To always get exactly the same beer, the brewer has to constantly renew

Give Emiel Hendrikx a tray full of beers and chances are he will recognize most of them. If he smells a light banana scent, the master brewer knows: Heineken. “I have a recognition point for every lager, also from the competitor.” He regularly organizes such tastings with his colleagues in the product development department of Swinkels Family Brewers (turnover: 835 million euros), brewer of Bavaria, among others. To keep track of how far the competition’s lagers are changing.

Because whatever the somewhat trained enthusiast may claim: that all lager tastes the same is complete nonsense. The same goes for the idea that one lager is fantastic and the other undrinkable. If you let an average consumer taste blind, then the question is whether he will choose his favorite brand, says Hendrikx. That he can do that is because he is very well trained.

“Brand, Amstel or Bavaria – it’s all lager, but just intrinsically different,” says Hendrikx during a visit to the brewery in Lieshout in North Brabant. There is a good explanation for these small differences, and the strong similarities. Unlike many craft beers that have popped up on the shelves in recent years, the brewing of lager is bound by rules. These are laid down in the so-called Beer Decree, a law from 1926.

For example, lager must not be too dark, and at least 60 percent of the grains used must be malted: germinated and then dried. Also, the wort, an intermediate product in the brewing process, should not contain too much sugar. And the consumer has expectations, Hendrikx says, holding a glass of Bavaria up to the light. Lager should be clear, fresh and easy to drink. With a nice foam head.”

The result is that lager brewers only have limited space to maneuver and experiment with the type of beer that is still by far the most drunk in the Netherlands and worldwide. But does that also mean that lager is fully developed?

Yeast as the crown jewel

Judging by the labels, one would think that lager has been unchanged for at least a hundred years. Rarely do manufacturers advertise ‘renewed recipes’ like other food makers. They prefer to emphasize the heritage status of their product, the year of foundation. So are Swinkels. In Lieshout, the family has been brewing beer for “seven generations according to a unique family recipe”.

How many times has that recipe been modified in nearly a hundred years? Hendrikx grins. “Weekly. Continuous.”

Of course, this does not apply to the basic recipe. The malts, hops and water are never really changed. And it certainly does not apply to the yeast, perhaps the most decisive ingredient. “Our yeast is our crown jewel. The yeast in Bavaria is a classic that we have been using for a long time.”

But even if Hendrikx and his colleagues were to follow the recipe to the gram, the result could still be different. “Because, for example, two malt harvests differ slightly in terms of protein content, color or enzyme activity.” The result can even vary between the two brewhouses in Lieshout, because the technique is not completely identical. “That can make quite a difference.”

And that’s exactly what a lager brewer doesn’t want, says Hendrikx. The intention is that the consumer, wherever he orders Bavaria, will receive exactly the same beer everywhere. With a more pronounced beer such as IPA or a barrel-aged stout, such fluctuations are less problematic. “You can camouflage more.” With lager, every flaw stands out. “The most naked beer there is,” said Swinkels CEO Peer Swinkels three years ago in NRC.

That is why Hendrikx checks almost every brewing round whether he has to make minuscule adjustments – “in the dosages of the malts, or the hops, for example” – in order to get a constant result every time. Investments in, for example, new brewing kettles and yeast management systems are also aimed at this. In short: innovate to keep that beer the same as much as possible.

Started too extreme

So much effort for a product that a consumer might not even recognize – brewmaster Hendrikx also sometimes has to swallow at the thought. But when choosing lager, the general public simply looks at more than just the contents of the bottle, he knows. Sometimes the price is the deciding factor, which brand is on offer. Emotion often plays an important role as well.

The preference for a lager brand is partly determined by “the region where you grew up, or what they donated to the student association”. Sometimes the improvement of a product is therefore also in the image that the consumer has of it, in the marketing. For example, the company struggled to make Bavaria as popular above the rivers as below.

Since 2007, the company has had another pilsner brand, Swinckels’ Superior Pilsner. That was marketed differently: as fresh beer, darker too and initially only available in the catering industry. And in recent years, the company has used its innovative strength in another development: the growing popularity of non-alcoholic beer. Swinkels introduced a new Bavaria 0.0 and Swinckels’ 0.0 at the end of 2020.

Such a new creation starts with a lot of experimenting. Hendrikx has a miniature brewing installation in his department, with tanks in which he can brew batches of 100 liters to test recipes. Adjustments are made after each version, until the result is good. Sometimes it takes years before such a result is good enough for large-scale production.

Even after launch, the company sometimes changes things. This happened, for example, at Swinckels’, which has become less ‘extreme’ over the years. Aromatic hops were widely used during the introduction, but gradually it became apparent that the product was perhaps too pronounced for a lager.

Since then, Swinckels has become more subdued, although it is still more outspoken than Bavaria. After all, it remains a lager, and it must be “good drinkable”.