Description
In autumn 1997 I read an article in the Sunday newspaper about "crazy people" who brew their own beer. My sweetheart somehow noticed that I was interested in brewing beer and so there was a SIOS shower set under the Christmas tree. So I brewed my first five brews with malt extract. Since this was quite successful, there was an expansion to the mash set at Christmas. I couldn't wait, I started using the gift on December 22, 1998 and brewed my first "real" brew. The book by Wolfgang Vogel and the brewing book by Richi Leder served as my instructions. The result was a Munich warehouse with 13.75 ° P. After five brews using the infusion mashing process, I started experimenting with partial mashing. But I didn't understand how this really worked with the decoctions until Andi Aemmer (Hirnibräu) explained the procedure at the Stammheim Hop Festival to me in a few words. Then I ate the fool in the decoction process and made a mash tun out of an old army cooking crate. I particularly succeeded in the construction of the false floor. Today, quite a few home brewers from Eastern Switzerland swear by this practical piece made of 1.5mm thick sheet 1.4301 with 0.8mm wide slots, which enables easy cleaning of even the most extreme mash. The first brew that I mashed in the cooking crate was the Mooshölzli-Pils with which I got my first podium at a SIOS Trophy in 2001. I soon realized that beyond the purity law, the more exciting beers are at home and so I started to consume oats, spelled, rye, corn, rice, spices, sugar candy, raw fruit etc. Since I am particularly fond of Belgian beers and I am relatively acid-resistant, I prefer to brew beers with various Belgian yeasts, lactobacillus and Brettanomyces lambicus. As a real Seebueb, I naturally prefer hops grown on Lake Constance, so Tettnanger hops can be found in many of my beers. If I have already come up with the topic of Lake Constance: the water in my beer comes from Lake Constance, probably the world's best brewing water. To show what a miracle brewer I am, I served my specialties from 2006 to 2008 at the Solothurn Beer Days and once at the Fête de la Biere in Lausanne. This episode was called BeSte, a brewery project that I successfully ran with Beat Rohner for a few years. At these exhibitions, I made many friends with small breweries and beer fans from Lake Geneva to Lake Constance. After a phase in which I only brewed for my own use, I founded the BODENSEEBRÄU brewery in 2013 under my old brewery number 273, with the experience of over 200 brews.
