Excursion: Where the students learn how to brew under historical conditions

 EXCURSION

Where the students learn how to brew under historical conditions

Twice a year, VLB Berlin staff travel to Thuringia together with the students of the Certified Brewmaster course and the German course for master brewers in order to produce a "museum brew" under historical conditions at the Hennebergisches Museum Kloster Vessra. After a break due to corona, the excursion finally took place again this spring.

(ew) Since the beginning of the 2000s, the Henneberger Land Brewing Association has had the right to brew five brews a year on the premises of the Hennebergisches Museum Kloster Vessra. The individual steps from mashing to wort boiling, cooling and fermenting can then be witnessed at the historic brewhouse. One brew in the spring is the so-called "museum brew", which is served and sold at various events in the Henneberg Museum. “And we usually travel to join such a museum brew,” says Jan Biering, head of the VLB Research Institute for Beer and Beverage Production and supervisor of the privately organised excursion. On Friday is arrival – on the way the group usually visits a malt house. Saturday is brewing day. For the early risers, it starts at 5.00 a.m. with the heating of the brewing water. The rest comes at 7.00 a.m. to mash in. “We mash with several mashing steps in the classic decoction pro-

cess,” Biering explains the procedure. “Around noon, the lautering begins, yielding about 10 to 12 hl of wort. This wort is then boiled with natural hops for a good hour until the entire brew can be casted onto the coolship. During the night the brew is let into the wooden fermenting tub History of the local municipal brewing and pitched with communities yeast.” The students stir mash using In 1734, the Thuringian municipality of Wolf- mashing rakes mannshausen was granted brewing rights. In the or they heat with same year, the residents built a brewhouse in the wood. This tradivillage. Under the direction of an elected brewma- tional approach ster, several families joined together to prepare a is what makes brew (max. 22 hl) for private consumption in spring the experience and autumn. The people from the area kept up so valuable. Afthis tradition until the end of the 1970s. In 1990, ter all, beer prothe Hennebergische Museum was able to acquire duction under the small one-storey brewery with the remaining historical condiinventory. tions is strikingly different from the comparatively low physical exertion that modern brewers face in an industrial brewery today. “I want to show the students how challenging brewing was in earlier centuries. Along the way, they can see and use the equipment we all know from the brewers' crests,” says Biering. But the more important: “The participants particularly appreciate the experience that not everything has to be meticulously timed and that you can simply take your time for the brew.”

Biering Berlin/Jan VLB Photos: Using historical equipment, VLB employees brewed the earlyyear "museum brew" together with students of the Certified Brewmaster course in the Hennebergisches Museum Kloster Veßra, Thuringia.

Below: Strength lies in calm: In contrast to modern breweries, hecticness and precise planning play almost no role in the success of the brew