Craft Beer Festival in Stuttgart: A Place of Pilgrimage for Beer Fans

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To be on the safe side, Benjamin from Biberach didn’t come by car. He’s already done with the weak “Freistil” and now he’s sipping the rest of the dark “successor” like a heavy red wine in a beer goblet and giving a top note: “Full-bodied and very present on the finish”. Unfortunately, he has to get up now, the buddies call: “We would head for the next beer stand…” The hops and malt connoisseurs from Riss drop anchor at the “Cannstatter Keller”, while Micha from Mönchfeld, three goblets in his right hand , gets up for his still somewhat disoriented buddies: “I’ll go get something!”

Micha also has a nose when he pushes his way through the crowds, because he ends up at Camba Bavaria. They call themselves “pioneers of craft creations” and have been around for 15 years, starting “when everything was still a niche”. Producer pride, which was recently backed up with a prize, the gold medal from the “European Beer Star” for the “Chiemsee WIT”. A top-fermented full beer in “Belgian style”, but “with that we have left the Belgians behind us,” emphasizes Barbara Egle. The name makes a ring, and Egle actually has Stuttgart roots, is “After-after-Nach-Fahrin” of the former royal master builder Joseph von Egle.

The art of brewing with classic ingredients

But she now builds on novelties in the art of brewing and knows what the Belgium conqueror is all about – and sings the song of praises to the more than half a millennium-old German beer brewery purity law: “Water, yeast, hops and malt – and nothing else ! The fine note of citrus and coriander does not come from adding them, but exclusively from the traditional substances.” And you are right in the middle of a small introductory seminar on hop varieties and malting secrets, which Egle’s colleague puts in a nutshell: “We play with the classic ingredients.” Women also like to drink this, it is “something fresh and beautiful”.

The perfect through ball for Irena: “Just no Prosecco!” She laughs. Previously she had tried a “cheeky can” of sour beer, but now she has “arrived here”. Your friend was fueling up a Black Shark next door. The black shark is “very aromatic and completely convincing”.

Well then, unhoped comes often! Here anyway, with 30 suppliers from half the country who offer an elusive variety of beers, where purists of the craft cult mix happily with those who stretch the purity law in their own way. Like “Unverhopft” from Berlin. For his “Sabro Mango Milkshake New England NEIPA”, the independent crafter from the capital offered 100 kilograms of mango puree. Oat flakes for full throttle during fermentation, a hop special, lactose for “the creamy texture”, because one thing is clear: “The scene has grown up, here too there is a ‘higher, faster, further’. And the new things are going best,” assures Torben.

Crafter raves about Wagenhallen event

Anyway, his job is “like jazz. Like free jazz! There is jamming and almost every time something new and interesting comes out”. And he raves about the Wagenhallen event: “Much better than Frankfurt two weeks ago! More people, great location, the crowd totally nice and easygoing.”

The colleague next door also likes the jazz while brewing, the self-made brewer calls his Ich-AG “Testbräu”. A hit is his lactic acid-lined Adreno Chromatique craft. The light pink is reminiscent of grapefruit, but the coloring actually comes from guava and beetroot. Arnulf Woock waves the goblet with devotion, and the nose keeps going on an aroma tour. “Very interesting, very special! Exactly what we’re looking for here!” says the Stuttgarter with a connoisseur’s tone. With tastings in their circle of friends, they have become “craft beer enthusiasts”, “always looking for something special”. And while doing so, they now “continued to drift leisurely through the hall”. Well then cheers!