Franconia Beer Message Board

German craft brewer's opinions on Franconian beer scene
Posted by Mike on 2018-05-27 23:39:46
"I think there is a difference between general long term trends and what's happening in localised markets. This brewer, who is from Bayern and now living and brewing in Franken, has opinions on the reason for recent brewery closings in the area and predicts more in the near future. Hopefully he is not correct."

I agree with your sentiment (he is not correct). I live and travel around Europe a lot. when I visit a foreign country, I don't look for products I could easily get at home - I look for local products. I will guess that you do the same or similar.

There have been for about 5-10 years attempts to bring American style beers to Germany. Some of those attempts are by Americans and some are by Germans.

On his website, the brewer lists his qualities as "traditional, creative" Well, it seems to me that you cannot be both traditional and creative. You can be one or the other. 

Take a look here: https://mixology.eu/news/in-beer-there-is-freedom/?lang=en
Unless I am wrong, all the beer cartons in the photo are American and the caption is "in beer there is freedom." I think the caption would make a lot more sense if the photo included beer cartons from several different countries, not only one.

The article I was referring to was the interview with the brewer, who is listed on the mixology site as the PR manager.

I try to keep fairly current on the local beer scene in Franconia. One of my favourite pubs closed this year. It was not for any of the reasons listed by the German brewer. The number of breweries that have closed in Franconia over the last few years are extremely small in number. So small, that it would not constitute a trend.

It seems to me that most German brewers would know the beer history of their country - perhaps not in much detail, but at least the general trends. This brewer does not seem to know it, which is why I called the interview with him nonesense.

Here is another German brewer who previously made only American-style beers, but now seems to have included some German beers, including some rare ones, (although I haven't tasted any of those beers): 
https://www.hopfenhelden.de/ale-mania/

I would not say that Germans are particularly chauvinistic about their country, but most Germans grow up drinking their local beer and many of them would probably continue drinking it for much of their lives. With these isolated breweries trying to introduce Germans to American-style beers, I would imagine it is a pretty difficult task. I assume that is why the ale-mania brewer is now brewing German style beers in addition to the American.

Several years ago I got interested in communal breweries and have about 50 books downloaded from Google books about it. The oldest book I have is from 1722, however most are from the 19th century. All of them are in German. I haven't read all of them, but have looked through their index to see what subjects they cover. The Reinheitsgebot post is from one of them.




 
 
Followups:
         German craft brewer's opinions on Franconian beer scene by TomM on  2018-06-01 15:55:03
           German craft brewer's opinions on Franconian beer scene by Gerhard Schoolmann on  2018-06-02 01:53:41
             German craft brewer's opinions on Franconian beer scene by jason on  2018-06-02 02:23:25
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