Spalter Bier

These days, breweries have many faces. They range from tiny to gigantic, are permanent fixtures at other breweries, can be found in cellars, shared kitchens, and old butcher shops, are run by monks or dentists, and focus on a single beer or a hundred different beers. We find all of these fascinating, but here we'd like to take a look at a particularly beautiful, communal type of brewing.

Beer in the hands of citizens

Communal breweries are a concept with roots in the Middle Ages. At that time, beer was considered a staple food due to the poor quality of drinking water, and the right to brew was one of the rights that came with citizenship and the acquisition of property. To reduce the risk of fire and prevent every household from having to carry out the entire brewing process within their own four walls, many towns and communities built communal breweries. These central breweries enabled the local citizens to brew their beer using a professional system. A master brewer was on hand to offer advice and support to the brewing community or, in some cases, even took over the process entirely. The beer wort was boiled in the communal brewhouse and then distributed. Citizens could then carry out fermentation and maturation according to their own taste in their own cellars. Innkeepers also participated in this communal brewing to meet their demand for beer for sale. With the advent of industrialization, this custom gradually declined. Communal breweries have been almost entirely replaced by technologically advanced, modern large-scale breweries. However, the tradition hasn't completely disappeared and is even being revived in some places. A very unique interpretation of this ancient custom exists in the hop-producing town of Spalt.

Brewery in citizen hands

The Stadtrauerei Spalt is not a communal brewery, but a municipal brewery. According to its own statements, it is the only one in Germany. The town's residents do not brew their own beer here, but they own the brewery. Stefan Herz is responsible for Spalt beer and, ultimately, the satisfaction of Spalt's beer connoisseurs. The certified master brewer has skillfully created a core range of 21 down-to-earth brews and wields the mash paddle daily on behalf of his town. When it comes to raw materials, he's at the source: Spalt is not only one of the world's most famous hop-growing regions, the town also has the purest spring water, and the grain for the malt comes from the region. To deepen the flavor and maximize the benefits of the location, twice the usual amount of hops is used for this excellent Spalt beer. In a gentle, artisanal process, Stefan and his team work out every subtle flavor facet and coax the most delicate bitterness from the green gold – a Franconian poem that the Spalters are happy to share with their guests and us!