{"id":1696,"date":"2016-07-18T13:52:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T12:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/?p=1696"},"modified":"2016-09-30T11:15:16","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T10:15:16","slug":"1696","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/?p=1696","title":{"rendered":"SCB visit to Karlstadt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Karlstadt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As promised a small blog post on our visit to the Staatiche Brauerschule Main-Spessart.
\nOur program would include two full days in the school (Tue and Wed) and one day visiting a small brewery and a brewery technology company called GEA(Thurs) with Monday and Friday travelling.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Day 1
\nMonday<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our Welcome<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived in Frankfurt a little late after being delayed in Edinburgh, this was due to the typically Scottish weather they were having in Germany (you know\u2026the horizontal rain type weather!).\u00a0 After what seemed an age the luggage finally arrived and we went away to find the train.\u00a0 Frankfurt airport is HUGE it took us about 15 mins to find an information point where we were told that the train we were booked on was running 30 mins late but if we caught a different train and changed at Wurzberg we would get in on time.\u00a0 Don\u2019t know how but we managed it.\u00a0 We caught an ICE train from Frankfurt to Wurzburg (The ICE trains are the German equivalent of the Intercity type trains in the UK).\u00a0 Service and comfort is in a different class on these trains compared to the UK.\u00a0 Drinks served at your seat in proper glasses (even in cattle class!) and loads of room.\u00a0 We duly arrived in Karlstadt where we were greeted by two of the students with fantastic English (given we knew very little German we were very thankful) Nico and Tobias.\u00a0 Once our cases were deposited in Oberes Tor (our B & B) we went out for food and some other German delicacies.\u00a0 We walked along the HauptstraBe and found a restaurant which was open, some Schiztnel and a couple of beers later we left and went to a bar where the students frequent on a regular basis called Karschter Eck or ‘The corner’.\u00a0 This was to be our goto bar for the rest of the week!<\/p>\n

\"Reinheitsgebot<\/a>
Reinheitsgebot -(pronounced rhine heights gebot) The law…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day 2
\nTuesday<\/p>\n

\"Beery<\/a>
Beery paraphernalia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Up bright and early for the 2nd<\/sup> day in Karlstadt and faced with a typically European breakfast.\u00a0 Meats, Eggs, Yoghurt and bread rolls etc.\u00a0 Suitably filled we departed for the school with our guides\/hosts\/friends Nico and Tobias.\u00a0 The Brauerschule day starts at 8.35am and finishes at 4.20am with one break in the morning and one in the afternoon and lunch is provided for the brewing students.\u00a0 The brewing students are actually apprentices on a block release type scheme.\u00a0 Staying in a couple of hotels in Karlstadt whilst they attend the Brauerschule.\u00a0 On arrival we met Boris Durr a tutor who takes the students in the actual brewery, \u00a0Robert Pawelczak, a classroom lecturer and former professional brewer and Markus Metsger, a classroom lecturer, Master Brewer and Chairman of the Home Brewers association of Germany, an esteemed group of lecturers!\u00a0After a quick chat\u00a0<\/span>we sat in on the students in the brewery where they were making a Marzen.\u00a0 Pilsner malt and around 10% Caramunich!\u00a0 In the classroom they have every kind of equipment you could need from heaters to germinate grain and malt it, grain sorting machines, grading machines and a large dry mill for crushing. The kit they use is fully computer controlled, heat is generated by steam.\u00a0 Following our tour of the equipment in the class it was time for a quick meet and greet from our host Matthias Dietz, lecturer at the school and the Project Yeast co-ordinator.\u00a0 After that it was lunchtime served in the small canteen in the school only for the brewers.<\/p>\n

\"Collection<\/a>
Collection of glasses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the afternoon it was back in the classroom observing and we had a tour round the Karlstadt campus and a Project Yeast meeting.
\nIn the evening we managed to sit outside for dinner and more German delicacies and then retired to\u00a0 Karschter Eck for a few drinks and a couple of games of table football (Scotland proving again that beating the Germans at football is beyond us!!)<\/p>\n

\"Whooped<\/a>
Whooped again!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Day 3
\nWednesday<\/p>\n

Made our own way to the school this morning and straight into class, like the class yesterday they were making a Marzen. Unlike yesterday most of the initial work had taken place with the water heated and grain crushed, seemingly it had something to do with a presentation later that day by some visiting dignitaries!\u00a0 Every step in the process is logged, how long it takes to heat the water, how long are the acid rests, the saccharification rests, how long does it take to get to the point where the rests can happen.\u00a0 When we homebrew we measure by gravity whereas in the school they measure by sugar content, this is also recorded at very regular intervals and iodine tests are carried out on a regular basis, again everything is recorded in detail.\u00a0 We had a Project Yeast meeting where we ticked all the boxes and dotted all the \u2018i\u2019s. Scottish Craft Brewers are now an ERASMUS centre!\u00a0 For lunch we joined the School Principal Fr Beck and Hr Deitz and Hr Pawelczak at the Restaurant Zum Fehmelbauer.\u00a0 In the afternoon Malcolm delivered the SCB presentation to the students.\u00a0 Due to the class sizes he presented it twice and spent most of the afternoon answering questions about Edinburgh, the Scottish Brewing scene and the club.\u00a0 The presentations were received very well and the students seemed genuinely interested in Scotland, I believe there will be a steady stream of students coming over in the next few months!
\nWe were left to our own devices on the Wednesday so we decided it would be good idea if the students were to taste some Scottish beer.\u00a0 So after dinner at the excellent Greek restaurant Ratskeller we went in search of Scottish beer! Despite venturing for miles, including outside of town we could not even locate an off licence!\u00a0 Disappointed we returned empty handed to the Karschter Eck and to the Germany vs Poland game! We weren\u2019t the only people disappointed that night!!<\/p>\n

