The Bavarian “Pure Brewing Law” issued in Ingolstadt in 1516 is the most famous document in the history of brewing, but by no means the first. Prior to that, many German cities had other decrees on beer at various times, but the earliest we know of is Justitia Civitatis Augustensis, a charter of the city of Augsburg issued by Frederick Barbarossa, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor, in 1156. It states that a brewer who brews bad beer will be punished and the beer will be destroyed or provided to the poor for free. Probably the most famous Augsburg brewery nowadays is Riegele.
A family-owned brewery in Augsburg
But the attention to the brewery is not due to the “quality” of its traditional brews (almost any German brewery is unlikely to disappoint), but to the niche that Riegele occupies in brewing Germany. The brewery with the golden horse on its logo has long ago chosen its own special path in brewing, becoming an example of successful innovation in a part of Germany where tradition defines too much.
If Augsburg claims to be the first city where beer quality was legally controlled, the Riegele brewery claims to be the oldest brewery in the city today. The owners can trace the history of the brewery back to 1386 through records of taxes paid to the treasury, but the actual age of the brewery may be more. The brewery got its current name in 1884 after Sebastian Riegele acquired it, but before that it was owned by two other families and was known as Zum Goldenen Roß (“Golden Horse”). Despite the name change, the golden horse remains a symbol of the Riegele to this day.
The chief ideologue, though not the chief brewer, at Riegele is owner Sebastian Priller. After getting his MBA in business administration, Sebastian worked for quite a long time in a consulting company whose activities spread all over Europe. When he decided to return to the family business, his father was only able to offer the new director half of his usual salary, but promised to make up for it by doubling the pleasure of his work.
Riegele is a family company, but no family members are forced to work there. Sebastian was given the right to head the brewery as the eldest of the children, and if he didn’t want to, the right would pass to the next heir.
- In the 130 years that our family has owned the brewery, we have had time to make all the possible mistakes in management, and we have come to understand that no one is born a brewer, so the heirs are free to choose their profession,” Sebastian explains.
- That’s why the head brewer is not a family member. Frank Müller directs the production process, and I set the general direction. Together we make decisions about what kind of beer the brewery will produce.
Riegele philosophy
When talking about his brewery, the owner often uses the word “philosophy. For example, Sebastian refuses to disclose production volumes (“it’s not our philosophy”), but he easily reveals the company’s turnover (about 25 million euros per year).
Riegele’s special varieties, currently represented by three directions, are also called “philosophies” here. MAGNUS 16 and DULCIS 12 are brewed following the Belgian philosophy, ROBUSTUS 6 and NOCTUS 100 are brewed in England and SIMCO 3 and AMARIS 50 in America.
In total the Augsburg brewery constantly produces 22 types of beer, among which there are representatives of the “new wave” of German brewing and classic varieties.
Even 30 years ago, the brewery had built itself off the general movement toward averaging the taste of beer. When marketers argued that the closer to the average your product was, the more successful you would sell it, Riegele sought to produce craft beers. For example, the “classic” Augsburger Herrenpils has 40 IBUs (quite “North German”).
Once there’s character in your beer, be prepared for someone not to like it,” Sebastian says. – “I don’t like this pilsner because it’s bitter,” or so we often hear about our beer. And we reply: “Well, that means 40 units is a lot for you. But we do!” Whether or not to accept our beer is up to the individual. I think the main thing is that the beer should not leave you indifferent. I like the slogan “Riegele is a brewery you can’t ignore.”
Special seasonal varieties were brewed at Riegele before Sebastian Priller came along, but it was his idea to expand the lineup with styles that were unusual in Germany.
We create new beers, beers that we like and that we want to make consumers interested in,” says Sebastian. – People here are traditional, but demanding. It’s hard to tempt them to try something new. But if you manage to do it and you like your product, then the person will buy it for a long time.
Riegele’s position is that existing in a transparent world, where information spreads instantly, makes traditional beer promotion models increasingly vulnerable. Large industrial breweries are finding it increasingly difficult to create fantasy images that have nothing to do with the real properties of their product. In this environment, a relatively small regional brewery has an opportunity to attract consumers with its openness and honesty. The Riegele brewery sees about 20,000 visitors a year who come to learn something new about beer. Thanks to the small, experienced brewery, it is even possible to organize brewery courses here.
Equipment
A lot of the equipment in the Riegele brewery can be classified as historical. For example, the wort is brewed on a 1911 brewhouse (albeit modernized and equipped with modern boilers) and the malt crusher is from the same year.
The fermentation and maturation takes place in horizontal tanks of the old design, which has a direct impact on the taste of the beer because the yeast cells are under minimum pressure.
The malt for Riegele is produced by Pappenheimer, a Bavarian malt house. A large part of the hops are purchased from farmers in the Hallertau region, but for special varieties hops have to be purchased from abroad. The brewery is supplied with water by a 240-meter deep well.
Riegele has a special approach to yeast. The brewery has its own laboratory with a vast collection of strains – there are 186 of them! The laboratory evaluates the physiological state of the yeast after each removal from the tank and based on that decides how many yeast cells should be added to a certain batch of wort. Through careful and thoughtful handling of the yeast, the brewery gives its products a shelf life of 6 to 9 months without the need for filtration or pasteurization.
Insights into the future
Sebastian Priller travels the world often and confesses that these trips mainly give him ideas for working on new beers. “Everywhere I’ve been lately – England, Belgium, the U.S. – I’ve found beers that I really wanted to implement in my brewery,” Sebastian says. – We do a lot of trial work, and you would know how many beers we didn’t like were drained! Unsuccessful batches are especially common in barrel aging. I think it’s fair to ourselves and to the consumer to drain those batches. It’s better than convincing people it was meant to be. How many brewers are there at all who are confident in a particular result of barrel aging? We learn for ourselves every day, and it happens that after a long time of working on a brew, we realize that we know less than we originally did.
Despite the boom in craft brewing around the world, Sebastian thinks a rollback toward more moderate styles is imminent. “Look at the U.S. market,” he gives an example. – There, craft breweries are already transitioning to classic styles. Craft beer consumption can be compared to wine consumption. People drink traditional beer to refresh themselves, for example. We see guests of our restaurant drinking a Weizen on a sunny day on the terrace and then ordering a porter with roast meat the next evening at dinner. With such a consumption structure, there will always be more drinkers than porter, and the volumes will be higher. So the classic beer market is in no danger. In Germany specifically, I think the new beer styles are more likely to take market share away from wine than from traditional beer.