BierTalk meets Biercast – English

Welcome to a very special episode of BierTalk! In this exciting podcast collaboration, we join forces with the team behind 1000 Years of Beer from the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephan. Together with Matthias Ebner, International Brand Ambassador, and Anton Hirschfeld, their podcast co-host, we dive deep into beer’s incredible history and culture. This episode marks our first English-language collab, bringing two beer-loving podcasts together for a spirited conversation.

Our guest is none other than Markus Raupach, renowned author, founder of the German Beer Academy, certified beer sommelier, and a beer judge at some of the world’s most prestigious competitions like the World Beer Cup and European Beer Star. Markus shares how his passion for beer began, from his days growing up in Bamberg, Germany’s smoke beer capital, to launching his BeerTalk podcast during the pandemic. We explore the growing global appreciation for craft beer, the unique culture of brewing, and how storytelling connects people with their favorite brews.

Whether you’re a beer novice or an enthusiast, this episode has something for everyone. We talk about the future of beer education, including fun insights into sensory training and food pairing, and discuss how podcasts are changing the way we share and celebrate the rich, diverse world of beer. Plus, you’ll hear amazing stories like the one about the archaeologist uncovering the world’s oldest brewery in Egypt!

Pour yourself a cold one, sit back, and join us on this journey through beer’s past, present, and future. It’s an episode full of passion, culture, and, of course, great beer stories. Cheers…

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Link für Apple/iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/biertalk/id1505720750

Link für Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7FWgPXstFr1zR9Fm2G0UJS

Matthias: Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of 1000 Years of Beer‘, the podcast from the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephan. Thanks for tuning in again. As always I welcome you, Matthias, International Brand Ambassador and Brewer, and my colleague Anton.

Anton: Hello everybody. Welcome to this brand-new episode of 1000 Years of Beer‘.

Matthias: Which is actually a call.

Anton: It’s a call. It’s not a call with beer this time. We like to do those, but this is actually one of our, I think.

Matthias: Now our second. Second. Our first in English.

Anton: Yeah, the first in English but the second podcast call we ever did. So our guest today is Markus Raupach. Hi Markus.

Matthias: So as a slight introduction, Markus Raupach is in Germany a very well-known person in the brewing business or in the beer business. He is an author and a founder of the German Beer Academy in Bamberg, maybe a city you all heard about it, I would say. Next to Weihenstephan the second most-famous city for beer in Germany. And I guess Markus will see that a little bit differently, yes, I guess. Yeah, and he’s a beer sommelier. He’s a beer judge on one of the most prestigious beer competitions in the world like the European Beer Star or the World Beer Cup and many, many more things. But Markus, maybe introduce yourself. And also a podcaster, and that’s why it’s a collab, a podcast collab. Markus has the Beer Talk podcast, mostly in German, but also quite some episodes in English, more than 140 episodes last time I checked in so he’s a little bit, yeah, how to say it?

Anton: Ahead of us.

Matthias: Ahead of us. Yes. Yeah, he’s doing it in a little bit more than we do. But also with great guests in his podcast, especially I was very excited but could not hear yet, but I will, the episode with Garrett Oliver, a craft brewing legend. He also did an episode but yeah. Just maybe introduce yourself Markus.

