Water & Soil

Where does the water for Hamburg beer come from? The city's drinking water is groundwater, drawn from 17 waterworks, each tapping its own aquifer. As a result, hardness varies widely: from around 5.4 degrees of German hardness in Neugraben to about 17.4 in Stellingen. This measure describes how much lime and magnesium is dissolved in the water.

In the Middle Ages, brewers used water from the Alster. "No Beer Without the Alster" is the title of an exhibition at the Museum of Hamburg History that traces this connection. The river flows into the Elbe right in the heart of the city, and the old brewhouses stood close to its banks and canals.

There's also a historic site to consider: Altona, where the Holsten brewery was founded in 1879, sat on the Geest ridge above the Elbe's banks. The Alster and the canals around the Speicherstadt once served as waterways for barrels and raw materials, not as a source for today's beer.

Modern breweries use the city's tap water only as a starting point. They soften it or adjust the mineral balance so that the hardness level from any particular waterworks is barely noticeable in the glass. This holds true for nearly every brewery and isn't unique to Hamburg.

As a rule of thumb, soft water lets hop bitterness come across more refined, while hard water gives it a harder edge. A pale Pils therefore calls for soft brewing water, and that's exactly what Hamburg's Pils brewers aim for.

Mountains with rock cellars, as found in Franconia, are absent here. Hamburg lies flat in the Elbe valley, with sea air and a mild climate. Storage therefore takes place in tanks and cooled rooms at the breweries rather than in rock caves, and refrigeration technology provides the cool temperatures, not the terrain.