Nassau private brewery
| Nassauische Privatbrauerei GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1842 |
| resolution | 2008 |
| Reason for dissolution | insolvency |
| Seat | Hahnstätten , Germany |
| Number of employees | 8 (2004) |
| Branch | brewery |
The Nassauische Privatbrauerei was a brewery in Hahnstätten , Rhineland-Palatinate . In its prime, the company dominated the regional beer market in the Nassauer Land with various types .
Company history
In 1842, the master brewer and cooperator Johann Jakob Kuhn founded the “Kuhn Brewery” in Holzappel in what is now the Nassau Nature Park . At that time the small brewery already had a few competitors in the area. There was another brewery in Holzappel in 1858, ten in Diez and nine in Limburg an der Lahn .
In 1865 Johann Georg Heckelmann, also a master brewer and cooper, founded the "Heckelmann Brewery" in Hahnstätten. The Trock family, ancestors of his in-laws, already owned a brewery there and, since 1798, the "Nassauer Hof" too. Between 1895 and 1900 the new brewery was built at its current location in Rößlerstraße, the administration remained in Aarstraße.
Shortly afterwards, between 1902 and 1904, Ludwig Kuhn, the grandson of the founder of the Kuhn brewery, built a new brewery at a different location in Holzappel. His son Carl Kuhn joined forces in 1927 after a long cooperation with Louis Heckelmann, the son of Johann Georg, and relocated the brewery to Hahnstätten. The distribution of Kuhn beer initially remained at the Holzappel location.
In 1929 the first joint company "Heckelmann-Kuhn-Brauereien GmbH" was founded. After the Second World War, the company was steadily expanded and modernized. Karl Kuhn-Reichard, the adopted son of his uncle Ludwig and meanwhile co-partner, became the company's managing director. The other half of the shares belonged to the descendants of the Heckelmann family. Gerhard Fuchs, the great-grandson of the founder Johann Georg Heckelmann, took over the commercial management in 1964.
The administration near the brewery was extensively renovated in 1968 (the building no longer exists today). In 1972 the brewhouse was rebuilt. The fleet reached its maximum size in 1975 with ten vehicles. In 1986 Karl Kuhn Reichard handed over the technical management of the company, which had meanwhile been renamed "Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH", to his son Joachim Georg Kuhn-Reichard. In 1989 the bottling plant was modernized and expanded for the last time.
In 1992 the company celebrated its 150th anniversary. The number of employees at that time was around 40 people and the annual output was around 80,000 hectoliters. After the company's own malt house had previously been given up, external transport was outsourced to a specialist beverage wholesaler in Diez in 1994.
In 1998 the company with nine employees filed for bankruptcy for the first time. At that time, the annual production was 18,000 hectoliters, and it was delivered within a radius of around 50 kilometers. After the takeover by three new shareholders, the company was renamed "Nassauische Privatbrauerei GmbH" in 2000 and the product range was expanded again. At the same time, the design of the Nassauer brands is fundamentally changed. Attempts in the period from 2002 to 2004 to fill externally produced beer in Hahnstätten in order to maintain an expanded range at lower production costs led to the impairment of product quality. At that time the workforce consisted of eight employees and one apprentice, the annual output was around 12,000 hectoliters.
From December 2004 to the end of March 2005, short-time working was introduced for some of the workforce. The brewery in Hahnstätten ended in 2008 with a smaller range, reduced output and fewer than five employees. In 2010 the 7,480 m² site of the former brewery was foreclosed by auction. The calculated market value of the commercial property at this point in time was 200,650 euros. In February 2016, the insolvency proceedings of Nassauische Privatbrauerei GmbH at the Montabaur district court were nearing completion.
Selection of raw materials and manufacture
The spring water used to make beer had a high degree of purity, but due to its proximity to Hohlenfels Castle, it also had a high lime content and therefore had to be treated. The malt required for mashing was produced by malting itself until the end of the 1980s . Later it was bought in ready-made and continued to be crushed in our own brewhouse; the grain used for this was mainly grown in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. The yeast used was produced by the Nassau private brewery in Reinzucht itself.
Facilities
After switching from heavy to heating oil in 1962, the brewery's heating system consisted of two oil-fired steam boilers that generated the superheated steam that was also used to boil the wort , heat cleaning baths for bottles and kegs, and sterilize pipes and lines. The fermentation cellar comprised six fermentation tanks with a capacity of around 350 hectoliters each, which was roughly the amount of a day's production. In the storage cellar, fifteen storage tanks were stacked on three levels, which were constantly cooled to almost zero degrees. After the actual fermentation process, the beer was stored there for six weeks for maturation and secondary fermentation. The naturally cloudy beer was then filtered in two stages to produce the clear types of beer and pumped into the pressure tanks for filling into bottles or kegs.
