Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [67]
Because of tradition and Germany’s beer purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, German brewers cannot use industrially made acids to adjust the pH of their mash or wort. Much of Germany’s water has been contaminated with man-made nitrates from fertilizers used in agriculture. The water is unfit for brewing, so almost every brewery I visited filtered and purified its water or used deep well water (which often had high carbonate levels).
The Hopfweissbier Brauerei brews wheat beers exclusively, including Dunkel (dark) Weizen, Weizenbock and Weizen Doppelbock. The brewery is family-owned. At the time of my first visit, Bianca, Hans’s 13-year-old daughter, had already expressed an interest in attending Weihenstephan University and taking over as brewmaster someday. In 1989, when I left Miesbach, she was wearing an American Homebrewers Association T-shirt that read, “I brew therefore I am.” I recently checked in with her, and she anticipates taking over general manager responsibilities and running the brewery in 2006.
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HANS WEISSBIER
This beer is formulated and brewed in the true German wheat beer tradition. Your brewmaster skills will guide you to the exact temperature conditions in which to manage fermentation of this most delicately wonderful Bavarian wheat beer. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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With His Royal Highness
Printz Luitpold von Bayern
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINTZ LUITPOLD of Bavaria would have been the successor to the throne of Bavaria if such things happened today. Instead, Printz Luitpold is a brewer and in 1989 operated two breweries west of Munich: one in Fuerstenfeldbruck and the other at his castle at Kaltenberg. He also has installed dozens of microbreweries and brewpub systems throughout the world in such places as China, Canada, Hungary, Russia and the United States, as well as in Germany.
After my stop at Miesbach I found myself cruising the countryside with His Royal Highness. The level of excitement could be heard in his voice as he announced, “We are preparing for our annual medieval jousting tournaments and Renaissance festival at the castle. You must come to see the preparations after our brewery visits and have some beer, of course.”
We talked of beer, breweries and Germany. Printz Luitpold’s royalty made him no less passionate about beer and brewing than the most enthusiastic of beer brewers. Though his two production breweries were rather large scale, they produced beers fit for a king. His passion was obvious. He has the heart and soul of a microbrewer and the spirit of an adventurer.
During our drive, he told me, “There are about 800 private breweries in Germany. Every year there are fewer.” I knew this and felt remorse whenever I hear those dwindling statistics, but the prince explained that it was not all the result of poor business management or lack of marketing. He continued to explain, “On the average every 30 years a brewery goes through a generation change. About 30 breweries each year face a family decision: who will manage the brewery? Sometimes there are family disagreements and often no one in the family is interested in continuing.”
This was the first time I had heard this perspective, one often hidden from the beer drinker’s realm.
We arrived in Fuerstenfeldbruck for a beer at the town’s beer festival. Never mind the brewery—we had both seen enough breweries in our lives. The festival was where the beer and people were! It was where I found myself with the prince. It was mid-afternoon, midweek, and there were thousands of people drinking liter mugs of Luitpold’s Hellesbier. The brewery was sponsoring free