Mutzig Brewery

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The brewery building is a listed building
In the background the malt house and the brewing tower

The Mutzig brewery is a former brewery in Mutzig, Alsace . The company was founded in 1810 and dissolved in 1989. The brewery's buildings are listed as Monument Historique . The brand now belongs to the Heineken Group and is marketed in Africa.

history

The entrepreneur was founded in 1810 by Antoine Wagner. The brewery was family-owned for more than five generations and produced beers such as Mutzig , Mutzig Pils , Mars Bock , Gold Stars , Gols Als , Felsbourg , Val de Bruche , Mutzig Export and Luxe exportation .

Production began in a small building in the center of the village (now 56, Rue du Maréchal Foch). In the beginning the company produced approx. Hectoliters per year. In 1844, Jérôme Wagner (1821–1889) took over the company and steadily expanded it. Most of the surviving buildings were built during this period. In 1870 the brewery produced around 6,000 hectoliters. In 1886, Camille Wagner (1855–1927) took over the brewery. The work of Louis Pasteur to fermentation and fermentation opened new possibilities in the brewing industry. The plant, now at its current location in the northwest of the city, has been extensively modernized. This enables better monitoring and consistent quality in the production of the beer. The volume of brewing continued to rise: 12,000 hl in 1886, 25,000 hl in 1900 and 40,000 hl in 1914.

In 1932 Jérôme II. Wagner (1891–1975) took over the business. Wagner used modern marketing opportunities to make Mutzig beer known worldwide and also exported to Africa. Up to 70,000 hectoliters were produced in 1940. In 1959, Roland Wagner (1925–1997) took over the company. Thanks to the automation of the filling lines, bottle and keg filling have been modernized. In 1964 340,000 hectoliters were filled.

In 1969 the Mutzig brewery merged with the breweries de l'Espérance , de la Perle , de Colmar and Haag in Ingwiller to form L'Alsacienne de brasserie (Albra). Albra was taken over by Heineken in 1972. Heineken closed the Mutzig brewery in 1989. Heiniken still sells a beer called Mützig in Africa today. The beer bears the German name of the city with an umlaut, as the name Mutzig can only be used for beer that comes from the town itself. However, the Mützig beer is produced in the de la Valentine brewery in Marseille , under license also by the Bralirwa brewery in Rwanda , the Bralima brewery in the Republic of the Congo and the Brasseries du Cameroun in Cameroon .

The town of Mutzig acquired the disused brewery building in 1992. Nine years later, the empty building ensemble was listed as a Monument Historique in 2001. Two buildings were used again in 2009: a start-up center moved into the main building, known as the “castle” due to its architecture. In addition, two outbuildings were built to house parts of the public administration and a hotel, while apartments were set up in the other. In the remaining buildings, the city wants to accommodate offices, a small brewery and a museum.

architecture

The preserved buildings date from different eras. The architecturally most important ones were built with elements of the Tudor style and the late Gothic: in particular the administration building, but also the brewing tower, the machine house, the cold store, the malt house and another storage building. The buildings consist of yellow brickwork and are structured with ribbons, friezes, pilaster strips and cornices made of red brick. Red round and segmented arches span the windows. The building is closed by an attic with battlements. An octagonal stair tower sits in one corner of the building.

The former three-storey malt house is a large building block made of plastered masonry, which is broken through by nine window axes. In 1922 another storey and a sub-storey in the roof were added to the building. A tower-like kiln with a round chimney rises from a gable wall .

literature

  • Cent-cinquantenaire Bière Mutzig Alsace. 1810-1960 . Brasserie Mutzig SA, 1960

Web links

Commons : Brasserie Mutzig  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La bière une passion alsacienne , Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace , June 2014, p. 43
  2. ^ "Mutzig une bière qui n'a plus droit à la parole", Consommateur d'Alsace , 1988, no. 62
  3. ↑ Mützig se fait mousser en Afrique , Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, October 15, 2016
  4. ^ Products , Bralirwa, accessed October 1, 20119
  5. ^ Marken , Bralima, accessed October 1, 2019
  6. ^ Marken , Brasseries du Cameroun, accessed October 1, 2019
  7. ↑ Brasserie de Mutzig in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  8. ↑ La bière une passion alsacienne , Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, June 2014, p. 35
  9. ↑ a b La bière une passion alsacienne , Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, June 2014, p. 36

Coordinates: 48 ° 32 '23.6 "  N , 7 ° 27' 2.2"  E