Fermentation tanks
Fermentation cellar
Storage cellar
Pressure tank cellar
Bottling
Barrel filling
Machine house
Products
The product range in 1930 included the two beers "Heckelmann-Kuhn- Pilsner " and "Heckelmann-Kuhn-Spezial". The latter was an export beer that was renamed “Nassauer Export” in 1964 after the name of the Pilsner had already been changed to “Nassauer Pils”. In the same year, two other types of beer, the “Nassauer Alt” and the “Malzbier” (later “Nassauer Malz”) with a low alcohol content, are brought onto the market. The production of the malt beer is stopped in 1994 because of a disproportionate effort to get it completely alcohol-free. All other varieties will be produced until the company goes bankrupt and have won multiple awards. The production of the beers "Heckelmann-Kuhn-Privat" and "Nassauer Bock " in the 1970s was discontinued due to insufficient demand.
With the “Oraniensteiner”, a premium pilsner was established on the market at the end of the 1980s, and in 1989 it was awarded the “DLG Grand Prix”. In the mid-1990s, the "Nassauer Kellerbier" was followed by a Zwickelbier , which was renamed "Nassauer Kellerpils" a short time later. In contrast to the “Oraniensteiner”, the Kellerpils was still produced in-house even after the company's first bankruptcy.
Over the years, the design of brands and labels for all types of beer has changed several times. Until the bankruptcy, the Nassau brand logos became increasingly filigree, so that, in addition to the traditionally depicted Nassau farmer, a fictitious field marking with the real Hahnstätter Nikolauskirche could later be recognized. The Nassauer beers also had a small addition to their name at that time, with “Traditions-Pilsner”, “Klassisch-Alt” and “Privat-Export”. This development stopped with the later product offensive. The designation additions and temporarily also the use of printed crown corks were omitted in the course of the complete redesign of the brand identity. The remodeled Nassau farmer was still shown, but limited to the head and neck area.
Starting in 2000, two wheat beers were produced with the “Hahnstätter Hefeweizen Dunkel” and the “Hahnstätter Hefeweizen Hell” and a new regional brand was created at the same time. This was followed by the “Grafen-Pils”, which was positioned in a lower price segment compared to the “Nassauer Pils”, and the “Hahnstätter Radler ”. The product range was further expanded in 2001 with the “Pax Dei” black beer . The last newly introduced beer type to date was a light, top-fermented full beer called "Schlök". After more than 75 years of production, the export beer "Nassauer Export" was withdrawn from the market in 2005.
Others
Until the end of the 1990s, the Nassauische Privatbrauerei was always a fixture with its own float in the annual parade to Hahnstätter Markt.
In the Hahnstätter Heimatmuseum, exhibits from the Nassau private brewery Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH are on display as part of a permanent exhibition.
With exclusively third-party production, the remaining brands are sold by the newly founded Nassauische Privatbrauerei Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH . The headquarters of this company are still the brewery in Hahnstätten.
The brewery's decline is closely linked to competition from heavily advertised major brands in the beer market. In particular, the products of the Bitburger brewery are gradually replacing the local beers of the Nassau private brewery in the regional hospitality industry, in associations and at village festivals. Widespread disgraceful names such as "pork pils" or the play on words "wet and sour" for the Nassauer Pils contributed to the fact that the beer became unpopular in the region, although the high quality of the products was regularly certified by the DLG , among others . Similar patterns can also be found in other regions with regard to the decline of regional food producers, but have so far hardly been investigated.
literature
- 150 Years of the Family Brewery - A Documentation by the Nassau Private Brewery Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH (1992)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: 2. Small site history , p. 9 and 4. Small company history , p. 17 in 150 years of family brewery
- ^ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: 4. Small company history , p. 17 in 150 years of family brewery
- ^ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: 4. Small company history , p. 26 in 150 years of family brewery
- ^ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: 15. Money, taxes and balance sheets , p. 61 and 18. Treue um Treue , p. 73 in 150 years of family brewery
- ^ Press article cloudy beer instead of cloudy prospects from July 27, 1998 in the Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung
- ↑ Press article Water, malt, hops and yeast make barley juice from May 15, 2002 in the Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung
- ↑ Press article New owner for Hahnstätten Brewery from March 3, 2010 in the Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung
- ^ Press article cloudy beer instead of cloudy prospects from July 27, 1998 in the Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung
- ^ Press article cloudy beer instead of cloudy prospects from July 27, 1998 in the Rhein-Lahn-Zeitung
- ^ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: Quality is the key , p. 58 and p. 59 in 150 years of family brewery
- ↑ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: 14. This is what we brew today , p. 55 in 150 years of family brewery
- ^ Nassauische Privatbrauerei Heckelmann-Kuhn GmbH: Grand Prix of the DLG 1989 , p. 57 in 150 years of family brewery