Markus: Yeah, perfect. You already did the job. But it’s a really great idea to brew a podcast together, which is fantastic. So, yes, okay, I’m from Bamberg, and we of course would say it’s the most well-known city for beer in the world. But that’s okay. A lot of patriotism, so I think it’s equal. So Weihenstephan has a lot of special stories. We have our special stories, especially smoked beer, so this is something we only have in Bamberg, so that’s maybe why we are so well-known for that. And as having grown up there, okay, I was always in the beer culture already with my parents when we went to the beer gardens when I was a young kid and had to serve the beer for my father and things like that. So of course beer is part of the Bamberg life, and so I grew up and got into it. And then I started, yeah, writing books about beer, writing articles, doing a lot of photographs. And in the end there was the idea to found the German Beer Academy where we train beer sommeliers, beer judges and also other interesting ideas around beer, special master classes for example, but also in modern terms like we have a special master class for AI and beer sommeliers, so how to use AI in a good way to promote, for example, your events or whatever. So this is also part of what I do, and of course the Beer Talk which is the podcast, and in fact it’s already more than 200 episodes now. And it’s about maybe 30 or 40 in English. I was always a little bit hesitating if it’s good for me or not because I was not very confident with my English, but it’s getting better and so I do more episodes, and especially the one with Garrett Oliver was of course something very special. And I’m looking forward to even record a second one with him because I met him in Las Vegas some months ago where we also met, and he presented the new idea to brew beer with antique grains, so a special African grain called fonio, and he had a friend from Senegal who made the collab with him with his beer. And I already did the podcast with this Senegalese guy and I would like to do a follow-up with Garrett, and let’s see. At the moment we are trying to find a date and arrangement. Then let’s see.

Matthias: Yeah, and Las Vegas, that’s where we met and where we had the idea, making this, yeah, podcast collaboration, and now it finally happened. And thanks for putting this into your calendar. And so we can talk now about some topics we have in common but also something you do especially in your peer educations.

Anton: Let me ask you, just how did you come up with the idea of the podcast? So has this been a process over quite some time, or was it like an idea over beer I guess?

Markus: It’s a little bit of both, so because I started after university, or even when I was at university I worked for a radio station. It’s called Antenne Bayern. It’s a Bavarian station. It was the biggest private radio station in Germany, and I worked there for many, many, many years and radio is really for me the most interesting, the greatest media ever, because really it’s fantastic. It’s a lot of fun. You have all this focus on the audio you have to produce, a little bit like cinema, in the heads of the people just with your words. So this is really an important and a very special way to make news and to talk about things. So I was always in this business wanting to come back to radio again, but then with all these beer things and the academy I totally forgot about that and then the pandemic came. And so I was sitting at home. My calendar, one day ago it was totally full for the whole year and then it was totally empty. No events, no travel, whatever. So I was sitting at home, didn’t know what to do and then this idea came back. Okay. I heard about this new thing called podcast, and this is something with radio and something with beer. I maybe could mix that and do something nice, and in the end I had the idea, “Okay, let’s do the BeerTalk,” and I started it on my birthday in 2020 in the end of March. And it was very interesting, very interesting people we had the opportunity to talk to, and finally we had something to do in the pandemic. And also it was a good reason to drink beer because we always invited brewmasters in the talk and they sent the beer before and then we drank all this beer together, talking about the beers and about the stories and the history and what is for them the key of their beers. And that was always great, so I really fell in love with this. And of course then it stayed. And to be honest, at the beginning as we had enough time it was like three episodes a week. Then it was every week one episode and at the moment it’s every other week. I’m just thinking at the moment maybe I go back to one episode per week. Let’s see. But it’s still a great thing. I love it and I get a lot of nice feedback from the listeners, so I’m very happy. It’s a great thing which really enriched my life again.

Matthias: So the podcast and beer from our experience, we can agree on that. This is a great combination. We always have something to talk about, and it’s a never-ending field actually. So how were your experiences with getting, you know, the feedback for the podcasts? So what do you think are the reasons why people like the topics we’re talking about so much?

Markus: I think it’s different. Some people just like beer and want to know a little bit more about it, or even just …

Matthias: Good reason, by the way.

