Dr Axel Goehler, the CEO of Bestmalz joins us to discuss the state of German malting, European Craft Brewing and the recent BRAU 2023 conference.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (53:49)
- This week I welcome back Dr Axel Goehler, the CEO of Bestmalz in Germany. Dr Goehler did his PhD in Switzerland on German family breweries, and worked at Boston Consulting group for 10 years. He is the grandson of the founder of Bestmalz, Max Goehler, and has spearheaded the company’s international expansion since 2014 to over 85 countries.
- We start with a brief discussion of the last year including some of the challenges we discussed back in episode #267 with malting in Europe.
- Axel explains challenges including the high price of natural gas and plans for Germany to transition rapidly to a net zero energy position.
- We talk about the difficult 2023 barley crop in Germany and France which was dry at the wrong times and wet when harvesting creating a shortage this year.
- Axel describes the state of German Brewing which has challenges from declining demand for beer as a whole.
- We talk about how the EU and several countries are working to ban glyphosate which is a broadly used weed killer. While the EU recently approved an extension for its use, other countries are banning it which makes supplying barley a challenge.
- Axel covers some challenges with reducing CO2 footprints and we also discuss his recent trip to the 2023 BRAU conference.
- Axel gives us his closing thoughts on malting.
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- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
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