Bayrisch Blockmalz

Appearance & taste

The dark brown sweets weigh 3 to 9 g. Owing to the way they are made, their shape is irregular, roughly cuboid or cube-shaped, sometimes also rounded. The malt extract gives them their malty character; according to the specification they are popular for their sweet malt flavour.

Production

The sweet mass consists of sugar and types of syrup and contains sugar caramel from various types of sugar as well as at least 5 % malt extract or 4 % dried malt extract. All steps take place in Bavaria, from mixing and boiling the ingredients to the large-format semi-finished product and its mechanical division into the individual sweets.

Origin & history

The area is the federal state of Bavaria. In 1899 a pharmacist in Nuremberg founded a medicinal drugstore that grew into a wholesale business within a few years; he developed the sweet. According to the specification, it has been made continuously in Bavaria ever since, where the largest manufacturers are still based today. Old labels from 1939 to 1952 as well as price lists and offers going back to 1932 document the tradition. A not insignificant share is still sold in pharmacies and drugstores today.

The specification cites further evidence of its reputation: a sweet tin from 1950s Munich is in the inventory of the Stiftung Domäne Dahlem, a 2008 textbook for German as a foreign language lists the sweet as a regional speciality, and in 2013 it was allowed to be sold in a festival tent at the Munich Oktoberfest.