Markus: Yeah. (Laughter) Yes, of course. Or they just, for example, all these episodes where we drink the beer together with the brewmasters. That’s a very nice thing to also order a box worth of beers and then also drink it while listening, beer after beer. So that’s also a good thing for people to do that, so I get a lot of feedback with that. But also from the industry, a lot of people say, “Okay, you really have a lot of interesting people you’re talking to,” because it’s only brewmasters. For example, I have a lot of historians, so I made a special episode for example with a lady who was researching the German beer during the Nazi time and the World War II time, which is a very interesting part. There’s not much knowledge about it yet, and she found out a lot of interesting things, how they tried to make beer and how they tried to incorporate beer in their idea where they didn’t really like it at the beginning. So it’s a lot of things. Also there was the idea that maybe Hitler was not drinking beer. Other sources say he was, so that is for example interesting. Or maybe also for your English guests which are listening now, I did a great episode with the archaeologist who digs out the oldest brewery in the world or oldest industrial brewery in the world in Egypt in Abydos, Matthew Adams. He is from the States and is the head of the excavation there, and I think this podcast is about two hours where he just tells about his experiences, his findings but also his life in Egypt and everything. So I think this is also, you step into another world and you get a lot of new knowledge, new different views on things. So I think many, many of the episodes are really bringing people to places they probably would normally never go or people they normally would never be able to speak to. And I think this is something that really opens eyes and broadens the minds and the view. And so, yeah, that’s maybe the most common feedback, that people say, “Okay, thank you,” and this really is something that brings me further, brings me new aspects, new ideas and I even more like beer.

Anton: That’s the good thing about it because all these stories give you just a better insight into what the topic of beer is all about. I mean, it’s not only the product itself. It’s not only drinking beer. It’s what comes with it, its culture, its way of life. It’s a way of storytelling even. I mean, if we look at the classic regulars that sit at the restaurants and at the beer gardens and go there every day, they have stories to tell. Most of them have, well, not centuries, sorry. Decades of stories to tell, and I think that’s what it’s about to do a podcast about beer. You kind of want to give the people a feeling that they sit right next to you. They listen to all these stories and try to increase their knowledge about it, so that’s what we see in our experience. This is what’s happening, so people like to open a beer, sit by the table and listen to the stories that we are telling them, even though they only listen to it on podcast of course, but that’s I think the ultimate goal that we set out.

Matthias: Yeah, absolutely. And this actually, by the way, sounds super interesting, like, yeah, the podcast where there’s this American guy who digged out the brewery there in Egypt. This is something I really need to listen into because then it’s not just hearing something new and seeing new aspects of it. It’s also educational, and actually that’s a lot of feedback we get Markus by partners or fans or beer fans or brand fans. But most actually of partners we’re working with like sales reps or importers in the different countries, that they take our episodes on beer, beer knowledge, technology, history, culture, food, whatever, to get deeper into the brand, getting deeper into the knowledge of German, Bavarian style beers. Like, for an example, like our fresh beer episode, so where does it come from? How does this style develop? And so on and so on. And this just helps them to represent and sell the beer or the brand more and more. I mean, I guess that’s actually, by the way one of the most funny aspects of our podcast was this year when the catholic were…

Or maybe you should tell the story. This is like the best impact our podcast ever had.

Anton: So the thing was that we recorded a podcast on the history of Korbinian, St Korbinian.

Matthias: The founder of the monastery and the brewery.

Anton: And it was so well received, this episode about the history, that actually a catholic organization who was responsible for basically religion lessons in school used parts of it in those lessons in Munich schools.

Matthias: Yeah. They’re asking permission to use our podcast to educate our young pupils on the life and history of St Korbinian because this year is the 1,300-year anniversary of the arrival of St Korbinian in Freising or Munich, in Bavaria, that they put this in this year’s…

Anton: Lessons.

Matthias: Lessons and now…

Anton: There’s a beer podcast in religion lessons now.

Matthias: Yeah. Yeah.

Anton: The two of us talking about St Korbinian and what he has to do with beer.

Markus: Yeah. To be honest, religion and alcohol are always very close.

Matthias: Yeah. Especially in Bavaria.

Markus: Especially the catholic religion. If we think of all our we call it Kirchweih. I don’t really know the English word for that, but when the church was consecrated, this day is celebrated every year again and it’s different, which holy person it is, and so it’s on a different date. And so all the full year you can go to every village or two villages here. It’s fantastic, so of course.

Matthias: Some of the Volksfests we have here in Bavaria, yeah, they are based on catholic or religious dates or whatever. So I would say like or like bock-beer time, yeah? Bock-beer season based on catholic lenting time and stuff like that, so a lot of drinking occasions in our beer culture is based on the catholic church. Very interesting.

