Water & Soil

Where does the water for Hessian beer come from? In Lich, Johann Heinrich Jhring chose the Hardtberg in 1854 because a well and a rock cellar were available there. Both helped with the biggest problem facing any summer brewery before the age of refrigeration, namely heat.

The Privat-Brauerei Schmucker in the Mossautal in the Odenwald states that its water source is spring water from the valley. The Odenwald is a low mountain range of old rock and sandstone. Water that seeps through such a subsoil generally stays soft, meaning low in dissolved calcium salts.

Frankfurt, by contrast, lies in the Rhine-Main plain, and the city's drinking water, according to common accounts, also comes from waterworks in the Vogelsberg and the Hessisches Ried. Precise hardness values are hard to pin down. On one hand they fluctuate, and on the other almost every brewery treats its water itself anyway.

What does this have to do with flavor? For a Pils, brewers usually aim for low carbonate hardness, that is, little dissolved lime, since otherwise the bitterness turns harsh and scratchy. They achieve this goal through water treatment rather than through the favor of their location. A soft spring water, however, saves them some work.

Storage has also changed. A rock cellar like the one in Lich is an exception today; in Sachsenhausen, as in most operations, the beer matures in refrigerated tanks. The rock belongs to history, the cold chain to the present. The hill is a reminder of a time when lager beer was kept cool in the rock before refrigeration technology replaced the cellar.