This is actually Gabriel Sedlmayr Sr. I failed to find a digital image of Sedlmayr the younger.

My CBC column last Friday happened to land on the eve of this year’s Oktoberfest in Munich. It seemed an appropriate time to pull out my books and offer a bit of a history lesson. No, not the history of Oktoberfest (I did that last year). I decided to talk about the history of the beer style Oktoberfest and its second cousin, Munich Helles. The person connecting these two Gabriel Sedlmayr II, an ambitious 19th century German brewer and owner of Spaten Brewery in Munich.

Herr Sedlmayr is an important figure in German brewing for a number of reasons I explain in the column. To summarize, his importation to Germany of technological innovations (borrowed from others in England, Belgium and Bohemia) allowed for year-round brewing, and, importantly, lighter coloured malt (I explain more in the column). He is also the sort-of, kind-of, once-removed inventor of the malty, amber beer known today as Oktoberfest. I guess you could say he was in the vicinity when it was created. In some historical reports it was a knock-0ff of Vienna, invented by his colleague and partner in espionage Anton Dreher, brewed a bit stronger for the festival. When you consider those two styles, it is a plausible explanation. However the story is more complicated than that.

Sedlmayr and Dreher are best known for their acts of espionage when touring England, Belgium and Bohemia, reportedly stealing samples of malt, hops and even stealing wort using hollowed-out walking canes. Quite the ethical boys, those two.

However, we can credit Sedlmayr with the invention of Munich Helles, a light-bodied, golden lager with malt accent. I have always described Helles as hybrid of German Pilsner and Munich Dunkel. At any rate, most historians acknowledge that after many years of experimenting with light coloured malts and Munich water (which doesn’t work well for bitter beer), he finally stumbled on the right combination.

We don’t get a lot of Munich Helles on the prairies. Alley Kat’s Charlie Flint comes close, but I think they have intentionally north Americanized it. On air we sampled Hacker-Pschorr’s Munchener Gold, which I personally find to be a bit boring and too light. However beggars can’t be choosers sometimes.

At any rate it was a fairly fun column, with an entertaining hijacking of the tasting by Peter Brown (who is not hosting these days due to his responsibilities producing the Irrelevant Show). You can hear it hear.