Markus: Oh yes. Especially when I think if you talk about the bock-beer times, this is something which is also very much related to my area here, Franconia, so the northern part of Bavaria, where really every brewery makes at least one, sometimes two or three bock beers, and they celebrate the first serving of each of these types of bock beers in a big festival. So it starts at the end of September, or maybe in middle of September, and it goes until the end of the year and every week you can go to another brewery and have the first bock beer celebration of this brewery and try this. And it’s always great. It’s a lot of fun, so I think there’s always beer is so connected with the culture. So it’s not only drinking beer. It’s all the thing around it, and maybe also if you talk about the education I think that is also a very important aspect. So I also incorporated some of the podcast episodes into our beer sommelier education because we have a live education and we have a video education program. And in the video education program, there is a lot of course of videos, but also some of the podcast episodes. For example, I did with Frank Boon. He is from Belgium. He is the founder of the Boon Brewery, maybe the godfather of Lembeek, something like that, so he’s the guy who recreated that beer style. And with him, I was talking about Lembeek and also tasting all his beers. And these two episodes, for example, are part of the education because no one can explain it better than him and he does it in a very nice and gentle way. I think podcasts have this educational component and I think people like that. They like to be entertained and educated in this entertainment way where it makes fun but also has some result for your personal knowledge.

Matthias: By the way, educating people Markus, we just introduced you as the founder of German Beer Academy, which is an institute you founded in Bamberg to, yeah, educate people about beer. But maybe you tell yourself about the idea and your mission you’re doing with the German Beer Academy in Bamberg.

Markus: Yeah, of course. The mission is really to bring the beer back on the people’s minds and especially to really make them fans of the beer culture, make them ambassadors of the beer culture so that they really celebrate every beer, that they are proud of the beers, the beer culture, and are also able to talk to others about it, make the storytelling, all these things. Of course also a lot of general knowledge about beer but also specific knowledge like food pairing which is a very interesting part if you find the right chocolate or sausage or cheese or whatever to this or that beer. This is a totally new experience. People learn about their sensory, they learn about their perception of beer, and again they have new words to talk about beer, new vocabulary, so this is a lot of things people really can experience when they are doing such beer education as we do. And so my goal was really to bring beer more in the focus of the people and also to make them conscious about the cultural aspect so it’s not just drink, drink. It’s a world. It’s a world of people. It’s a world of history, of stories, of the breweries, of recipes, of the whole historic component so that we have a lot of fascinating beer styles, beer ideas, great beers in general where you really can go through the whole human history by beers and really, yeah, re-experience what the whole mankind did until today. So really beer is part of our culture and we have to be proud of that and we can really use it also as something if we are working in a restaurant, for example, to create more turnover in the end, to earn more money, and to make more fun for the people, to make them more connected to the restaurant owners or to the brewers and bring that also a little bit into their hearts. So yes. So beer is a fascinating way to get into the people on an emotional way, so this is a lot of fun for me and that is maybe the biggest mission of the Beer Academy, to make more people able to use beer, to celebrate beer, to enjoy beer.

Anton: I think the one thing you mentioned, that you make people talk about beer. I think that is one of the most important aspects because, you know, I always tell people this when I talk about social media and online marketing and all that because the best recommendation is not some kind of ad you see on social media or some kind of ad you see in a paper or anything. The best recommendation is if your friend tells you, “This beer is good. You have to try it.” And that’s something that we need to understand.

Matthias: It’s the most trustworthy thing.

