Old malt house (Eisenach)

The Alte Mälzerei is a Wilhelminian-style building complex, consisting of a residential and malthouse building, an extension used as a coffee roasting plant, and storage and ancillary buildings in Eisenach in Thuringia . The largely completely preserved technical system from the company's early days is remarkable. The industrial monument has been owned by the Lippmann + Rau Foundation for Music Research and Art since 2016.

history

In 1873, the geometer Johann Adam Heintz (1825–1902) founded a malt factory in the Eisenach Palmental, about 500 m north of Eisenach's main train station. The two-story half-timbered building also served as the family's residential building. Initially, brewing malt intended for the local breweries was produced for beer production. In 1892 his son Adam Heintz (1865–1952), who had first completed a commercial training in Naumburg and then learned the craft of brewing and malting, took over the factory. Adam Heintz successfully completed his master brewer training in Weimar in 1909. As a replacement for the malt production that had become unprofitable, the roasting of malt coffee began in 1921 , and an extension was built for this purpose.

During the Second World War , the supply of raw materials was made almost impossible. From April to June 1945, coffee beans were roasted for the American occupation troops (briefly) in the factory. The company remained in family ownership. After 1949 the state stopped the allocation of barley. The malt coffee roasting could only be continued to an unprofitable extent, in the year of operation 1952 the operation was stopped, the factory was then idle and empty, the machinery and equipment as well as the accessories remained on site. In 1988 Ms. Rahn, the great-granddaughter of the company founder, sold the factory, which had largely been in its original state, with all its interior to the city of Eisenach. In the spring, several members of the Eisenach Jazz Club were able to visit the Wilhelminian industrial buildings and recognized the potential as a »culture factory«. The association found a domicile here and secured the property with voluntary work. The building complex was supposed to be demolished in the summer of 1988 after plans to expand the vocational training center of the Eisenach automobile plant . The "old malt house" was still listed as an individual monument in 1988 (an important testimony to the regional history of technology). Since 1993, the Alte Mälzerei has also been known as a cabaret and theater for the "Eisenach Free Burgtheater".

Todays use

The almost completely preserved roasting plant, restored in 1993/94, is accessible as an industrial museum. In addition, the "Kulturfabrik Alte Mälzerei" houses a jazz cellar , which is regularly used for concerts as the "Jazzclub Posaune", and the Lippmann + Rau music archive (international archive for jazz and popular music of the Lippmann + Rau Foundation). The Alte Mälzerei is the venue for the Thuringian Jazz Mile .