The first brew will soon be ready, operations are running in the new Starnberg brewery in Wieling.
A visit to a brewery that has just moved and is already thinking about expanding.
Wieling - Before the brewery boss Florian Schuh asks for the new production facility, he emphasizes: "This is not a simple commercial building, this is a highly complex building." A few minutes later, thick, warm air flows towards you, filled with the strong smell of malt and young beer. Mighty stainless steel tanks protrude just below the roof, everything shines new, the pipes, the stairs and railings. Again and again it hisses loudly, hoses are carried around, kettles are heaved around. But you don't see what is really highly complex, at least at first glance: the many kilometers of cable, the network that ensures the fully automatic brewing process.
The Starnberg brewery has made a quantum leap in its new home in Wieling. It can now brew almost ten times as much beer as at the Höhenrain location. The brewery there has been shut down and the brewhouse has been sold to a family brewery from Lower Bavaria. The old 30 hectolitre tanks that Starnberger kept for storing wheat beer are ridiculously small compared to the new ones. Its capacity: 660 hectoliters, or 66,000 mass of beer.
And yet Schuh, the managing director, is all too small again.
While cables are still hanging from the wall in the administration wing and the wooden table top in the dining room is still leaning in the corner, Schuh is already thinking of the next location.
They are in talks with the city of Starnberg for a second production hall and have also been offered a plot of land.
Schuh does not deny that the district of Schorn, where there is an industrial area and another is being promoted, is an option.
But he does not reveal any more details.
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I would like more to come out: Brewery boss Florian Schuh at the water pipe.
© Andrea Jaksch
The man in jeans and a wine-red waistcoat is visibly proud of the new system. He shines on the tour. And now he draws a gusset, a young, unfiltered beer, from one of the large fermentation and storage tanks. It tastes - of course - very fresh and already has a certain, slightly spicy character. But it's not finished yet. At the point - or at least near - where Schuh is now, the groundbreaking was in July 2020. Almost a year later, in June, the first beer brewed in Wieling is due to be sold. Or as the brewery boss puts it: "I assume that we will be in the bottle in two weeks."
Sven Leindl, Technical Director, is also responsible for ensuring that it works. “In Höhenrain, that was handicraft, this is mass production,” he says. And he doesn't mean it disrespectfully. Although so much is fully automated, the work has become more complex. "We now grow the yeast ourselves in the laboratory," says Leindl, with the Erlenmeyer flask in hand.
To address a "problem", Managing Director Schuh leaves the tank formation, turns right from the center aisle of the hall and points to a water pipe on the wall that is too thin for him. He explains the details above in the sales and logistics area, which is still in its virgin state. From there, you can see the entire hall through large panes of glass. “The water that we get from the Feldafing community limits us to 70,000 hectoliters per year,” says Schuh. He wants to claim, cautiously optimistic, “that we could sell twice as much”. He will therefore seek a conversation with Mayor Bernhard Sontheim. Three other large storage tanks have been dispensed with, since they are useless due to the lack of water. Apart from this freedom, there is no more space: “We win the efficiency award.We use the hall to the last square centimeter, ”emphasizes Schuh.
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Tanks up to the ceiling: the view from the administration wing into the production hall.
© Andrea Jaksch
Schuh says that the property in Wieling, which is just over 2000 square meters in size, was actually too small was known beforehand. But an area for the ambitious Starnberg brewery has to be found in the district first. The search was tough. “Anyone who helps us to get a property or a piece of land will be supplied with beer for life,” Schuh promised in 2018. Back then he was looking for an area of up to 10,000 square meters. A suitable area opened up, but the opportunity unfortunately failed, says Schuh, without wanting to be more specific. The property would have been three times the size of the one in Wieling. You get an idea of the dimensions in which the brewery thinks. "If we come back to the capacity limit, it will come down to a plant two," says the managing director. That's how someone speakswho has definitely accepted the competition with its own growth. And to make it even clearer: "We have a production problem, not a sales problem."
Starnberg beer now has real “hardcore fan groups” - among young adults as well as golf club members. The brewery, which was only founded in 2015, is increasingly reaching the masses - this is also proven by the many shopping carts on the Germany map on the homepage. Schuh is now thinking bigger and far beyond Lake Starnberg. But playing an important role at home is just as important to him. With a smile he asks: "Drinking Tegernseer at Lake Starnberg, that's not possible, right?"