Anton: Exactly. We are a company. We’re far away from our customer in the most case, but a friend is really close. And if we can just shorten the gap between us and the friend who gives you a recommendation, if it’s possible to be a friend as a company, which will probably not be possible, but to get closer to there and to have actually this kind of talk with the people and make them recommend you because they feel confident that you’re not lying to them and all that stuff. And if you can make people talk about your beer and talk about your product, you’re halfway there. I mean, I think that’s very important, to make people realize that there’s a wonderful product there that needs a lot of work, needs a lot of planning, a lot of strategizing, that needs of course a lot of tasting just to have an incredible finished product. This I think is one of the most important aspects. Make people talk about beer. Make them realize what kind of valuable product this is, and this is something that and thank you in the name of the whole industry Markus for making people talk about beer. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Markus: And also you mentioned something very important. It’s also about respect, because many people just buy the beer in the supermarket, open it, drink it, done. But in the end, it’s a product which is made with a lot of, yeah, a lot of emotion, a lot of knowledge. There are people behind every beer and they’re doing their work with their heart, and that is something. We have to respect every beer. We have to respect every brewer. We have to respect these stories and also be respectful when we talk about the beers. Even if there’s maybe one bottle of beer which we don’t like or where something went wrong, that doesn’t mean that all of this beer or this brewery or whatever, the brewer, is bad. That is something that may happen in a craft which is making beer in general. So I think this is also a very important part also of our education, to bring the people to always have respect for the beer and for the brewers and be respectful when talking about beer, for example, when drinking beer, when enjoying beer with their friends.

Anton: Do you think and this is a question maybe for both of you actually. Do you think that that has become better over the last few years? Because in my opinion I see it as an outsider because for me as someone who came into beer and brewing six years ago, for me it was clear back in the day it was a product. You know, like you said, you buy it, you open and you drink it. But I kind of feel like this has changed. People are out there more enjoying beers and not chugging them basically. How do you guys see that?

Markus: I think it has changed, and this is something even in Germany, which we really have to be thankful to the craft beer industry because what happened when all this process started in the early 2000s that the mind of the people changed. Before they bought, let’s say, two crates of beer a week when it was most cheap just to save money and to have a quick drink. That’s it. But then they learned more about beer and there was more talk about beer. There was more talk about beer styles, about the brewers, about the breweries. Beers became name. It was not just Helles. It became maybe Knight Anton II. or something like that. And then there was a story behind. There were pictures. There was a special recipe. You knew which farmer made the barley, which one made the hops, grew the hops, or whatever. All these stories behind became visible and people started not to buy one or two crates. They started to buy like six packs, and even these six packs they bought six different beers. And so this really changed exactly that, so they had more respect for the brewers for the beers and they were more curious. They were more interested, also more open, and they also were ready to pay a little bit more because that’s the other side. I mean, it’s not only the money. It’s much more, and a good beer cannot be cheap. It can never be cheap. So this is also something, especially in Germany, which we have to learn because our beer prices are very, very low and that’s not because we make beer. It’s the opposite. We make maybe the best beer of the world if you see it in an average way. But our understanding is that beer has to be cheap and beer is on the lower end of the price table and whatever. So I think this is also an important thing that changed. For example, we have a brewer here in Franconia who sells the crate of beer for like €40, €45, which is maybe if you have special offers you get nine or ten crates for the same money from other breweries. So this is really a big difference, and this brewer still exists. He can sell his beers and that works. There are beer lovers for that, and so I think there was a lot of change. Of course, in the last years we have a lot of economic trouble in the country so we realize that people don’t want to spend as much money as they did before, especially in the pandemic where you could almost sell everything online. But still. Also when I was at our local beer festival the last week and the beer was €5 per half a liter, which is quite a lot for a Franconian beer festival. But it worked. People drank. People enjoyed. It was a great five-day festival, and I think that really stayed. This connection to beer was like recreated. It was strengthened, and especially here in our region this really worked very well. But I don’t know. What is your perspective from the Bavarian perspective?

Matthias: Yes and no, so it changed, but I guess not in the major part of the people. The major part is still like drinking beer like they always did. The major part of the people buy the beer off premise, mostly in discount situations. It changed a little bit to the better, so there are more people aware of beer, beer quality and what you told. But still they are the minor part of the beer drinkers. Still this will be staying at that level, but on the other side it’s very important to have both sides of it. I mean, not everyone can be a beer connoisseur or whatever. I think it’s also okay when the people say, “Well, yeah, I just drink it. It’s nothing I want to make up my mind, whatever.” It is what it is. But I think that the movement, the craft beer movement of yeah. The rising tide lifts all boats, so it helped the industry a lot. And to those people that received the message from it and changed their mind on it or have a different perspective on it, perfect.

