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In the photo you can see me standing in the Erdinger Weißbräu. Somewhere around the age of 16 I was already captivated by the theme of beer. Of course, the average 16-year-old discovered beer, but I found it interesting early on that there were more beer brands and, above all, more beer types. The Dutch beer landscape was relatively dull at the time. There were about 16 breweries (including one in Hengelo), all of which produced lager, bock beer and sometimes a premium lager or 'old brown'.
However, the Hengelo brewery was owned by Stella Artois and that way there was already a palette of about 12 Belgian beers in Café de Appel. When I also got the booklet "Belgian Beer" by Julien van Remoortere, I had a kind of small collecting frenzy: I tried to obtain 'new' beers from liquor stores, and I cleaned the emptied bottles and put them on my room. Everywhere I went I looked for liquor stores and every now and then I was successful. It was really cool to go to Gronau by bike every now and then and get some bottles of German beer there.
Collecting was really fun, because you had to make an effort to get new bottles. Going to Berlin for school was a highlight: first the huge selection at the KaDeWe, then also a number of bottles in East Berlin from a real Volkseigener Betrieb (VEB). In terms of taste, there was also development: Pils was no longer my number 1, it became the Weizenbier in the first place, which I had to buy in Gronau or take with me from Bayern when I was on holiday there.
Belgium and Bayern became a bit of Mecca for me. Belgium because of the wide range and Bayern also because of the culture surrounding beer: Brauereien, Wirtshäuser and Biergartens in cities such as Bamberg, Kulmbach and Munich.
In the end it seemed like something to do the training to become a Brewing Engineer. I did Chemical Engineering and working in chemistry didn't appeal to me and this was quite an extension. In 1990 I decided to travel alone to Bayern for a holiday, to visit about 5 breweries and also to look around in Freising near Munich, because that is where the training was.
It was a very nice experience, I was even invited for dinner at the Hofbräuhaus Berchtesgaden by the director. But I got the most essential information from de Braumeister in Ludwigsstadt: he said that young engineers were mainly given work in the countries that formed the growth markets: countries in Africa, Asia and South America. That seemed like a bridge too far to me at the time. Financing also played a role, of course. Conclusion: my beer future mainly lay in consumption, not production. I also had some plans for making my own beer, but it never came to fruition.
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The beer hobby was again limited to collecting bottles and now also books and folders about beer. I wrote to breweries and asked for brochures, labels, etc. Very nice to do. The beer bottles and glasses collection is still in my possession, but is now upstairs in the attic. The books on the theme remain interesting and in every place I visit I still go to the bookstore. You can see my collection of books on the subpages of this item of the website.
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In this way the beer hobby always remains somewhat latent and every now and then it also comes to a visit from a brewery. However, visiting large breweries has become less interesting. As a visitor you don't come close to anything because they are afraid that, for example, yeast cultures will be affected. Those old, open fermenters and watching them cook the wort is still more fun to watch. I also find the old brewery buildings fascinating, such as the one in the photo in Bayreuth. Guinness' visit was of yet another order: there are so many visitors there that it looks more like an amusement park than a brewery. But I still wanted to see it....
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By the way, Guinness is symbolic of the development of my taste in beer. I didn't like it when I was younger, but now it's one of my favorites. I have come to like dark beers more and the great thing about Guinness is the limited alcohol content and the nice stable foam. I also like the dark Trappist and abbey beers or the German Doppelbocks. Although that may change in a while, the Zundert 8 and the Trappistes Rochefort 8 are among my absolute favorites.
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And then there's the area where you drink your beer: there's nothing like a real Biergarten, or an outdoor terrace under the large chestnut trees, as you only find them in Bayern. The Braugaststätte of the Ayinger Brauerei is not for nothing so popular with the residents of Munich, it is a particularly fine example of what a Biergarten should be. And then a good Brotzeit on the side, then Marc is completely in his element! ;-)
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