Braukunst Live 2013

Yesterday I headed to the MVG transport museum to sample a LOT of beers. Braukunst Live started out last year as something of a test, and proved to be such a roaring success, it’s become an annual fixture. Basically, various breweries from all over the world gather to show off their beers and people head to the MVG Museum to learn more about beer – from craft beers, to specials produced by Munich’s larger breweries.

I arrived just before 4pm, in time for the seminar entitled “Hopfenstopfer & Schoppe Bräu” – an hour’s tasting of five very different craft beers from two different breweries. Thomas Wachno, the Swabian founder of the Hopfenstopfer brewery gave a talk on his two pale ales – the Citra IPA and the Incredible Pale Ale. Both were fantastic – the first was light and summery, and the Incredible Pale Ale was one of my favourites from the entire exhibition.

We then moved onto Thorsten Schoppe’s beers – he had three super intense beers for us to try. Of those the Holy Shit Christmas Ale was my favourite, but it was so creamy and rich, I think 0.1 litres was more than enough.

After all those beers, I was feeling a little tipsy, so we decided to go and grab some food. On the way, we came across Jopen’s stand – a brewery from Haarlem in the Netherlands. When I think of Dutch beer, I think of Pils, but Jopen had many different specialty beers, and they were rather tasty.

OK, then it really was time to grab something to eat. Thankfully, the Braukunst organizers had provided me with exactly what I needed after lots of beer in the afternoon – good, hearty Bavarian food. I ordered the goulash, my boyfriend ordered the Schweinebraten.

After clearing our plates, we were ready to do some serious beer tasting.

Then, I came across this:

A beer called Rachel! A beer with my name! What’s more, it was a really tasty ale, and in a state of drunken excitement, I’ve gone and bought a pack.

Finally, it was time for our last seminar – a talk with Timm Schnigula, one of the founders of Crew Ale, one of my favourite little Munich breweries. I discovered Crew Ale at Quattro Tavoli last summer, and really love their ple ales. We tried a variety of different numbers from them, and their summer ale is a new favourite. They also now do a Russian Imperial Stout, which was surprisingly (I don’t normally like stout) good. I’ll be sticking to their summer ale for now though.

We headed to the store to buy a pack of Crew Ale, and headed home loaded with bags and nosing glasses.

If you’re interested in beer, you should definitely give Braukunst a go. I learnt so much, and it was so much fun trying different beers and learning about small, independent breweries from around the world.