What is bottom fermenting?
The fact that the business prospered was mainly due to Gerard Adriaan Heineken himself. He soon realized the great importance of the changeover in Germany from top-fermenting to bottom-fermenting beer. In bottom-fermenting, the yeast settles on the bottom instead of the top during fermentation. In 1869 he appointed the German Wilhelm Feltmann as brewmaster and traveled the length and breadth of Europe in search of the best raw materials. In the company’s own laboratory, unique for the brewing world of those days, Heineken kept a watchful eye on the quality of the raw materials and the finished product. Gerard Adriaan commissioned Dr. Elion, a pupil of Louis Pasteur, to isolate the Heineken A-yeast, which he succeeded in doing in 1886. To this day this strain of yeast is used in the Heineken brewing process the world over.
