FOOD PROCESSING BY KRONES
NOT YOUR TYPICAL BAVARIAN BREWERY
The backdrop is taken straight from a storybook: a brewery whose walls date back to the 17th century, a beer garden with a stream happily burbling along on one side, and waitresses in dirndl dresses bearing fully loaded trays. This is precisely the picture that springs to mind when people think of Bavaria. However, all those wishing to celebrate one-dimensional clichés won’t be finding what they’re looking for at the Schneider Weisse brewery in Kelheim. It’s true that behind the ivy-clad façade beer has been brewed using traditional methods for around 140 years – however, the beers created in this way are anything but conventional.
Thinking outside the box along traditional lines
But no matter how multi-facetted and distinctively original all these different beers are, they’ve got one thing in common: they do not undergo fermentation in tanks but in open vats. This ensures that the yeast gets enough oxygen, thus enabling the wide variety of aromas to be created that is typical for Schneider. In addition, after primary fermentation, most of Schneider’s products are filled into bottles or casks together with some fresh wort, where they are then left to mature into the products that send beer aficionados from Bavaria to Brazil into raptures – and regularly lead to the winner’s podium at In the Schneider Weisse beer garden, it takes just four international beer competitions. words to give yourself away as a definite newcomer: “A wheat beer, please!” The waitresses, who serve not only There is probably nobody who knows better than Hansthe local regulars but also innumerable day-trippers Peter Drexler just what influence the combination of openand tourists every day, are used to this and answer with vat fermentation and bottle conditioning has on a beer’s an indulgent smile: “Of course, but which one exactly taste. The brewmaster has been working for the company would you like?” Looking at the menu together will bring for 38 years and today heads the Technology and Loabout the “Oh I see…” effect – and will simultaneously gistics Divisions as managing director. Many of the beer present the dumbfounded guest with the next challenge, types that Schneider Weisse is currently offering were since the menu lists no less than ten different wheat beers developed by him and bear his unmistakeable hallmark. to choose from. For example, the tangy-sweet Hop- But even so, the creative lateral thinker likes to experiment fenweisse, the deep-dark mahogany-coloured Aventi- with new ideas and recipes: for him, sticking with a tradinus-Eisbock or the Nelson Sauvin beer that has been tional process does not mean a limitation but quite the brewed with the eponymous hop variety from New Zealand. opposite – he finds it truly enriching. “I personally think And of course: the Schneider Original, the epitome of a our main beer type, the Original Schneider Weisse, is an Bavarian wheat beer that has been brewed to the same ingenious beer – precisely because we owe the open ferrecipe since 1872. mentation process to this beer,” he explains. “Ensuring that this great process is retained has always been a matter of crucial importance to me.” 16
ASIA FOOD BEVERAGE THAILAND
