He is ambitious and still has a lot to do in gastronomy: Florian Schuh, the managing director and owner of the “Starnberger Brauhaus” in Feldafing, now wants to gain a foothold in Cologne. His new restaurant is located on Heumarkt, one of the most popular places in town. A restaurant called “Starnberger Alm” is to be opened there in about a week under the direction of the Apeiron catering company. Beer from Wieling is served there.
The Starnberger Alm has a long history.
(Photo: Franz X. Fuchs)
Schuh has owned the naming rights of the “Alm” since 2007, when he acquired the traditional restaurant on Schlossbergstrasse in Starnberg. However, he had the building torn down a good six years ago because his plans for a hotel with a pub. Instead, Schuh built an apartment building there.
A traditional inn disappears.
(Photo: STA Franz X. Fuchs)
But now at least the name “Starnberger Alm” should revive at the Cologne Heumarkt, which is popular with tourists. He has only known his new business partner at the Bonn-based restaurant chain Apeiron for eight months, but quickly realized that their modern gastronomic concept suited him. “It convinced me and everything is now green,” says Schuh. The plan: Brewing takes place at its location in Wieling near Feldafing and bottling at Schlossgut Hohenthann near Landshut. From there the barrels would be transported to the “Starnberger Alm” in Cologne, explains the 57-year-old businessman, whose mother comes from Cologne.
But his new commitment in the Rhineland has nothing to do with that, emphasizes the trained wholesale and foreign trade clerk, who founded his “Starnberger Brauhaus” in 2015 in the municipality of Berg with a business partner, with whom he later fell out. In the meantime, the legal dispute over damages and shareholder shares has been settled by a private law agreement with a payout and the former business partner is “completely outside”, reports Schuh, relieved. The “Starnberger Brauhaus” has only been located in Wieling since last year. According to Schuh, it will soon be possible to produce up to 70,000 hectoliters of beer a year there. For full operation, however, you need an even larger amount of water, says Schuh.
The Starnberg brewery operator Florian Schuh is resurrecting the Starnberger Alm in Cologne together with the restaurateur Tyler Hahne.
(Photo: Tyler Hahne / oh)
Together with his new partners in Cologne, the Starnberg-based company now wants to make his beer brand better known in the catering trade and spread it even more. According to Schuh, 20 percent of the beers produced currently flow into the catering sector.
“The chemistry between us is right, we all pull together and are a great team,” assures Tyler Hahne, the managing director of the new “Starnberger Alm” on the Rhine. Starnberger Helle und Weizen will soon flow from a dozen taps at two counters on two floors. He speaks of a “statement” with Bavarian beer and a Starnberg coat of arms on the Heumarkt. In the converted former Italian restaurant there are around 80 seats and a further 164 seats outdoors, reports Hahne, whose father Kent Hahne founded Apeiron and now runs almost 40 restaurants.
If things go well in the “Starnberger Alm” in Cologne, the 28-year-old junior boss can certainly imagine serving Starnberger beer in other restaurants as well. Tyler Hahne would probably meet with great approval, because Brauhaus boss Schuh is interested in expansion. And certainly also its minority shareholder, the Schadeberg family (Krombacher) with their extensive sales system.
Schuh also wants its own bottling plant to increase the output of his young company, which currently has 15 employees. The 57-year-old is still looking for a plot of land for a suitable Bräustüberl in the Fünfseenland, which of course would also be called “Starnberger Alm”.