Anton: That’s a good point. I mean, the average drinker should still be able to enjoy his beer without thinking about it a lot. It’s completely okay if you just want to have a drink or have a beer and not analyse it to death basically.

Matthias: Yeah, or whatever. You know, that’s the thing. I mean, beer can be that deep, complex product. It can be this exciting, but also, and I think that’s why I love beer so much, is also that it can be very simple and easy. Beer is not telling you any questions or whatever. It’s just there. I mean, beer can be in a five-star restaurant. Beer can be at the great beer festival. Beer can be in, yeah, in a rough beer bar, whatever, in a tap room. But also beer can be in the stands of your, yeah, I don’t know, local hockey rink or can be on a concert or at public viewing from yeah. I don’t know. Football match. Or just a can of cold beer on a boat out on the lake fishing. I mean, it’s nothing where I need something super fancy. It’s just there, nice, good beer, easy-going. It’s fine too.

Markus: Yeah, but let me add something. I think it’s not a contrast. I think it’s both.

Matthias: No, absolutely. No, no.

Markus: Because when I say people are more connected now with brewers and with brands because they tell more stories that are much better communicated and for the people they are more visible and more interesting, that doesn’t mean that they always drink like connoisseurs. They also drink maybe their beer quickly and whatever, but they stop just looking only for the price. They started to have like a connection with the brewer from their village or from their city or whatever beer they had a special experience. And they want this again, and I think this is also important for the brewers. If they do that, if they do more storytelling, if they do more starting to get this emotional connection to their customers, then the price doesn’t really matter so much anymore. So yeah.

Matthias: Yeah, and then they are willing to pay a fair price and not every time discounted crates for whatever euros. And I tell you what, that’s the importance of being like Weihenstephan, a full portfolio brewery. You can get, you know, your easy, crisp, drinking Helles for your hockey game. You know? I’m just referring to hockey because last week the hockey team we’re sponsoring were just here. So yeah. I can’t see, I don’t know, a dark doppelbock in the hockey stands, you know, in the stadium when we visited. Just a good Hefe and all is fine. I don’t need more anything when I’m watching the game. But on the other side, they’re buying a Helles or a Hefe when you’re connected to a great, like a wheat bock like our Vitus which is deep, which is complex, which has different layers of taste and combinations and stuff like that. And that’s why I think you need to be a full portfolio brewery. You can offer for the moments where you need a complex beer or where you need a beer with some depth that you can offer that then and you can also offer them just an easy damn good Helles. Then you’re there for your fan, for your customer, at any aspect of life where he or she wants to enjoy some drinks, some beers.

Anton: And I think everything just leads back to what you said before Markus. It’s about respect for the product, for the beer. You can enjoy it however you want basically as long as you have respect for the product. This is something I think that’s very important. As long as you realize there are people behind it. It’s not just there. There’s work in it. There are people working on it. There are people making sure that the people who work on it get paid, and that’s all then everything plays into that and everything makes it you know, it is important to ask a fair price for it. And I think if you have respect for the product, you want a drink, in this case, you pay the price for it and I think that’s what it comes back to.

Markus: Yeah. And also I think this is also simply the existence of our two podcasts shows that there has been some change because I think 20 years ago no one would have really cared about people talking about beer every week for hours, whatever. So we have our community, we have our listeners, and all of these again are ambassadors, are again people who talk to other people about what they hear in the podcast and about the breweries and whatever. So it spreads more. And so I think this is also showing that there has been some development, some change, maybe not in the whole customer shift but in an important part, and I think that’s very, very, very important also for the breweries, especially in times like now where it’s hard to sell and where the market changes and where you have to invent new products and to face also other challenges inside and outside the beer world. So I think it’s very important to have your community and you really now can build on your community because now you have one. This is really part of this change.

