History
Dortmund was one of the earliest commercial brewing centres in Germany, establishing itself as a major brewing city which exported its beers to the neighbouring Westphalian cities. The Dortmunder breweries originally brewed a wheat based, dark coloured, short fermented beer. However, in 1873, when the golden coloured, pale barley based, slow fermented beer as brewed in Pilsen and known as Pilsener, became popular, several of the local breweries grouped together under the name Dortmunder Union to produce their own pale lager under the guidance of the brewmaster Fritz Brinkhoff. There were originally two varieties: Lagerbier and the slightly stronger Export at around 5.5% abv. The weaker version proved less popular and was eventually dropped.
After WW II, Export was the most popular type of beer in Germany until 1970, when it was supplanted by Pils. Its fortunes have revived a little since its low point of the late 1990s. In 2008, just under 10% of the beer sold in German shops was Export.
Read more about this topic: Dortmunder Export
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