\"imag0273\"<\/a>
Malcy doing his thing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"imag0274\"<\/a>
Malcy doing his thing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"imag0269\"<\/a>
The Ratskeller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Day 4
\nThursday<\/p>\n

We were picked up early to travel to the small village of Krautheim where we would be visiting the Privatbrauerei Friedrich D\u00fcll which produces the excellent Krautheimer range of beers. \u00a0The brewery is one the a few left which malts its own grain before milling and using it.\u00a0 We were given a tour by the owner Friedrich Dull.\u00a0 The brewery has been owned and operated by the Dull family for over 200 years and as with all German beers (those that can be brewed and called beer in Germany) it brews according to the Reinheitsgebot (German purity law).\u00a0 The brewery itself is classed as a \u2018small brewery\u2019 by German standards and the beer itself can be brewed by as little as 3 people such is the automation in the actual plant. The brewery produces somewhere in the region of 120,000 hectolitres per year (look it up, this ain\u2019t no small brewery!).\u00a0\u00a0 The brewery get its all its grain from within the region and only ever uses three varieties of hops\u00a0 Hallertauer, Magnum and Perle. We\u2019ve all had brewery tours so I won\u2019t bore you with much detail but it is huge!\u00a0 The beer filter must have been at least 7m long (over 20ft in old money) the bottling\\kegging room was easily half the area of the Pear Tree beer garden! The mill they use is another huge piece of kit (they mill the grain when it\u2019s wet) which directly feeds the mash tun.
\nAlcohol free beer is a big thing in Germany (it can contain 0.5% ABV to be called alcohol free in Germany) and in the brewery there is a machine which removes alcohol by creating a vacuum in a chamber where the beer is and it separates the alcohol.\u00a0 They then put normal beer back into the alcohol free stuff to make it taste better.\u00a0\u00a0 You may think why not just put the original alcohol back in? They aren\u2019t allowed to\u2026 once it comes out the beer it can\u2019t go back in so it\u2019s sold off to a lens cleaning manufacturer!
\nThe brewery also distils its own whisky but its currently maturing in Red wine barrels and won\u2019t be ready until 2023!<\/p>\n

The lauter tun, mash tun, mill and boiler were all supplied as an experimental\\test kit from GEA brewery systems.\u00a0 The automation of the brewery was also supplied by GEA systems.\u00a0 We visited GEA systems in the afternoon but were not allowed to take any photos due to secrecy. When we thought the scale of Krautheimer was large some of the kit they were making in GEA was jaw dropping.\u00a0 When we entered there was half a bottom of a mash tun which would hold 1000hl (100,000l)! Yes a big brew!!\u00a0 It was destined for South Korea.\u00a0\u00a0 They were working on a big order for an American brewery based in California so there were a few BIG pieces of kit being created.<\/p>\n

On Thursday evening we were invited out by Hr Deitz and Hr Metsger for a traditional Frankonian dinner in the countryside.<\/p>\n

\"Krautheimer\"<\/a> \"Krautheimer\"<\/a> \"German<\/a> \"Krautheimer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Day 5
\nFriday<\/p>\n

Return Home.
\nWe made our way back to the school for a final time to thanks everyone for the hospitality and informative time we spent with them.\u00a0 We also managed to a have a quick tour round the school bottling plant.<\/p>\n

Some links<\/p>\n

German Homebrewers www.hausgebraut.de<\/a><\/p>\n

Boris\u2019 Brewpub http:\/\/braeuscheuere.de\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Restaurant Zum Fehmelbauer http:\/\/www.fehmelbauer.de\/cms\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Ratskeller http:\/\/ratskellerkarlstadt.de\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Krautheimer\u00a0 http:\/\/www.krautheimer.com\/Startseite.html?offage=1<\/a><\/p>\n

GEA Brewery Systems\u00a0 http:\/\/www.gea.com\/en\/productgroups\/brewery-systems\/index.jsp<\/a><\/p>\n

some pics of Karlstadt<\/p>\n

\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
Karlstadt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
Karlstadt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
Panorama of Town Square, Karlstadt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
Down by the river<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
River Main from the bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Karlstadt\"<\/a>
River Main from the bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Selfie<\/a><\/p>\n

Selfie in ‘The corner’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised a small blog post on our visit to the Staatiche Brauerschule Main-Spessart. Our program would include two full days in the school (Tue and Wed) and one day visiting a small brewery and a brewery technology company called GEA(Thurs) with Monday and Friday travelling.       Day 1 Monday We arrived in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":1730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/IMAG0224.jpg?fit=4208%2C3120&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5fZ16-1696","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1696"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1780,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696\/revisions\/1780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottishcraftbrewers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}