Road Trip

Railroad trip, that is.

I decided to take a day trip to Heidelberg today.  I ordered a Bahncard which gives me a 25% discount on train fare, and the train system here in Germany is extensive!

So I rounded up the boy and myself and we caught our first train out of Ramstein.

There was a light rain/snow mix which let up about 10:00 this morning.  This was to be the first of three trains which would take us to Heidelberg.  This was also our first train trip since we arrived here.  I was in Germany about ten years ago and we rode the trains almost everywhere we went, so I was pretty confident that I wouldn't have many problems.

This train took us from Ramstein to Landstuhl.  From there we caught a train to Mannheim.  (No, we didn't see any steamrollers.)  Finally, the third train took us from Mannheim to Heidelberg.  The entire trip took about 90 minutes.

Upon our arrival, we were impressed by Heidelberg's train station:

The station is mall-like with some pretty nice shops.  We stopped at the bakerei for a pastry and some coffee before continuing.

Right outside the Bahnhof (train station) is a tourist center.  We picked up a map and tickets to the Schloss (castle) Heidelberg which is what I really wanted my son to see.  The castle is located in the part of town called the Altstadt or "old town" which was pretty far from our current location.  Thankfully, the Bahncard also allows free ground travel so we hopped on a bus and made our way.

Schloss Heidelberg is set high on a hill overlooking the Rhine River.  Though my bad knee is screaming a little right now, we travelled up the fantastically steep and somewhat treacherous cobblestone path to the castle.  Once there we continued upward onto the castle walls and ramparts and got this view of the Altstadt below:

The castle itself is technically in ruins.  However, an apothecary museum has been installed which taught us about the importance of the pharmacist back in those days.  This castle also boasts one of the largest wine barrels in the world.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we're in Germany's wine country, so beer tends to take a back seat here.  My future trips to Bavaria will correct this gross injustice.  Anyway, area vintners would pay tribute to the king with donations of wine which would get mixed up in this behemoth:

That's me at the bottom, for perspective.

This barrel holds 58,000 gallons of wine--about 56,698 more gallons than all six of SFB's serving vessels combined!  The barrel is so large that a dance platform had been installed on top of it.  It is also closely and constantly guarded by a statue of Clemens Perkeo, the court jester from 1707 to 1728.  Legend states that Perkeo has an unnaturally high alcohol tolerance and could empty the barrel in one gulp!

After leaving the Schloss, it was time to grab some lunch.  We headed back down into the town and found a great restaurant serving, of all things, German food.  My son and I both thought the sampler plate looked good, and it was:

Weissewurst, a couple of breakfast-style links, some sort of sausage patty with potatoes and cheese mixed in, a German ravioli, potatoes, mustard and sauerkraut.  I enjoyed a Heidelberger Dunkel with dinner and capped it off with a Heidelberger Hell.  Both decent, if not tame, examples of their styles.

From there, my son and I walked along the Rhine a bit to the "old bridge".  You can see it in the upper right of the city photo above.  We did a little Valentine's shopping for Mrs. Brewmaster and then it was time to catch the bus and trains back home.

Next up, Köln--the birthplace of Kölsch beer.







The Buzz on Homebrewing in Wisconsin

Most of you know I'm a homebrewer.  It just so happens that I get to home brew really really big batches of beer and sell it legally at our Brewpub.

Most craft brewers got their start as homebrewers. 

However, efforts are underway to stifle and muscle out the homebrew community through legislation.  I've seem many articles about these efforts, and I've been provided a link to someone who, I think, has summed things up perfectly.

I would urge you to follow this link:  http://www.beerfellows.com/2012/02/war-on-homebrewing.html.  It's not too long.  It explains the situation extremely well. 

After reading this, take action.  Contact your state legislators.  Let's get this common sense bill passed.

Thank you!

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

A little bit tired this morning.

It's a quarter past nine.  About seven hours ago, at 2:30 am my time, the St. Francis Brewery held it's first Trans-Atlantic Tapping of our February seasonal beer--the Envy IPA.  We piped me into the TV monitor hanging over the bar via Skype and it all seemed to work pretty well:

Photo courtesy of Eric Whyte

Yeah, that's me on the TV, live via Skype while sitting in my dining room in Germany talking about the newest seasonal beer: the Envy IPA.


Envy IPA is an English-style IPA.  While it is the hoppiest beer we've tapped in a long time, it's not over-the-top hopped as are its American IPA brethern.  There's a nice malty backbone to this one. 

We're test-marketing this beer to see if it should make a regular showing to our house beer line-up.  Please try one and let me, Natalie or your bartender or server what you think of it.

I'll be back to the States in less than two weeks to brew a couple more special beers for y'all.  Hope to see you then.

Taking Shape

Having made it back safely to Deutschland, it was time to get my little brewery put together. My Weyermann malt shipment arrived yesterday, so after buying a few odds and ends at the base this morning, I spent this afternoon getting everything in order.
Here are the results:

Parts shelf in the center, brew tower to the right.