Anton: I think that another point where you can actually see this kind of progress is that there are more and more people doing their education for a beer sommelier, for example. You are one, so (Laughter) you might as well tell us a little bit our listeners a little something about, how do you… or let’s say it like this. What is a beer sommelier? What does he do, and how do you become one?

Markus: First of all, becoming a beer sommelier is like the ticket to enter a new world of people because there’s a great community amongst all the beer sommeliers or cicerones or BJCP judges or whatever those levels are in the world. We know each other. We visit each other. We meet each other at festivals, at competitions, and if you are part of the world you can travel to any country in the world and you will always have a friend. And so if you want, you can never be just a normal tourist. You always come as a friend or even part of the family, and this is a totally different experience to all the normal life, let’s say like this. So I think this is for me the biggest win of the whole beer sommelier story, that I really got a lot of international friends. And there’s a lot of doors opening now for me where I can have special beers, have special stories, whatever, and this is so many groups, so many great opportunities. I love that. But coming back to what it is, I think the general idea of the beer sommelier is like a translator because you have the breweries and the brewers. They maybe can talk about their beer, but it’s a very technical way so they can talk about the hop varieties or the Plato degrees or maybe the malt or the time of lagering or whatever, things like that. But this is not emotional. This is just technical facts. And on the other side, you have the consumer who was not trained as a brewer. So if he hears about degrees Plato or other numbers, he or she doesn’t really know what that means. So our job is to help the brewer to get the message through and to tell their stories and to really explain the beers, the idea behind the beers, to the people and make them fans or ambassadors or whatever. And on the other hand, for the customer, you translate these things. You know about the numbers and you can tell them what these numbers mean and what they finally get if they buy a beer like that and what is the story behind and the idea behind. And so I think we are really translators from technical to emotional messages and the other way around because also most of the brewers really for them it’s a problem if another customer, a regular one, comes to them and says things about the beer. I don’t know. Maybe, “That’s too bitter for me,” or that’s whatever. This is also something they don’t understand. And a person like a beer sommelier also speaks both languages and can easily translate one or the other way, and of course we have tools. That’s the other way, the other thing, like producing an iceberg or like having great food pairings to find, for example, the best chocolate to this beer or whatever. Also to open the mind of the consumers and to bring them into new levels of enjoying beer. So this is in the end, we are there to really, yeah, make people more fans of the beer, more ambassadors of the beer, to enjoy it more and to know more about it also in a good way.

Anton: Can anybody do it? Or do you have to have some special qualification for it?

Markus: No, it’s open. At the end it’s open for everyone. The only thing is you should at least like beer a little bit. And drink beer, because there is beer educations where even in the first round people spit out the beer again. That is for me a bit questionable, if you do that the whole time if that really helps. I don’t think that people have to drink a lot, but you have to sip, to drink, to swallow at least a little bit to have the aftertaste and all that, which you don’t have if you spit it again. So this is something important. But in general it’s open to anybody. So if you’re interested in beer, you can just sign up and you learn everything from scratch about beer, the raw materials, the recipes, the process, the stories of the beer styles, the story of beer itself, pouring beer in the right glassware, for example, also food pairing as I told you. We also do like beer cocktails. Also for us in the academy, a very important part is the non-alcoholic beers and also the whole story behind alcohol in terms of addiction, in terms of abuse, also in terms of how to talk, for example, to media about it. That’s a very important part. So communication is a big thing, so there are a lot of aspects a beer sommelier can learn if he or she wants to, and I think a lot of good things which come out of it. So, yeah, it’s a great thing I think for everybody who’s interested at least in beer.

Anton: That sounds good to me.

Matthias: The academy is I heard or I saw you have online courses but also the academy is based in Bamberg. Even we are the opinion that Weihenstephan is the most excellent place to visit in terms of beer, Markus you have the once in a lifetime opportunity to tell people in this podcast internationally, after they visited Weihenstephan of course, when they come to Bamberg what to watch or to visit there or what’s the thing to do in Bamberg? I know you’re doing sometimes also tours, but you have here now the possibility to do a little bit of advertising for Bamberg and beer.

