German beer sommelière and brewer

What excites Julia about the various beer flavours?

During a ‘beer tast­ing’ at the ‘Old Rail­road Sta­tion’ in the sub­urbs of Cologne Julia explains to you the subtle nuances of this tra­di­tion­al German bever­age – beer can taste fruity and malty or slightly tart and hoppy - and much more. Every Wed­nes­day Julia and her brewer Rolf Oster pro­duce about 2000 litre of craft beer at the family-owned brew­ery. As a renowned som­meli­er judge, she tastes und eval­u­ates some­times 35 dif­fer­ent beers in one day. During this sens­ory mara­thon at inter­na­tion­al events, she describes and eval­u­ates the last beer just as pas­sion­ately as she star­ted off with the first one. This is pure voca­tion & pas­sion!

How do I become a beer sommelière?

Beer has been brewed in Julia's family for gen­er­a­tions. But after study­ing bio­logy, Julia first became inter­ested in observing birds at the German coast. For­tu­nately, brewer Rolf Oster recog­nises her talent for identi­fy­ing and describ­ing fla­vours. And after the first ‘beer tast­ing’ ses­sion, she real­ises: the world of beers and brew­ing pro­cesses – how excit­ing is that! The next step is to pro­fes­sion­ally devel­op her know­ledge and the asso­ci­ated sens­ory skills fur­ther. Julia enrols at the glob­ally recog­nised ‘Doe­mens’ beer academy in Gräfe­l­ing near Munich. At the time the course to become a beer som­melière is offered in cooper­a­tion with ‘Axel Kiesbye's Bierkul­turhaus’ in Ober­trum, Aus­tria. 

In addi­tion to the basics of the brew­ing pro­cess, the his­tory of beer and the selec­tion of basic ingredi­ents is also part of the stud­ies. The cur­riculum also includes many tast­ing rounds of rare and unusu­al beer spe­ci­al­it­ies. Spe­cial sub­jects are: How do dif­fer­ent glass shapes influ­ence the enjoy­ment of beer through foam, fla­vour chim­ney and recency? How do I create a per­fect com­bin­a­tion of fla­vours from beers and food. And of course, the effects of beer enjoy­ment on body and mind, because beer is nev­er­the­less an alco­hol­ic bever­age.

“As my taste is influ­enced by the dif­fer­ent beers from my region, I had a lot of respect for the final ‘tast­ing’, as many Bav­ari­an beers are known to be included in the test. The only thing that helps is to prac­tise, prac­tise and prac­tise even more. In 2019, five women gradu­ated from a total of 17 par­ti­cipants from all over Europe. But so far, I'm still the only woman in my region to hold this title. Since my first beer tast­ing, I have been col­lect­ing dif­fer­ent beers all over Europe. I store them in my cellar for private tast­ing events. After all, beers can also mature and improve their fla­vour pro­file. Coming back to our family his­tory - my husband's grand­fath­er also trained as a brewer at the Doe­mens Academy in the 1920s. My father-in-law was also a pas­sion­ate master brewer, and we still brew using his recipes in our newly build brew­ery.”

How can over 7500 different beers be brewed from 4 ingredients?

The 500-year-old German beer brew­ing ‘purity law’ is unique in the world. Around 7500 dif­fer­ent beers are pro­duced in Ger­many from water, malt, hops and yeast. Malt as a fla­vour­ing and col­our­ing agent is pro­duced by malt­ing vari­ous types of grain. The inter­na­tion­al brew­ery com­munity uses not only barley but also many other grains. The appro­pri­ate malt can be pro­duced from any grain. In other coun­tries, raw grain (unmal­ted grain) can also be used for brew­ing.

“In Mexico, local grown maize is often used in brew­ing, while rice is used in Asian coun­tries. Last year we have also brewed a spe­ci­al­ity craft beer with chest­nut malt. Of course, we were not allowed to sell our cre­ation as ‘Bier’ because of the German ‘Purity Law’. Com­pared to our European neigh­bours, the ‘Purity Law’ reg­u­lates very strictly which brewed liquid may carry the name ‘beer’. But the addi­tion of spices, fruit extracts and barrel ageing can give the ‘fast­ing drink of nuns and monks’ a won­der­ful vari­ety of fla­vours.”

How to be a beer sommelière and a brewer

To learn the craft, an exper­i­enced master brewer and hands-on exper­i­ence in a brew­ery are import­ant. But as with any craft, enthu­si­asm & pas­sion for the product is the main motiv­a­tion and a guar­an­tee of suc­cess.

