Beer in Poland
In Poland 's beer one of the most popular drinks. With 98 liters of beer per capita per year, the Poles are the fourth largest beer consumers (after the Czechs, Germans and Austrians) and with 40.89 million hectoliters of brewed beer, the third largest beer producers (after the Germans and English) in Europe.
history
middle Ages
The art of brewing was already known to the West Slavic tribes, which were united in the Polish state in the 10th century . Around the year 1000, Thietmar von Merseburg describes the future Polish King Boleslaus the Brave , whom he was not sympathetic, as an extensive beer drinker - literally: Tragbier, which suggests that a brewery must have functioned at Boleslaus' royal court. About a hundred years later, the chronicler Gallus Anonymus describes in his Polish chronicle Cronica et gesta ducum sive principum Polonorum that the legendary Siemowit had already entertained his guests with beer in the 9th century. Also Herbord describes the same time in the biography of Otto of Bamberg beer consumption in Poland. In 1124, the papal legate in Poland, Gilo of Paris , noted that the Tyniec Abbey had two beer bars. The oldest document from Heinrich III dates from 1255 . , which documents hop cultivation in Poland. Under his son Heinrich IV , the Schweidnitzer Keller was opened in 1273 in the old town hall on the market square in Wroclaw , the oldest still existing public beer tap in Poland. In the 13th century, several rulers from the Piast dynasty , including Leszek I and Konrad III, refused to accept the Popes . , taking part in crusades , pointing out that there was no proper beer in the Holy Land . In the 15th century Jan Długosz praised the Polish art of brewing in his yearbooks Annales seu cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae .
The Western European art of brewing was first spread in Poland in the 11th century by the monasteries, especially the Benedictines and later the Cistercians . Soon all Polish cities had at least one brewery. Cracow had 25 breweries in the 14th century and Thorn had more than 90 in the 15th century. After wine-growing in Poland declined towards the end of the Middle Ages, beer became even more popular. At the same time, vodka , which has its origins in Poland, began to compete with beer as an alcoholic drink from the beginning of the 15th century.
Early modern age
At first, even at the beginning of modern times, beer remained the favorite drink of the Poles, both the Szlachta and the lower classes. At first, the wheat beer was the most widely brewed beer in Poland. Later the drinking behavior changed to barley beer . There were also regional specialties, such as the Danzig Jopen beer or the Grätzer from Grodzisk Wielkopolski . Towards the end of the 17th century the art of brewing declined in Poland-Lithuania , for several reasons. On the one hand, the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic was confronted from around 1650 with numerous wars on its own soil that devastated the country. This also led to the collapse of Polish grain exports via Danzig to the Netherlands and England , meaning that there was now an oversupply of grain on the Polish market that was used for vodka production. The price fell and the supply of vodka rose, which drove the beer back. On the other hand, the nobility themselves began to open large numbers of breweries that were not bound by the city's purity laws, which meant that the city and monastery breweries lost their most solvent customers. Many urban brewing guilds had to give up. Nevertheless, at the end of the 18th century there were 126 breweries in Warsaw alone, even after the Warsaw Brewery Guild was dissolved in 1787.
At the beginning of the 19th century, English beers became popular and the breweries in the Polish subdivisions began to brew porter and pale ale more and more. In particular, when Napoleon imposed the continental blockade on the United Kingdom in 1806 and the import of beer from England failed to materialize, the breweries in the Duchy of Warsaw and the subdivision areas used to switch to the production of the popular porter and to fill the gap in the market. A new variety was created, the Ostsee-Porter (also called Baltic Porter), which is an intermediate product between the English Porter and the German Doppelbock. At the turn of the last century there were around 500 breweries on Polish soil, which produced around 8 million hectoliters of beer a year.
Modern
Only about half of the Polish breweries survived the First World War and beer production fell to around 1.8 million hectoliters in 1919 and then rose again to 2.5 million by 1928. During the Second World War many more breweries were destroyed and plundered. The rest were nationalized in the course of the Soviet occupation of Poland. In the People's Republic of Poland , however , new breweries (re) opened after the political thaw , for example in Łomża (1968), Sierpc (1972), Warka (1975), Leżajsk (1978) and Posen (1980). Towards the end of the People's Republic there were 78 breweries in Poland that brewed 13 million hectoliters of beer a year and the beer consumption per capita per year was 36 liters.
