Beer metropolis in the Ruhr

Dortmund’s brewing tradition goes back over 750 years. In 1266 a document issued by the Hanseatic town mentioned gruit ale for the first time, gruit ale being a medieval beer brewed with oats. This ancient brew didn’t draw its flavor from the oats, however, but from sweet gale or marsh Labrador tea, two shrubs which are also native to North Germany. Myrtle, rosemary, juniper, bay leaf, caraway seed and aniseed could also be added. The mixture had very little in common with today’s beer, either in taste or appearance, yet the thick, cloudy intoxicant was a success – perhaps thanks to the hallucinogenic properties of its ingredients.

At the end of the 13^th century King ­Adolf of Nassau granted Dortmund the privilege to make beer; the taxes levied on the beverage helped the town to fill its coffers. When in 1332 Dortmund’s monopoly on beer was confirmed by Emperor Ludwig IV the city gained a secure, long-term source of income and prosperity. By the end of the 14^th century sales of beer had already reached up to 2,400 tons per annum.

In 1517 a brewhouse at Krone am Markt was mentioned for the first time and just one year later the von Hövel family at the Hövel Hof on Hoher Wall was given the right to make beer. Shortly before this the German Purity Law had been passed in Bavaria which permitted only water, hops and malt to be used in Bavarian beer, thus lending the beverage a new quality. This was a genuine achievement for it not only improved the taste of beer but also meant that it kept longer. The exotic herbal mixtures of the Middle Ages thus soon also fell out of fashion north of the River Main and were gradually replaced by beer made with hops. This was not to everyone’s liking, however; in 1548 Dortmund’s town chronicler complained that “little is fine gruit beer brewed”. Nevertheless, the triumph of the new style of beer proved unstoppable. It was easier to transport and as a member of the Hanseatic League Dortmund had no trouble trading its new beer both within Germany and abroad.

In the wake of the Reformation and Thirty Years’ War the population in Dortmund had shrunk to a third of its former size by the mid-17^th century. The town was hopelessly in debt; its fields and forests had been laid to waste and trade had come to a total standstill. Dortmund’s brewers found themselves having to cope with a long-term drop in demand. Protestant temperance and the devastating consequences of the war years were one problem; breweries suffered even more from their customers’ change in drinking habits, however. Overseas trade and colonialism had introduced new beverages, such as tea, coffee and cocoa, first making them popular and then affordable, and as a result there was a noticeable decline in the consumption of beer.

Things only started to change with the dawn of the industrial age. From the beginning of the 19th century Dortmund again started to flourish thanks to the mining of coal and processing of steel, gradually morphing into a center of industry. With the opening of the Cologne to Minden railroad in 1847 the town became the Ruhr’s main transport hub. About 50 years later the Dortmund-Ems Canal and the port opened, further championing the town’s economic development. Dortmund was well on its way to becoming a major city.

There were now 74 breweries in the Dortmund area, among them a number of traditional names such as Bergmann, Thier, Kronen and Stifts. For the first time bottom-fermented beer was brewed based on the Bavarian model – first dark beer, then light beer and later still Pilsner. In the first decades of the 20^th century Export beer ini­tially destined for countries outside ­Germany was developed which also proved successful back home in its own right.

In 1868, the year in which Holstein & Kappert was also founded, three Dortmund businessmen and a master brewer joined forces to form the Herberz & Co. brewery. A little later they turned their company into a corporation, renaming it Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei. Business was good, also abroad, and in 1881 Professor Carl Linde personally oversaw the installation of one of the first refrigeration machines he had developed, precipitating the ultimate triumph of light, bottom-fermented beers brewed in the Bavarian style which required a controlled maximum fermentation temperature of 10°C and could now be made all year round. In the meantime the Dortmund Union and Ritter breweries, two more major beer brands, had also set up shop.

Dortmunder Helles, light beer from Dortmund, was a hit – but the new technology was expensive, with only the big breweries able to afford Linde’s refrigeration system. Small breweries were forced to close or were sold. In 1895 there were just 28 breweries left in Dortmund, with a process of consolidation having set in which was to have consequences for the future of brewing in the city. Between 1920 and 1927, for example, the Union Brewery acquired all the equipment from the neighboring Germania Brewery and erected various new buildings on its own limited premises, including, in June 1927, the first high-rise block in Germany which was chiefly used to ferment and store beer. In 1968 the tower gained its four-sided, 9-meter-high, illuminated golden U which still lends the edifice its name of Dortmunder U today.

