A little over four months ago, in January, Urban Chestnut Brewing Co., a craft brewer located in St. Louis, MO, acquired a small German brewery that was previously operated as Bürgerbräu Wolnzach in Florian Kuplent’s (Urban Chestnut’s Co-Founder & Brewmaster) homeland of Bavaria. Wolnzach, a small town situated in the world’s largest hops producing region, the Hallertau, is now the home of Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei.
Since this past winter’s acquisition, Urban Chestnut has been busy setting up its Hallertauer operation. A Head Brewer, and a Sales Manager have both been locally hired to assist in the operations of their Hallertauer Brauerei. And just two weeks ago, UCBC’s first batches of bier were brewed in Germany.
“It’s incredibly exciting to have assembled a staff, and almost unbelievable to have brewed Urban Chestnut bier in Bavaria,” expressed Kuplent. “It’s very fulfilling to see a lifelong dream become reality!”
Urban Chestnut will initially brew three beers at their Hallertauer Brauerei: Zwickel – Urban Chestnut’s Flagship Bavarian Lager, its top U.S. seller, Zuagroast – a new Pale Ale brewed with Bavarian malt and hops, and Hopfenperle, a new, hop-forward, Helles Lager that is based on a recipe from another old Bavarian brewery, Alterbräu Wolnzach. UCBC’s German-brewed biers will all fall under a new, third series of Urban Chestnut’s beers; Hallertauer Serie, which joins UCBC’s Revolution Series and UCBC’s Reverence Series.
“The Hallertauer Serie beers exemplify the philosophy of the Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei,” stated Kuplent. “While we purposefully utilize high-quality, terroir-specific ingredients from Bavaria to honor the bier tradition of Hallertau, we also incorporate some modern-American brewing ideals.”
Urban Chestnut, which has been exporting small quantities of their St. Louis-made beers to Germany since 2013, will continue this practice, and now, conversely, UCBC will also be importing their Bavarian-brewed biers into the United States.
“Our Hallertauer Brauerei will obviously enhance UCBC’s efforts to expand our distribution in Germany and into other parts of Europe, via the production of locally brewed beer. Additionally, it will provide us with a central point of importation for our St. Louis-brewed Revolution & Reverence Series of beers,” said fellow Co-Founder David Wolfe. “But what’s perhaps even more exciting, is the exportation of our Hallertauer Serie into the U.S. Overall, on the marketing side, there are going to be a lot of unique and exciting things we can do as an American- German/German-American importing-exporting craft brewer.”
In June, the Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei will begin distributing bier locally in Bavaria and to other areas of Germany, as well continuing the local tradition of selling bottles, on-site, to visiting customers.
“We’ve already pre-sold our first few batches of our Hallertauer Brauerei bier, which in essence is helping us to expand Urban Chestnut’s presence across the overall German brewing scene. On a personal level though, I’m most excited about the opportunity for local, Bavarian bier enthusiasts to enjoy Urban Chestnut bier” shared the Bavarian born Kuplent.
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