The historic export lager of Dortmund — the industrial brewing capital of the Ruhr — splitting the difference between Munich Helles and German Pilsner. Typically 5.0–6.0% ABV, deep gold, with more malt sweetness and body than a pilsner but cleaner and drier than a Helles. Dortmund’s hard, mineral-rich water gives the style its signature crisp finish.
In the glass
Origin
Dortmund, in the heart of the Ruhr coal and industrial belt, became one of Europe’s major brewing cities through the 19th century. Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei (DAB) was founded in 1868 as “Bierbrauerei Herberz & Co” by three businessmen (Laurenz Fischer and Heinrich and Friedrich Mauritz) and brewmaster Heinrich Herberz; it was renamed Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei in 1872. Its great rival, Dortmunder Union (DUB), was founded on January 31, 1873. Bavarian-style dunkel was the prestige beer of the era, but Dortmund’s coal miners gravitated to the local golden lager — later codified as Dortmunder Export — whose crisp, dry character derived from the city’s hard, sulfate-rich water. Dortmunder Union is generally credited with first brewing the style that would become Dortmunder Export in 1873.
“Export” meant beer strong and stable enough to ship beyond the region, and Dortmund’s brewers built huge export businesses on it. DUB grew from 75,000 hectoliters in 1887 to one million hectoliters in 1929 under legendary brewmaster Fritz Brinkhoff, whose long tenure is commemorated in Brinkhoff’s No. 1, Dortmund’s best-selling premium beer, and in a Dortmund street that bears his name. After World War II, Export was the most popular beer type in Germany until 1970, when it was overtaken by Pils. By the late 1990s the style had declined steeply, though it has held a small share of the German market since. The Dortmund brewing industry has consolidated dramatically: DAB and DUB, once cross-town rivals, both came under the Dr. Oetker group’s Radeberger Gruppe, and in 2005 production of all remaining Dortmunder brands was moved to DAB’s site, leaving DAB as the last large brewery in the city. In the United States, the style’s best-known craft revival is Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, an early flagship of Great Lakes Brewing Company (founded 1988 in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood by brothers Patrick and Daniel Conway).
Notes
The style is sometimes described as “half-pilsner, half-helles” — it carries pilsner’s hop bitterness and dryness but helles’s malt body, with a distinctive mineral edge from Dortmund’s sulfate-rich water. The city’s water chemistry sits in the same family as Burton-on-Trent’s, and the two brewing cities independently discovered that sulfate-heavy water sharpens perceived hop bitterness — one of the reasons both cities developed hop-forward export styles.
Defining examples
DAB Export (Dortmunder Actien-Brauerei)·Dortmunder Union Export·Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold·Gordon Biersch Golden Export·Capital Brewery Garten Bräu Special