In the 1950s and 1960s beer in the Ruhr was the common denominator for the hard-working men in the coal and steel industries. At the end of an arduous shift the miners and smelters had to compensate for the loss of fluid, with the demand for beer accordingly huge. In 1972 the brewing industry in Dortmund employed almost 6,000 people; with 7.5 million hectoliters produced a year Dortmund was the unrivaled beer capital of Europe, with Milwaukee in the USA the only place in the world where more beer was brewed than in the North Rhine-Westphalian city. The market share of Export was at about 60% in Germany, as opposed to pilsner which didn’t even manage to notch up 20%. Over two million hectoliters were brewed at the Dortmund Union Brewery alone, with the Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei or DAB producing 1.6 million hectoliters.

In the 1980s the continuing decline of the coal and steel industries also caused beer sales to plummet. The big breweries grew ever larger through mutual acquisition. In time, the facilities in the center of the city became too small; after taking over the Hansa Brewery in 1982, DAB moved to new premises at its established site on Steigerstrasse. The “brewery quarter” on Rheinische Strasse now only comprised the Union Brewery. In 1987 Kronen absorbed Stifts Brewery; a year later Union-Schultheiss (the Dortmund company had merged with the Berlin brewery back in 1972) turned into Brau und Brunnen which through further procurements was to become the biggest beverage group in Germany.

The list of mergers is practically endless: in 1992 Kronen also took over Thier. In 1994 Union acquired Ritter and moved its production site from downtown Dortmund to the suburb of Lütgendortmund. Two years later DAB purchased Kronen which had been under the ownership of the Wenker family since 1729. Not much later its production facilities were also moved to Steigerstrasse. Following further mergers, when in 2004 Oetker subsidiary Radeberger also acquired not only DAB but also Brau und Brunnen, only one single site still producing beer was left in Dortmund. In the same year the Dortmund Union Brewery was torn down, leaving only the famous U Tower standing. This was subsequently converted into an arts center to mark the Ruhr’s status as European Capital of Culture in 2010. In 2009 the Thier Brewery also had to make way for a modern shopping center between Westenhellweg and Wall Platz.

One glimmer of light currently illuminating Dortmund’s long history of beer has materialized purely by coincidence. On a whim, so to speak, in 2005 microbiologist Thomas Raphael purchased the now defunct DBB brand in an online database; the brewery founded by the Bergmann family in 1796 had ceased to exist in 1972. Two years passed before he was able to use the name. In a small brewery in Hagen the first batches of beer were then produced. Friends and acquaintances had to help out – both with the marketing and drinking of the new brew. When some while later Bergmann beer was served at a large party, an article about it was published in a local newspaper. The response was so overwhelming that in 2007, together with a friend who happened to be a management consultant, Raphael set up a limited liability company. It was another three years before Bergmann beer was again actually produced in Dortmund – which is when Raphael himself started brewing once a week in his 1,000-liter tank at a former foundry in the docks area. He experimented with the recipes until the product was able to satisfy even the most critical of taste buds: those of former employees of the traditional brewery.

Bergmann now sells four different beers: pilsner, Spezialbier (special beer), black beer and of course Export – even if this only accounts for 5% to 10% of sales. People’s taste in beer has changed since the end of the 1960s. The motto is still a traditional one, however, (“hard work, honest reward”) and stands for the authentic, unadulterated, down-to-earth taste associated with the Ruhr region.

The beer can be imbibed in a number of hip and trendy Dortmund pubs. The microbrewery doesn’t wish to compete with the big concerns, however, instead preferring to concentrate on its retail activities. Even so, in the meantime Bergmann has an output of over 5,000 hectoliters. On Hoher Wall, not far from the Dortmunder U, the brewery runs its own historical kiosk from the 1950s, one of the genuine “Trinkhallen” or refreshment stands so popular in Dortmund which now enjoys cult status among young Dortmunders and their guests.

Since 2017 the Bergmann Brewery has been making beer on a larger scale on the premises of the former Phoenix steelworks where the PHOENIX West technology and service center has arisen in the past few years – a successful sign of how, following the demise of its key steel, coal and beer industries, Dortmund has managed to reinvent itself.