The deputy headmaster Andreas Brandl attaches great importance to the fact that the atmosphere remains familiar.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
He did not expect such a “nasty job”. Luis Sailer, budding master brewer, leans over his work table in a white lab coat and sorts barley grains with tweezers. Before that, he cut it in half with a special cutting machine. With the tweezers he now turns the grains from right to left in order to examine whether the germ is contained in both grain halves. It is a quality criterion: the grain will not germinate without a germ, but that is the prerequisite for the production of the malt that is needed for brewing beer. As a master brewer, he would refuse a delivery of barley that cannot germinate, explains Sailer.
The internship of the master brewer students on Thursday morning takes place in the almost untouched laboratory of the Doemens Academy at the new location in the Graefelfingen industrial area. After two and a half years of construction, the move did not take place until October. The glowing white building, prominently placed on the corner of Pasinger and Lohenstrasse as a prestige property, houses a renowned, internationally active training and consulting company for the brewing, beverage and food industry in Doemens. Brewing, food industry and beverage operators are trained under the roof, and international courses held in English attract students from all continents to Graefelfing. In the additional role as a consulting company, Doemens supports the industry, for example with product development.
From smoked malt to light wheat brewing malt, the Doemens Academy offers a wide variety of flavors for later beers.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
The new training facility cost almost 30 million euros, which also includes the completely renewed technical equipment: a complete test and training brewery including fermentation and storage cellar and bottling plant. Laboratory rooms for microbiology and biotechnology, training and seminar rooms complete the academy.
The barley grains are precisely sorted in the laboratory.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
And in all the high-gloss state-of-the-art technology, barley is sorted with tweezers in the laboratory and the master brewer’s eye is trained. In the new building, the arch that Doemens spans is even more visible: the art of brewing is learned from scratch, traditional craftsmanship is paired with modern technology, theory and practice are closely interlinked. “The new building reflects that we have our finger on the pulse of the times,” says Marlene Speck, who is training to be a beer sommelier at the Genussakademie, another training course offered by the school.
Before that, in Stefanusstrasse in the center of Graefelfingen, where Doemens had his domicile since 1966, it was just rather “cozy”, she explains. You could also say: too narrow and too small. “Like the squirrels”, the teachers would have stowed their teaching materials in the corners and hidden from the access of others. Now there is space and clarity. “It’s a completely different kind of work,” says Speck – a “quantum leap” is what Andreas Hofbauer, responsible for public relations, calls it. It was a long struggle before Doemens was able to secure the location in the industrial park. The community supported this, exercised its right of first refusal for the property, gave it to Doemens and retained the former location as a fillet in the center of the village, where apartments are now being developed.
Sparkling stainless steel in the brewhouse.
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
Now Doemens has 3800 square meters of space, spread over four levels, a feeling of luxury. There are even meeting rooms, a novelty for Doemens, says Andreas Hofbauer, who leads through the new building with the deputy headmaster Andreas Brandl. Lots of exposed concrete, a spacious staircase in which students – 150 at the top – move up and down stairs all morning, plus wide corridors and spacious meeting places in front of the seminar rooms. At one point the members of a beer sommelier course are gathering in a circle. Over the course of two weeks, they learn everything about dispensing technology, beer production, sensor technology and beer presentation. And the tradition is echoing again: Lessons start at 7:30 a.m., because that’s where the brewer traditionally has his first snack, as Hofbauer explains.
The academy’s pride and joy is the technical center on the ground floor with the test and teaching brewery, the “heart” as it is called by Doemens. This is where the theory applied to practice, taught on the upper floors, is the trademark of Doemens. The large windows in the entrance area provide a clear view of the brewhouse with the new stainless steel containers, where the first step in beer preparation is carried out. A fermented smell hangs in the air. “Golden yellow and shiny” should be the flavor that is in the containers, says Andreas Brandl. And again, the brewer not only needs technology, but also a trained eye. From the brewhouse it goes on to the fermentation and storage cellar. “The building was built around the plant,” explains Hofbauer. There are now significantly more capacities, for example more storage tanks and, for the first time, a system for the production of non-alcoholic beer, which is very trendy.
Modern technology in the training rooms: everything is new at the Doemens Academy
(Photo: Catherina Hess)
It is shown that behind Doemens there are large parts of the food and beverage industry. Signs with the names of the respective sponsors hang on the doors in the technical center. A twelve meter high luminous column on which all donors are listed with their logo is the dominant design element of the stairwell. The construction sum in the millions was financed, among other things, with grants from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Culture. In addition, a “Friends and Support Group Doemens 2020” was founded as a registered association that collected donations from the economy, including large and small breweries.
With the move, Doemens is opening a new chapter in more than a hundred years of history. But the past can still resonate a little. For example, the beer mugs from previous masterclasses that have found their place in a glass showcase and look like foreign objects in the functional new building have also moved. This also includes the weathercock and the forged ornamental grille that used to adorn the canteen on Stefanusstrasse when it was still called “Stanglwirtin” and that now adorns the modern wooden facade in the academy garden. Now the canteen is called Schalander, like the brewers’ traditional break room. Here the old Doemens tap dominates the bare counter. In addition to relics, “the Doemens flair has also moved”, as Andreas Brandl says. Openness and encounter at eye level were part of it. In the Schalander, the second heart of the school, it is lived every day. At lunchtime, the seats fill up. This is where people eat, take a break in lounge furniture and learn together after school ends at 4.15 p.m. what was previously not possible. With all the new sheen, Doemens wants to stay what it always was, according to Brandl: a family business that upholds the common idea. Whoever comes through the door becomes a Doemensian and whoever goes out again remains one.