First stop on the tour was a visit to the Steineker plant in Freising, Germany.
Above is the only picture that I took at Steineker. At most of the manufacturing places, pictures were not allowed because of the equipment and processes they use are considered trade secrets. It was interesting to tour the facilities and witness the brilliance of German engineering first hand. It is quite impressive to see some of the vessels they are putting out there, from mid size brewing vessels to the big boys. As many of you know, nearly all modern day brewing vessels are made of stainless steel, which I prefer to copper in terms of aesthetics, so walking through these factories was right up my alley.
The next stop on Monday was to the Hopsteiner plants in the Hallertau region of Bavaria which is one of the most famous hop growing regions in the world! In this region, most of the hops are grown by locals with no massive hop farms like you would see in Yakima. As you drive down the road, there are literally hundreds of hop fields which are independently owned and operated. They also don't have "elevators" which means they do the picking and drying and storing all themselves and then sell the hop cones to a company like Hopsteiner directly.
A few pictures from the bus of the hop fields throughout the Hallertau.
At the first facility we visited was their hop pellet production facility. The amount of green paint that went into making this place is kind of absurd. I ended up taking so many pictures of the green machinery for a close friend of mine.
Hop dust and some waste pellets from the pelletizer (pictured below).
I am not kidding when I say that every piece of machinery in this place was green.
Two awesome sieves.
Bailed hops going in for processing.
Just two homies and some hops. The place matched my shoes and shirt quite well. It was like St. Patrick's day decorations all year round.
Even the machine used to cool the hops down was green!
More green stuff.
In the other part of their plant, they have a CO2 extraction facility and even that stuff is green. Those machines are amazing and I think they are the only ones in Germany.
A bowl full of hop extracts. This is from the ethanol extraction plant at the Hopsteiner plant.
At the end of the presentation we got to sample a bunch of different kinds of hops. All of these varieties are grown in the Hallertau so we didn't get to sample any of the American varieties which they grow in Yakima valley. My favorite ended up being Aurora which is a variety I have never heard of before!
They also have a state of the art storage facility which is run by a computer system and a robot which stores all of the hops in a massive (green) warehouse which is kept at low oxygen atmosphere and a cold temperature. Automation in all of its glory.
After the tour of their facilities, they generously wined and dined us. It was a delicious, traditional Bavarian meal with some beer which uses their hops.
What an end to the first day.
Location:Germany
No comments:
Post a Comment