Beer environments: The Environmental History of Beer
19.07.2016
Supervisor: Dr. Robert Emmett
On May 5th, 2016 the event “Bier in Bayern – Bier in Burgrain” took place at castle Burgrain half an hour from Munich. One of the topics for the over 1.000 visitors was about “Bier & Umwelt”. While preparing the exhibition with ten topics from beer production to beer history, I found many examples of how the brewery influenced the whole area. I picked two of these environmental aspects – the resin and pitch production, and the cultivation of hops – to create four posters.
Why do you need pitch at a brewery and how did they produce it? Why are there environmental problems? The barrels must be sealed to transport liquids and for this reason they used pitch, which originated from a special heating process of tree resin. There is evidence in the archival sources that the regular cuts in the bark injured the trees in the area which belongs to Burgrain and several hundred trees died.
From the 17th to the 19th century, it was the hops production which formed the landscape in and around Burgrain. The cultivation of hops can be seen on several painted images from local villages from around 1700. There is also the first land register of the castle which shows plantations next the castle.
The posters and the story behind Dorothea Hutterer's project can be found below (PDF).
Downloads
- Beer environments: The Environmental History of Beer (1 MByte)
- Bier in Burgrain Schautafel (8 MByte)