Celebrating the art of beer in Germany
After winning a worldwide competition, local craft brewery Just Brewing Co had the opportunity of a lifetime - spending a week in Germany.
“The trip was fantastic, even though it was unusually cold in Germany while we were there,” said Wendy Pienaar from Just Brewing Co.
“We met a lot of great people in the brewing industry, we were able to see some great new equipment on offer and drink some great beer from around the world.”
Julian Pienaar and Wendy spent an exciting week (from November 6) in Germany as they were crowned the winners of a competition hosted by Petainer, a PET keg manufacturing company.
They started the trip in Nuremberg, where they attended three days of the BrauBeviale trade show as VIP guests of Petainer.
They described the trade show as being “huge”, with 10 halls and more than 1 000 exhibitors from around the world.
“We had the opportunity to make some great contacts with new suppliers of your raw ingredients – hops, malt and yeast – as well as meet up with some of the suppliers we already do business with,” said Wendy.
The duo was fortunate to be invited to attend a dinner with their friend and presenter at Beer Boot Camp 2016, Dr Christina Schoenberger from Bath-Haas.
Wendy added that the dinner was held at the Nuremberg Football Stadium. “It’s always exciting to see a huge stadium like that at night.
“At the dinner we were lucky enough to meet Charlie Papazian, who is an absolute legend in the brewing community, and Martin Dickie from Brew Dogs brewery in Scotland, arguably one of the biggest trend-setting breweries to come out of the UK.”
From Nuremberg they travelled to Bamberg, a world heritage site with one of the oldest brewing traditions.
Here, Julian and Wendy visited a few of the local brew pubs, including Brauerei Spezial, which started in 1536.
According to Wendy, Rauchbier, which is a Smokey beer, is a speciality in Bamberg.
The highlight of their trip to Bamberg was attending the Weyermann Malz Bavaria party on the Saturday evening, and the tour around the malting plant and lunch on the Sunday.
“The Bavaria party was a real treat with a huge variety of German food and beer to enjoy, as well as some really interesting entertainment, including jugglers, Schuhplattler, alpenhorn blowers and line dancers,” said Wendy.
“All of our speciality malts that we use in our beer come all the way from this malting plant, so it was really interesting to see all the behind-the-scenes working of the plant during our tour on the Sunday.”
Just Brewing Co has just sealed a deal for a brand-new 1 000L brewery system, which they will be installing as part of their new brew pub.
