his research at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen and described the isolation of a favourable pure yeast culture that he labeled “Unterhefe Nr. I” (bottom-fermenting yeast no. 1), a culture that he identified as identical to the sample originally donated to Carlsberg in 1845 by the Spaten Brewery of Munich. This yeast soon went into industrial production in Copenhagen in 1884 as Carlberg yeast no. 1.
In 1904 Hansen published an important body of work where he reclassified the separate yeasts he worked with in terms of species, rather than as races or strains of the same species as he had previously done. Here Hansen classified a separate species of yeast isolated from the Carlsberg brewery as S. pastorianus, a name derived from and attributed to Reess 1870. This strain was admitted to the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) in 1935 as strain CBS 1538, Saccharomyces pastorianus Reess ex Hansen 1904. In a further publication in 1908, Hansen reclassified the original “Unterhefe Nr. I” as the new species Saccharomyces carlsbergensis and another yeast “Unterhefe Nr. II” as the new species Saccharomyces monacensis. The taxonomy was attributed to Hansen 1908 and the yeasts entered into the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures in 1947 as CBS 1513 and CBS 1503 respectively.
Since the early 1900s, bottom-fermenting strains of brewery yeast have been typically classified as S. carlbergensis in scientific literature, and the earlier valid name assigned to a bottom-fermenting yeast by Reess in 1870 was rejected without merit. This situation was rectified using DNA-DNA reallocation techniques in 1985 when Vaughan-Martini & Kurtzman returned the species name to S. pastorianus under the type strain CBS 1538 and relegated the two former species assigned by Hansen in 1908, S. carlsbergensis CBS 1513 and S. monacensis CBS 1503, to the status of synonyms. These experiments also clearly revealed the hybrid nature of the lager brewing yeast species for the first time, even though one of the parental species was incorrectly classified in retrospect. Nonetheless, over the last decades of the 20th century, debate continued in scientific literature regarding the correct taxon, with authors using both names interchangeably to describe lager yeast.
Although most accounts mention that he wrote novels to put himself through school, one has a slightly different take, though I’m not sure how true it is. “Emil earned his bread and butter as a painter but he yearned for another life and left Ribe so he could study. He graduated from High School relatively late – he was 29 years old.”
Beer Birthday: Anders Kissmeyer
Today is Danish brewer Anders Kissmeyer’s 66th birthday. He was a co-founder of Nørrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen. I first met Anders through corresponding with him for an article on collaboration beers I did for All About Beer magazine several years ago. Then we met in person at GABF a few years ago and judged together at the World Beer Cup in Chicago. Anders more recently started his own company, Kissmeyer Beer & Brewing. Join me in wishing Anders a very happy birthday.
Anders with Kjetil Jikiun, from Nogne O, at the Local Option during CBC Chicago.
Anders with Jacob Storm, John Mallett, and Matt Brynildson at the World Beer Cup Gala Awards Dinner in 2012.
Beer In Ads #3252: Carlsberg Pilsner Drank Year Round
Friday’s ad is for Carlsberg Pilsner, from 1908. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year, and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was for Carlsberg Brewing of Copenhagen, Denmark. “The horizontal poster shows four different scenes with people enjoying their beer, amongst them a skier, a cycling woman, a dandy and a hunter. Above them is the inscription “Carlsberg Pilsner” and below ‘DRIKKES AARET RUNDT,’ which translates as “Drinked” or ‘Drank Year Round.’ “The latter makes it clear, that the four scenes also show the four seasons and that you can always drink Carlsberg Pilsner.” The poster was created by Danish artist Carsten Ravn.
As I understand it, the poster was reprinted over the years, and I suspect that the darker one below may be the original.