In the Third Polish Republic the breweries were privatized, very often bought up by international groups such as Heineken or Carlsberg. Many small mini and restaurant breweries are also opening . The House and hobby brewery is becoming increasingly popular in Poland. Since 2010 the hobby brewers have been organized in the Polish Association of Home Brewers.
Development of beer production and consumption
The Polish beer market is now considered saturated with an annual turnover of more than PLN 15 billion .
| year | 1939 | 1950 | 1970 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production in million hl | approx. 2 | 3.8 | 10.0 | 11.8 | 15.3 | 25.2 | 31.6 | 36.7 | 39.4 |
| year | 1939 | 1950 | 1970 | 1990 | 1995 | 2000 | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consumption of l per capita | approx 4 | 14th | 31 | 32 | 39.3 | 66.0 | 80.0 | 90.4 | 99.1 |
Legal bases
Beer production, trading and serving are regulated by law in Poland. A license is generally required for this. In the case of retail and serving to end consumers, the respective body of local self-government is responsible for licensing.
In Poland, a beer tax is levied as a consumption tax. It is measured according to the Plato degree ( original gravity ). Hobby brewers are exempt from the tax. Small breweries pay a lower tax rate.
Alcohol consumption in public places is regulated in Poland. There is a general ban on consumption with the option that local self-government can regulate exceptions. The rule of thumb is that the consumption of beer in playgrounds as well as in the vicinity of kindergartens and schools is prohibited, but otherwise numerous exemptions from the ban apply.
Beer market
The three largest brewing groups dominate the Polish beer market with a market share of 81%:
- Kompania Piwowarska (market share of 33.36%) - part of the Japanese group Asahi
- Grupa Żywiec (market share 29.55%) - part of the Dutch Heineken group
- Carlsberg Polska (market share 17.82%) - part of the Danish Carlsberg group
Many medium-sized breweries have joined forces in the Association of Polish Regional Breweries, which includes the following regional, home and restaurant breweries :
- Amber Brewery
- BrowArmia Brewery
- Witnica Brewery
- Fortuna Brewery
- Grybów Brewery
- Grodzisk Wielkopolski Brewery
- Jabłonowo Brewery
- Cormorant Brewery
- Krajan Brewery
- Racibórz Castle Brewery
- Spiż restaurant brewery
- Zodiak Brewery
- Czarnków Brewery
Celebrations, competitions, competitions
The oldest Polish beer festival Chmielaki Krasnostawskie takes place annually after the hop harvest in Krasnystaw . The largest Polish beer festival Festiwal Dobrego Piwa ( German for "Festival of good beer", often used in the abbreviation FDP ) also takes place annually on the second weekend in June in Wroclaw . In Grodzisk Wielkopolski the Grätzer has its beer festival and a beer festival of the Ostsee-Porter takes place in Cieszyn in autumn .
With the Bractwo Piwne beer guild, beer consumers in Poland have also set up an organization that annually selects the best Polish beer in various categories and people who have made a special contribution to Polish beer receive the Golden Hops award (Polish: Złoty Chmiel ) confers.
The Browar.biz website also holds a competition for the best Polish beer in different categories every year.
The smaller Polish breweries and brewers in particular have been gathering for regular festivals and competitions since 1992.
Polish hobby brewers have had regular meetings since 2010.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ MP. Polskie piwowarstwo w czołówce europejskiej. "Przemysł Fermentacyjny i Owocowo-Warzywny". 8, p. 4, 2017.
- ^ Zygmunt Gloger: Encyklopedia staropolska . T. 4. Warszawa: 1903, p. 29.
- ↑ Dobiesław Karst: Technologia produkcji rzemieślniczej piwa we Wrocławiu w okresie średniowiecznym i nowożytnym na tle browarnictwa Europejskiego . In: Piwo we Wrocławiu. Od średniowiecza po czasy współczesne . Wrocław: Muzeum Miejskie Wrocławia, 2002, p. 11. ISBN 83-917909-0-8 .
- ↑ Jan Długosz: Jana Długosza Kanonika Krakowskiego dziejów polskich ksiąg dwanaście. Kraków: 1867, p. 27.
- ↑ Arkadiusz Skonieczny: Browary i piwo toruńskie w okresie przedrozbiorowym , Toruński Serwis Turystyczny, 2012