Here are some more notes from my time at Doemens Academy in Germany. Look for my “Into the Brew” column continuing in the December issue of West Coaster.
November 10th – Started the morning with more hands-on instruction in the filling plant. We started with inspection technology for cleaned returnable bottles and then moved on to bottle filling, crowning and labeling. Now that we’ve been through the whole process, we will be ready for packaging our dunkelweizen and hefeweizen next week. For the afternoon it was more chemical analysis, starting with wort and finishing with beer. After class Chris and I decided to go for a walk around town and made our way over to the Andechser Am Dom restaurant. I’ve been wanting to try some of their beer on tap but for the second time it’s just too crowded to get a spot. We ended up going over to check out the Ayinger restaurant and lucked into a freshly-tapped wooden barrel of their Jarhundert beer. I think the softer mouthfeel from the gravity pour helps the malt flavors.
November 11th – This morning we had to get up extra early to make it to the 7:30 am bus departure from Doemens to go to the Brau Beviale industry expo up in Nuremburg. Not long after leaving on the bus I fell back asleep, but awoke just in time to hear Professor Sacher giving Nick a lesson on Roman-era Bavarian geography. When we got to the Brau I was absolutely shocked at how huge it is. There were over 1,400 presenters from the European and international beverage industry. The highlight of the day was a tasting of American-hopped beers that was put on by the USA Hop Growers and was lead by Brewers Association president Charlie Papazian and Firestone Walker Brewmaster Matt Brynildson. Literally every type of industry supplier was in attendance, and I can’t wait to go back for a second day tomorrow.
November 12th – Day two at the Brau. We stopped early at the Weyermann booth and got to taste an IPA as well as a swarzbier, which are nice changes of pace. Checked out some vegetarian alternatives to isinglass as well. Lots of booths with droves of draught faucets. Yakima Chief ended up being a good stop for a tasting of experimental hop varieties. We ended up meeting an intern at Siemens, a company that makes automation software. In his quest for Guinness he led us to the GEA booth (who are Huppmann and Tuchenhagen), where we were absolutely shocked to find cans of Surly beers. The American sale reps on hand were doing a good job of spreading the good word of California’s craft beer players. The bus ride home to Munich was decidedly more cheery after a day of chatting up industry suppliers and drinking some awesome, free beer.