Brewery tour in Elzach

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!

We drove north to the town of Elzach to take a craft brewery tour with Dave Decker at Lowenbrauerei Elzach, owned by Johannes Dold.

This is a town none of us had been to before so we chose a traditional German restaurant and it was very good called Gasthaus Zur Krone. We wandered a bit, had a coffee before meeting up Dave at the brewery. Dave owns, with two partners, www.deckerbier.de. They network with five local breweries to bring fresh and innovative beers to their “garage” where they sell them, hold courses and tastings. Lowenbrauerei Elzach is one of the micro-breweries they work with.  

On with the tour. Met owner Johannes Dold and he told us some of the 160 years history, he is fifth generation in running it and the location was chosen to make use of tunnels into the mountain adjacent to keep the beer cool. http://loewenbrauerei-elzach.de/index.html

First they showed us a canning operation temporarily set up to test how that was going to work, or not, for the brewery, that was unusual to see, we just happened to be there on the day of trial. 

Then walked through the entire plant so see the various tanks, bottling apparatus, basically from start to finish of making beer.

Dave translated Johannes the entire time. Then, of course, there was the tasting, of a couple of the brews from the brewery and then one that was created by Decker but brewed by Löwenbrauerei Elzach. 

What is notable is that all the beer sold is done so by both parties in an approximate radius of 50 square kilometres. It is generally not available at the grocery stores. The brewery used to make home deliveries, I’ve never heard of that except for dairy products (showing my age here). 

Dave Decker Left, Johannes Dold Right

It was an eye opener for me and, you probably know, I do enjoy seeing and learning about production facilities or factories. Ryan and Angela said it was one of the best tours they’d been on, which is saying a lot with their hopsmash project.  http://hopsmash.co/

Hops hanging from the ceiling in the shop.

That was our brewery tour. Cheers, Bev and Lexi who didn't come along...

Visit to Mausa Vauban

Mausa Vauban, Musee D’Art Urbain et de Street Art or in English: Museum of urban street art in Vauban http://mausa.fr/mausavauban/ on the site scroll down below the prices to get the best description of the museum which is housed in a UNESCO site. Note: if you follow jetsliketaxis.com on facebook you will see all the photos Ryan posted.

First of all the venue is in part of the ramparts and tunnels of the Vauban citadel that  surrounds Neuf-Brisach which is a tourist attraction in itself. There were two long hallways with rooms off each of different sizes, holding different artists works on the walls and floors. There is room for the planned expansion with a number of empty rooms. Artists were not in residence while we were there but there had been one from Brazil there a day prior painting on a deadline which is why the venue was closed. It was opened only in July of this year and an amazing amount of work has been completed! 

Without further ado here are only a few of the pictures we all were taking.

Entry way with one of the proprietors

Vauban himself, he was the planner of the fortifications.

Gives you a glimpse of how large the museum is.

We all liked the colours

Cool dude chicken

Cool dude monkey

Black lighting used. This was a series of rooms all painted portraits.

This was a series of people completely blending into their environment. 

Reminded me of flamenco dancing

Image used on their brochure.

These were cutouts, looked like painted cardboard but stiffer, note the fellow in the middle causing the fleeing...

This gives you some perspective on the average size of the rooms

The exhibition was truly fascinating and in all honesty I likely would not have visited it myself, sure glad we did!

All for now, next up, a brewery tour. Cheers, Bev