Scaling up success: Forum helps craft brewers use technology to grow
VLB Berlin and Brau Beviale will host the 4th European MicroBrew Symposium on November 9th, the day before Brau Beviale starts.
Founded in 1883, VLB Berlin is an institute located in Berlin, Germany. It offers education, research, information and services for the brewing, malting and beverage industry.
Reliable and consistent quality
VLB Berlin told BeverageDaily that brewing in itself is fairly straight-forward: particularly with a wealth of information available. However, achieving consistent quality for big batches is much harder.
“To start brewing is basically quite easy: There are lots of recipes available on the web and in the beginning you can work and experiment with quite simple equipment. And with a little bit of trial and error you can brew reasonable beers.
“However, brewers all have to face a significant challenge when they becoming more and more successful, reaching a certain size where they start selling their beer also for take-away in bottles and kegs.
“At this stage it is crucial to brew your beer styles reliably with a constant quality. Brewers also have to take care about the costs.
“This is usually easier said than done. They need better equipment and more knowledge about the technological backgrounds.”
The MicroBrew Symposium aims to address all these issues, says the institute.
“The original idea of the European MicroBrew Symposium was to address professional brewers from small scale breweries. We have a clear focus on brewing technology and don’t discuss commercial, marketing or sales issues.
“During the last three years we have found our audience is quite heterogeneous. Among brewers from operating craft breweries, we also had people who were planning to open a brewery, as well as professionals from big industrial breweries.
“And they came not only from Europe but also from North and South America and Asia. But even with this different background, what they all shared was their enthusiasm for interesting beer styles, brewing technology and beer quality.”
The European MicroBrew Symposium is aimed at craft and micro brewers in Europe, as well as suppliers.
As well as an overview of international market trends in the sector, the event will focus on technical aspects of craft beer production. Raw materials, process parameters, yeasts, and quality control will also be on the agenda.
Speakers include representatives from Stone Brewing (US / Germany), Brauerei Lemke (Berlin) and BrewDog (UK).
