Customer Stories

Customer story 200-litre Braumeister - Zoigl Kaufbeuren

The Zoigl is the bar of the Kaufbeuren communal brewery run by Gernot Wildungsmauer. He has always been enthusiastic about the Zoigl restaurants (see Wikipedia) and their historical tradition in the Upper Palatinate area. His dream was to open a restaurant like that with a brewery in his birthplace of Kaufbeuren.

Now this Zoigl has been there for several years and it is gaining ever more supporters and regulars. In recent times, Wildungsmauer has been brewing his own beer with a 200-litre Braumeister - and the guests are delighted with the taste of the beer. The beer impresses drinkers with its fresh aroma and delectable taste and clearly leaves other industrial beers way behind.

It is brewed once or twice a week and opened according to  a special Zoigl calender. In the small, rustic dining rooms, the restaurant's own home-brew (bottom fermented) is served to accompany hearty dishes. In addition, the green beer can be taken home to let it mature there. Zoigl tokens can be used to pay the bill or gifted as a "voucher". This further underlines the enthusiasm for the customs and traditions of Zoigl restaurants.

More information can be found at www.zoigl-kaufbeuren.de

Customer story 200-litre Braumeister - PrinzenBräu

Light-coloured lager, wheat beer, Altbier, and a stout - the so-called MONARCH brand - are the beers from a small private brewery run by Peter Eberle who has realized and lives out his dream of having his own brewery.

PrinzenBräu is the southernmost small brewery in Liechtenstein in the town of Balzers. The idea and theme are those of uniting the centuries-old brewing tradition with the Principality of Liechtenstein, its monarchy, its palaces and castles. This is reflected in the beer and especially in the logo of the brewery.

Meanwhile, even with the second 200-litre Braumeister, they can no longer brew enough to keep up with demand. If in their start-up year 2010 they made a total of 50 hectolitres, already by the end of March this year they had reached 50 hectolitres of beer. It all began in 2010 with a 50-litre Braumeister, which then relatively quickly became too small. The first 200-litre Braumeister then came in mid-2010 and in  autumn of 2011, the second 200-litre Braumeister. According to Eberle, this one is always on the go except when all the fermentation tanks are filled.

The different beers are sold via the local drinks trade and served at events in town, and of course right on site in the small but elegant brewery restaurant. With his top-class beers, Peter Eberle noticeably enriches the taste experience and contributes to the preservation of an important cultural asset - our local beer!

More information can be found at www.prinzenbraeu.li

Customer story 50-litre Braumeister - Mollenhauer home-brewery

Frithjof Rüttgeroth and Alexander Mollenhauer started brewing beer on a whim - with the largest pots they could find in the house and a wood-fired kitchen stove in grandma's laundry. They obtained hops, malt and yeast from nearby breweries. For storage tanks they used (new) 5-litre jerrycans (to withstand the pressure). That was great and provided wonderful beers.

The two quickly realized that this was what they always wanted to do and so in November 2007 they acquired the 50-litre Braumeister. In combination with an old refrigerated counter from a closed-down pub which held five 50-litre kegs, Rüttgeroth and Mollenhauer had created a real micro-brewery. With it they produced 150-200 litres of beer a month and everyone in the family and every party was supplied.

The brewers tried to continuously optimize the brewing process and experimented with the saccrification rests and with the recipes ... the beer got better and the quality was reproducible. They were excited. Being unemployed time and again due to temporary contracts, they were advised to just sell the beer. A small business was quickly registered and that turned into a success, too. It often happened that they sold all their beer and now drank  other brands at their parties because all the beer was gone again.

In autumn 2009 Rüttgeroth and Mollenhauer decided that they wanted to become self-employed on a full-time basis. They tiled out the old garage and bought cheap a used cold store that could accommodate 1,500 litres of beer. They also acquired 5,000 half-litre bottles and a counter-pressure bottle filler.

The biggest hurdle, however, were the official approval procedures. The Local Authority wanted to have a pollution report for the Braumeister and that was going to cost many thousands of Euros through various technical inspection agencies. That would have blown the project. They turned to the Speidel company; we had an expert technical report issued at our own expense and this was made available to them.

Today Rüttgeroth and Mollenhauer produce two to four different beers with one or two brews per day and a total monthly output of 700-1200 litres. Since then, the Braumeister has processed over 470 brews! The only thing that has broken down was the PT100 temperature probe and recently the rubber seal on the malt pipe. In other words, normal wear parts.

"All in all a great success," is Rüttgeroth's and Mollenhauer's opinion.