Merseburg, a town near Leipzig, was the source of a very popular beer in the 18th and first half of the 19th century. In the manner of German styles, it was named after its place of origin: Merseburger. It was a very bitter beer, which in the ale-brewing region north of Bavaria gave it a big advantage over rivals that spoiled quickly, and was for decades considered a superior product. Ron Pattinson translated this account from 1773:

Merseburger, [is] a very famous, good-tasting and healthy brown beer, called Heidecker, which is widely exported…. Its bitterness strengthens the stomach, and aids digestion; its excitement of the intestines maintains the opening of the body; and since it also accelerates the flow of blood, it helps the passing of urine and perspiration very noticeably.

My attention was drawn to it more recently by homebrewer Andreas Krennmair, who has a wonderful little book discussing lost styles called Historic German and Austrian Beers for the Home Brewer. He consulted old sources for information about the beers, and then renders them into homebrew recipes. Merseburger “is described as having a dark brown colour, good clarity, a bitter-aromatic flavor, and was allegedly very nutritious,” he writes. “In some literature Merseburger Bier is mentioned as a beer that is matured for an extended period of time, most likely several months.” All well and good. Where the plot thickens is with the recipe, which calls for nearly a pound of hops to render a 125-IBU beer. The extraordinary hop bitterness wasn’t enough, however; the recipe also calls for dried green bitter orange (peel?) and gentian root, which is also known as bitterwort—a pre-hop bittering agent. The beer was prepared in a way to produce the most aggressively bitter flavor the brewers could imagine. And it somehow became popular!

There are many accounts of how legendarily bitter the beer was. As “bitter as the death in a gallows,” one description went. As a student, the German poet Goethe drank and wrote about the beer, which he likened to the legal education he was pursuing in Stassburg in 1870.