330 pounds of grain waiting to fulfill their life purpose.  Specialty malts are in
the white drawer units in the background.

Here's the opposite corner.  The blue tubs will hold the bagged grain once
they're opened.

A few hooks in the ceiling hold various tools and manifolds.

As soon as I secure a couple more items, this brewery will be well underway.  My plan is to tinker and perfect an Alt, a Weizenbock and a Helles.  I'll do 10-12 gallon batches.  If I could rig up an exhaust fan in the window above the brew tower (and get a CO monitor), I could brew right in this room.  For now, I'll have to drag the tower out into the garage on brew days. 


Let me know what you think.

I have a call in to Bernhard to meet up with him in Kaiserslautern.  I brought back a bottle of Breakfast Stout and Harvest Strong along with a SFB beanie as a show of gratitude.  I'm interested to see what he thinks about the beers, as they are both a far stretch from what he's used to brewing.


Tschüss!

Where's The Heart?

Because, apparently that's where my home is.

I have two loves:  my family and my career.  Unfortunately, 6000 miles separate the two.

I'm just finishing up my first trip back to the states, and what a whirlwind it has been.  I've brewed three times, done four beer transfers, represented SFB at a beer festival in Madison, and had a nice birthday dinner for my father.  Now, I'm treating myself to a wonderful glass of Rodenbach Grand Cru and contemplating the fortune of my situation and the opportunities that abound. 

This journey is only just beginning.  Now that I have a feel for how this is all going to work (and thanks to my assistant Natalie, and the support of the owners of the brewery), I am truly looking forward to the future.  I am confident that brewery operations will run smoothly in my absence, and things seem to be falling into place on the other side of "the pond".  I'll be back in Germany on Thursday, and a grain shipment from Weyermann malt will arrive at my house on Friday.  At that point, I can fire up my home brewing setup and start tinkering with some of the things I've learned from my newest brewing friend, Bernhart.

Additionally, Mrs. Brewmaster has set up trips to Rome, Dublin and Vienna over the next three months, and you can bet I will try to check out as many breweries as I can during these visits.  These will be extended trips, but I think I can sneak in some 3-4 day ventures into Brussels, Heidelberg and Munich when the wife's not looking!

With that, I plan to regale you with continued stories of my adventures.  Stop in to the brewery to try the Doppelbock.  It's going fast.  Next month we'll debut our Envy IPA and I will be very interested in your feedback.  I won't be in attendance at the tapping, but we may do some technological experimentation and see if I can be there electronically!  If not, Natalie will do just fine.

Cheers!

While The World Slept

At least it seemed that way!

My Germany brewing experience continued in the form of a call from my newest freund Bernhard.  "Scott, I am brewing Monday.  Would you like to join me?" 
"Of course!  When should I meet you?"
"Can you be at Kaiserslautern at 4:00 am?"
"Ummm.  Yes?"

And so it was.

I met Bernhard at the appointed place, at the ungodly hour, and he packed me up into his car.  It was at this point that I learned that Bernhard is the Brewmaster for not one, but two Bischoff brewpubs, and we were going to the other in Frankenthal. 

I had no chance to consider my fatigue.  As we entered the Autobahn, my adrenaline flowed as we reached speeds in excess of 115 mph!  It was nothing to a seasoned veteran like Bernhard, but save an airplane or perhaps a roller coaster, I have never gone that fast.

Anyway, we arrived at Frankenthal and set upon brewing his Hell.  Again, a very simple recipe:  One type of malt.  One hop.  Bernhard is not one to be burdened by scales.  How much malt?  Oh, four and a half bags.

The malt was dumped through a cool trap door in the floor to the mill below:

From there, a grist elevator took the cracked malt straight to the mash tun.  The equipment at this location was exactly the same as the previous, however the layout was different.

The process was also very automated--same as last time.

As this was our second meeting, our comfort level with each other had increased and we discussed a variety of topics:  family life, politics, European economy, fishing, the direction of brewing in Germany, cabbages and kings.

Bernhard also showed me his other toy at this location:

Yes, this place also has a distilling license.  This copper-clad still is used to produce a variety of alcohols--whisky, brandy and a whiskey made from strong brewed beer.  Bernhard's whiskeys are aged in oak barrels for over a year, giving them a slightly brown color.  Alcohol runs about 40% abv.

It was another nice day. 

I'll be back in the states for ten days starting next week to take back SFBs reins and debut this year's Doppelbock.  Afterwards, when I get back to Germany, Bernhard is going to make the arrangements for me to spend some time with the Brewmasters of Bischoff Brewery.  He also mentioned a beer festival which involves the shooting and butchery of a wild boar.  How could I possibly turn that down?

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.

The gleaming copper kettles of the Brauhaus am Markt in Kaiserslautern

Bernhard Honing--Braumeister, Schnappsmacher, und host extraordinaire.



The inside of the steam-fired brew kettle.



Their brewhouse control panel has a few more switches than ours!

In the fermentation room.

The serving vessels are located on a balcony above the patio.