“The selec­tion of hops alone is a sci­ence. Many facts influ­ence the taste of hops: in which region with which soil con­di­tions are the hops plant grown? How is the drying pro­cess? This and other factors have a huge influ­ence on the fla­vour of the hops used in the brew­ing pro­cess. We refine our home-made craft beers with the excel­lent hop vari­et­ies (‘Perle’ and ‘Tettnanger’) from a small family owned busi­ness near Lake Con­stance – in the south­ern part of Ger­many.  So far Ger­many is the top pro­du­cer of hops next to the U.S. We have planted a small hop garden in our beer garden. Here we can show our guests that hops are one of the fast­est grow­ing plants on earth. The tendrils can grow up to eight metres high! The first hop fruits are har­ves­ted in August and stuffed into the beer.”

The newly built brewery

Wed­nes­day is ‘brew­ing day’ in the brew­ery and 2000 litres of the two in-house beers named ‘Lok­stoff’ - a light cloudy wheat beer and the clear ‘Finchen’ fill the steel tanks. In addi­tion, there are the monthly chan­ging beer spe­ci­al­it­ies such as ‘bock beer’, Citra or an amber wheat. The 1- and 2-litre bottles and the 10-litre bar­rels (known as ‘Pit­ter­män­nchen’) are rinsed, filled and labelled by hand. Genu­ine crafts­man­ship down to the last detail!  The bottles and bar­rels are sold to cus­tom­ers want­ing to enjoy the ‘Craft beers’ at home.

“When we ren­ov­ated the old rail­way sta­tion, we laid a spe­cial pipe under the floor that runs from the brew­ery dir­ectly to the antique brass counter in the res­taur­ant. There's no fresh­er way to tap beer. The old counter is a unique piece salvaged from a former rail­way sta­tion pub from the coun­tryside. Almost every piece of fur­niture in our indi­vidu­al res­taur­ant rooms tells a spe­cial story.”

Sense & Sensibility - a beer for the ‘International Women's Day’!

An excit­ing topic for Julia and her beer som­melière friends.  Each of them brings some­thing spe­cial to the ‘brew day’: Anja donates clear fresh spring water and Jutta brings Kazbek for the hop offer­ing. The three som­meliers friends not only take time for the brew­ing but also for the impress­ive and mouth­wa­ter­ing descrip­tion of their unique craft beer.

“In the glass, our beer is golden in colour, with the herbal, pep­pery aromas of angel­ica, cori­ander seeds and grains of para­dise dan­cing on the tongue. You can clearly taste the typ­ic­al bitter orange peel. At the same time, the cereal flakes provide a pleas­antly vel­vety mouth­feel. A ‘Wit.ch’ with low drink­ing res­ist­ance that we hope every­one will enjoy.”

Their unique craft beer cre­ation also tells the story of how women have been work­ing as brew­ers since the Middle Ages. At the time of the witch hunts, these skilled and inde­pend­ent women were observed with envy and jeal­ousy and their money-bring­ing busi­ness became their down­fall.

“At the mar­kets, these women were recog­nis­able from afar thanks to their tall, poin­ted hats. Their large brew­ing kettles can be found in tra­di­tion­al images of ‘magic’ kettles as well as their cats, which pro­tec­ted the grain from mice. With our ‘Wit.ch’, brewed with raw fruits and spices, we would like to remind every­one of the story that many female brew­ers ended up on a pyre. The witch burn­ing killed many tal­en­ted women with / because of their unique know­ledge.”

Julia and her favourite beer country!

Along­side Ger­many, it is of course Bel­gi­um - the coun­try of a very diverse beer cul­ture.

“Tra­di­tion­ally, the Bel­gian brew­ing com­munity uses a vari­ety of tra­di­tion­al refine­ment tech­niques. And they have cre­ated fla­vour­ful and spe­cial beers since the first monks start­ing their unique brew­ing pro­cesses. The Belgin way of brew­ing beer was pro­tec­ted as a World Her­it­age Site in 2016 fol­low­ing an applic­a­tion by the German-speak­ing com­munit­ies. A great recog­ni­tion of the work of many gen­er­a­tions. In Ger­many, it's not the beer, but the art of craft brew­ing that is part of the intan­gible world cul­tur­al her­it­age.”

The beer community, Instagram and Julia

During the COVID lock­down, the whole busi­ness comes to a stand­still from one day to the next. Time for Julia to give her usual work­ing life new impetus - via Ins­tagram.

“Our beers and our res­taur­ant have been very well known loc­ally for years and we hardly need any advert­ising. Ins­tagram has given me the oppor­tun­ity to get in touch with many beer experts and beer enthu­si­asts across Europe. The exchange about events such as beer tast­ing tours, spe­ci­al­ity brew­er­ies, new trends, etc. works won­der­fully here.”

