Brunswick Mum

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A bottle of Brunswick Mum

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An 1899 advertisement for the Steger Brewery, one of the firms that brewed Brunswick Mum

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Advertising approx. from around 1900 for Braunschweiger Mumme, bottled in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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Recipe "To make Mum" in John Nott's The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary, 1723

Brunswick Mum (German: Braunschweiger Mumme, Latin: Mumma Brunsvicensium or Mumia, French: Mom de Bronsvic), is a dark beer originating from Brunswick in Germany, which ranges from weak to strong depending on the brewing method. It was one of the first black beers recorded in history.

History

Mum originated in the Late Middle Ages. The composition gave the beer a long shelf life that allowed a wide distribution; mum became the most important export from Brunswick and, in the early modern period was shipped to places such as India and the Caribbean. The drink is still sold in Brunswick where since autumn 2008, for the first time in about 200 years, it is produced in alcoholic variants.

According to one source, a cask of Brunswick mum was sold for between 40 and 100 rixdollars.

Composition

The 17th-century author David Kellner describes mum as being held in high esteem for its exquisite strength, lovely taste and beautiful brown color. The three types of mum (Schiff-Mumme, Stadt-Mumme, Erndte-Bier) mentioned by Kellner are solely composed of barley-malt and hops. It is said that the strongest variety had an almost syrupy consistency, known as Schiffsmumme or doppelte Mumme.

In contrast to German sources is mum in English literature from the early modern period an unhopped strong wheat-beer, made with the addition of various aromatic herbs. The oldest English recipe seems to be published 1682 in The Natural History of Coffee, Thee, Chocolate, Tobacco by John Chamberlayne and is said to be recorded in Brunswick.

The recipe calls for seven bushels of wheat-malt, one bushel of oat-malt and one bushel of ground beans to make 63 gallons of mum. Eggs are added to prevent the beer from becoming sour. Variations of this recipe are published by later authors, for instance John Nott.

Elisha Coles in An English Dictionary (1677) states that mum is "a kind of Physical Beer made (originally) at Brunswick in Germany, with husks of walnuts infused".

Further reading

• Christian Basilius: Die Mumme-Fibel der Mumme H. Nettelbeck K.G. Geschichte(n) seit 1390. Braunschweig 1999.
• Andreas Döring: Wirth! Nochmal zwo Viertel Stübchen! Braunschweiger Gaststätten & Braunschweiger Bier damals. Braunschweig 1997.
• Anna Klie: Brunswyksche Mumme. Braunschweig 1898.
• Heinrich Mack: Zur Geschichte der Mumme. Insbesondere des Mummehandels im 17. Jahrhundert. in: Braunschweigisches Magazin. Zwißler, Wolfenbüttel 1911,17.
• Ernst A. Roloff: Heimatchronik der Stadt Braunschweig. Archiv für Deutsche Heimatpflege, Köln 1955.
• Gerd Spies: Das Mummetor. Miszellen. Bd 25. Städtisches Museum Braunschweig, Braunschweig 1976.

External links

• Official website of Nettelbeck KG, the last mum-brewery
• Chambers, E. (1741). Mum. In Cyclopaedia (4th ed.)
• Krünitz, G. J. (1773). Braunschweiger Mumme. In Oeconomische Encyclopädie
• Julius Stinde: Zwei Veteranen des Bierstaates (1880) about mum and gose
• About mum in The Curiosities of Ale and Beer (originally published 1889) by John Bickerdyke