Markus: Of course. That is something I do with heart and yes …

Matthias: Yeah, and very generous about it, just saying.

Markus: Yeah. Thank you very much. So but in general, I think Bamberg is maybe the only city where you really can see this beer life every day, so it doesn’t really matter if you come in summer or wintertime, if it’s weekend or if it’s during the week, whatever. If you come to Bamberg, if you go into the old town in the centre, you will experience people standing in front of the breweries, having beer in their hands, talking to each other, people walking by, getting into contact and making new friends, maybe, whatever. So it’s part of the culture everywhere. You have the brewery, restaurants where you have large tables and you sit there, maybe two or three of you, and then other people come and so the crowd starts to grow. And again you make new friends. You get a lot of occasions to have talks and whatever, so it’s a very social city also. And on the other hand, if you are really interested also in beers itself, it’s the city of smoked beer, so this is the only place in the world where you can really enjoy original-made smoked beer, so they’re only the real ones, yes. And there’s a reason why. This is really not marketing. The reason why is these two breweries, Schlenkerla and Spezial. They are producing their own malt in the old way, which means that this malt is in the smoky surroundings from beginning to the end, and this makes a totally different aroma than if you have normally produced industrial smoked malt, which means they produce a normal prism malt or pale malt and then they put it into a smoking chamber. This makes a totally different aroma, so if you want the real stuff this is the reason why you definitely should come to Bamberg and try that. And the other side is it’s more or less the home of traditional lager beer, especially the Keller beer, which means the very old, traditional lagers, the early lagers which were started in the 14th, 15th century. This you really can experience in our rural area around the city and in the city. We have fantastic places, especially in the summertime, big beer gardens where you can sit above the city, have a great view and have a great beer, enjoy the culture, also the food culture. Of course we have a lot of great food. Franconia, it’s well known for that and the combinations with the beer are endless. So it’s really it’s a lot of enjoyment. You will meet interesting people. You will drink great beers. You will have fantastic food. You will have a great time at all. So I never had someone disappointed from Bamberg. Maybe this is the key in the end, so really this is a place where you definitely will have a great time, enjoy fun.

Anton: Great. I think that’s a wonderful last word.

Matthias: Yeah. No, Markus, thanks for being on the podcast today, that we could exchange a little bit our ideas about the podcast and how the beer world changed and also on the education of it and, yeah, and also of course the second-best beer city in Bavaria, introducing it a little bit. Also actually that’s just in the end, just as also an employer of a brewery, thanks what you and your colleagues are doing for the industry and for the business. You’re really helping to understand beer more to the people, to communicate it. And, I mean, this is yeah, something I really have to acknowledge and I really appreciate. Thank you very much.

Markus: Thank you very much, and I also have to give back some compliments because Weihenstephan is the place where you can really get the best wheat beers. This is something we don’t do in Bamberg. You get some, but this is kind of a new invention. Traditionally we don’t have that, and this is something which for Weihenstephan is the best place. And sitting in your beer garden among these great buildings, hearing the bells of the churches, and this is also a fantastic experience. I would never say there’s a number two and a number one, so it’s both ways. I think in general if you know where in Bavaria, there are so many great spots for unique beer experiences. And of course Bamberg and Weihenstephan are definitely two of them, and this is why making beer holidays or something like that in Bavaria is so unique because this is something you really only can enjoy there. And it’s always very special, very traditional, very personal. So, yeah, thanks for having me. It was a great time, and I hope your listeners will enjoy.

Anton: Thank you for your time and to all you guys out there, thanks for listening in. We really appreciate it and Markus, thank you again. And bye-bye everyone. Thank you.

Matthias: See you. Bye-bye.

Markus: Yeah. Bye-bye.

Bier Talk – Der Podcast rund ums Bier. Alle Folgen unter www.biertalk.de.

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