BREWING
iStock.com/Nikada
Ein real ale, bitte Brewing German beer in the UK
Mental Health Act in 2017. As well as its descent into insanity the 13 years saw a gradual shift of identity from a ‘real ale’ to craft beer producer. Now, as well as free-trade sales, the brewery has eight brewery taps and bottle shops located in well-to-do market towns in the Chiltern hills just outside London. This route to market accounts for 20% of sales. Who said the days of the vertically-integrated brewing business were gone? Production this year is expected to top 10khL with strong growth on all fronts. Matthias Seidl, Brewing Director at Mad Squirrel is originally from Germany and has an MSc in Brewery Engineering from the Technical University of Munich Weihenstephan. Matthias joined the brewery in 2016. Originally he didn’t want to be a brewer – he wanted to set the world of music alight with his jazz guitar. After failing to rotate the celebrity armchairs at two auditions for music
By Stuart Howe
Historically the brewers of Great Britain and Germany have existed largely independently of each other. The language barrier and some disagreements early in the 20th century led to separate paths being followed. Today, thanks to an increased number of breweries – and most Germans speaking better English than the average Brit – there is an increasing number of German- trained brewers taking up the reins in the UK.
B ritish brewers would study at Nottingham, Heriot Watt or with the IBD and pursue a career in the UK and English-speaking countries in the southern hemisphere. German brewers would study at Munich or Berlin and go on to work in Germany, occasionally in Europe but very rarely in the UK. In this article we will meet two who have recently made the jump, nd out about
them, their breweries and get their per- spective on the strange things we do in Great Britain.
Matthias Seidl at the Mad Squirrel Brewery
The Mad Squirrel Brewery didn’t start off mad, it was originally Red. The Red Squirrel Brewery started up in 2004 with the squirrel of cially sectioned under the
32 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I november 2019
i bd.org.uk
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker