St. Francis Brewery: So This Guy Walks Into A Bar...

a.k.a. "First Contact"

Life here can't all be sausages and festivals. A man's gotta work.

There's only one brewpub in a 40 mile radius around here, and it's at the closest city, Kaiserslautern. The family and I decided to stop over there to check it out last Monday for lunch. It's called Brauhaus am Markt or Market Brewery. I ordered their four beer sampler--they brew three house beers and a seasonal: Helles, Weisse, Alt and Weinachtbier (Christmas Beer).

The beers were good, especially the Christmas beer. I left my business card and wrote on the back of it that I'd like to meet the Brewmaster. The waitress said he wasn't there but was expected to be in around 4 pm. We hung around and were later greeted by Brewmaster Bernhard Honing. We chatted briefly--he knows some English which is great because my German consists of a bad, loud German accent and a lot of pointing. I told him I'd like to watch him brew. He said, "how about Wednesday?"

It was on!

I arrived at 8 on Wednesday morning and Bernhard was finishing up a first batch of beer and milling in the grain for the second. Apparently, he got there at 2 am! He said he likes to get there early, as the restaurant gets pretty busy during the day and it gets harder to brew among a crowd.

In what I believe is typical of German brewing, they like to keep things simple. A couple types of malt. One type of hops. I think he had five different malts on hand while I have about 41 different malts in our warehouse! I've used eight or nine different malts in a single brew in the past. I don't think one philosophy is better than the other--they are just different.

The brewery adheres to Reinheitsgebot, though they do use wheat.

The next thing that struck me is there's not a lot of "helping" to be done. The process is largely self-contained. Where I mix the barley by hand with a paddle, there are stirrers in his mash tun. Where I rake the spent grain into garbage cans to haul out, he has mechanical rakes which comb the grain through a trap door, and a grain pump sends it out into the back alley through a hose where a local horse/pig farmer collects it in a small trailer for his livestock.

Much of the process was familiar, if not completely identical. While conversation was difficult--the English/German was not the only barrier; I also had to deal with metric and I only "think" in English measurements. In Germany, it's all Celsius and hectoliters, so when Bernhard asked how much beer I brew in a year, I had to pull out the calculator. Bernhard brews the equivalent of 10-12 barrel batches, so it is similar to the batch sizes I brewed when I worked for Rock Bottom.

Because a lot of the process was automated, there was a fair amount of down-time, which Bernhard graciously filled by feeding me! The sauerbraten was delicious! I learned that Bernhard is also a hobbiest schnapps and whiskey maker, and I sampled a little of his work. He has a distilling license as puts out a variety of flavored schnapps. The first I sampled was a Maribelle schnapps--a type of plum. This fruit is popular in northeasten France, so this makes sense as we're not far from the French border. The second was a coconut schnapps that he blended with Meyer's rum. Both were fantastic.

I was curious how this smallish brewpub had such cool toys, and the answer lies with the ownership. The facility is owned by Bischoff--the largest local commercial brewery in this "state". Bernhard has worked the better part of the last 25 years for Bischoff. Bernhard asked me if I'd like to meet Bischoff's Master Brewer. Arrangements are being made and soon he and I will make the trek to Winnweiler to visit the brewery! When I mentioned that I am waiting for my brewing gear to arrive so I can start things up here, he also said I was welcome to grain/hops etc. There's something to be said for the generosity offered to me. I am truly grateful.

I did pick up some tips with regard to fermentation temps, which I will bring back to SFB for experimentation.