Bock beer - German strong beers with long shelf life
News News blog
What does Bock beer have to do with rams or billy goats? (In German "Bock" means ram or billy goat.) Was the inventor of bock beer perhaps called Bock?
Bock beers are strong beers. They are top- or bottom-fermented beers with an alcohol content of 6.5% or more by volume. A bock beer is usually a dark, sweet and less hopped strong beer. Accordingly, light-coloured bock beers are known as pale bock, but also as Maibock. There are also light and dark wheat bocks.
Although the two terms Ziegenbock (billy goat) and Schafsbock (ram) and Bockbier have nothing to do with each other apart from the wording, the labels of some Bock beers depict a goat or a sheep.
The origin of bock beer lies in Einbeck in Lower Saxony. The top-fermented beer brewed in the Middle Ages was considered a luxury product and was exported as far as Italy. In order to achieve the necessary shelf life, beer with a higher alcohol content was brewed by mashing it with an unusually high original wort content. The result was a heavy, high-alcohol beer.
The ducal court of the Wittelsbach dynasty in Munich was also supplied from Einbeck from 1555 until the first Bavarian Hofbräuhaus was founded in 1573 to brew its own beer. In 1614, the master brewer Elias Pichler was enticed away from Einbeck to the Hofbräuhaus, where he brewed his Ainpöckisch beer. Over time, this became known as Bockbier in the Munich dialect.