“At the begin­ning of May, I was trav­el­ling with my com­munity in Bel­gi­um – south-east of Brus­sels. We tasted many unusu­al beers at spe­cial lambic (‘sour’ beer) brew­er­ies and ‘steker­ijen’ (beer blenders). In con­trast to German wheat beer, un-malted wheat is also used. Wild yeasts start the fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess in shal­low, open vats, the so-called cool­ing ves­sels. Vari­ous wooden bar­rels are used for fur­ther stor­age, which, as with whisky, ensure a spe­cial fla­vour pro­file. For fruit lambics, dif­fer­ent fruits are used for sec­ond­ary fer­ment­a­tion. For the ‘Steken’ pro­cess, vari­ous lambics (fresh sour beer) are blen­ded with lambics that are at least 6 months old. This cre­ation is called ‘Gueuze’ and is allowed to mature in oak bar­rels for years until the ‘Steker’ (the master blender) decides that it is ready for con­sump­tion. This long time that the beer is given to devel­op is simply fant­ast­ic and res­ults in very diverse & unique fla­vours.”

How many different flavours can a beer sommelière detect?

At the ‘Women's Inter­na­tion­al Trophy’ in Mainz, Julia tastes, describes and assesses 35 dif­fer­ent beers in just one day. The inter­na­tion­al jury con­sists only of women, who judge premi­um wines, beers and spir­its from all over the world that are sub­mit­ted at the highest level. Julia is work­ing also at other European events – her unique talent is on demand.

“Last year I was invited as an expert to the inter­na­tion­al wine, beer and spir­its com­pet­i­tion ‘Con­cours Inter­na­tion­al de Lyon’. I was over­whelmed by the qual­ity of the beers and other products sub­mit­ted. At each inter­na­tion­al event I'm also enriched and inspired by the dia­logue with my col­leagues. We all love to share our pas­sion.”

What are Julia's goals for 2024?

‘We received spe­cial recog­ni­tion for our brew­ery and our craft back in April. The state of Northrhein-West­falia awar­ded our brew­ery and seven other brew­er­ies the ‘Meister.Werk.NRW’ (Master pro­du­cer) prize of honour for the food trade in 2024. Among other things, we were recog­nised for our sus­tain­able busi­ness man­age­ment, care­ful selec­tion of (prefer­ably region­al) raw mater­i­als and region­al com­mit­ment.”

A spe­cial honour for the whole family, who took the plunge into self-employ­ment in 2012. Restor­ing the old, aban­doned rail­way sta­tion and out­build­ings with an enorm­ous amount of per­son­al effort was tough. All made pos­sible in such a short time because of many help­ing hands from friends and family. The newly added brew­ery with the latest state of the art tech­no­logy enables Julia and Rolf a brew­ing pro­cess at a high level. The region­al concept of the in-house brew­ery, pub and res­taur­ant is attract­ing a stead­ily grow­ing cli­en­tele. An abso­lute coun­ter­trend to the facts in Ger­many that fewer and fewer people are drink­ing beer and that small pubs in rural areas are clos­ing due to a lack of cus­tom­ers.

Julia's has already set her second goal for 2024.

“I've registered for the ‘German Beer Som­meli­er Cham­pi­on­ships’ in Septem­ber. It takes place every two years and I've been prac­tising & tast­ing lots of dif­fer­ent inter­na­tion­al beer styles and new fla­vours with my train­ing group for the past months. Of course, as a beer som­melière I love to train my sens­ory skills intens­ively. And there is always a way to improve my aroma memory.”

Julia and her ‘beer’ events

Would you like to immerse your­self in the diverse world of beer fla­vours – explained by Julia? Or learn about the brew­ing pro­cess and the spe­ci­al­it­ies of the ingredi­ents? And during these event also hear about the his­tory of beer brew­ing or which new beer trends are coming up? Well you will be truly impressed by Julia's amaz­ing know­ledge.

“Beer tast­ing is a sen­su­al pro­cess! Many people are sur­prised at how much they can taste, smell, see and feel with my guid­ance! Even the brew­ing pro­cess with ‘only’ 4 ingredi­ents holds many amaz­ing facts.”

What else could Julia tell you?

For example: Why did nuns and monks brew beer in the Middle Ages?

"During Lent, mem­bers of the order were only allowed to eat very little. The nuns and monks were there­fore keen to pro­duce beers that were as filling as pos­sible. Because: ‘liquids’ do not break the fast. The abbess Hilde­gard von Bingen was one of the first to invest­ig­ate and write down the influ­ence of hops on health. She lived to be over 80 years old and gave us the good advice: ‘Cer­visiam bibat - drink beer’. Of course, at this time beer had much less alco­hol than it has nowadays."

Or that there are now more brew­er­ies in France (2500) than in Ger­many (1500). It seems that the French ‘love-to-drink’ beer com­munity is also will­ing to pay a reas­on­able price for hand­made craft beers. In Ger­many there is still room to improve that.

The location 'The old Railroad station'

Julia's enthu­si­asm for her craft and styl­ish beer con­sump­tion is also reflec­ted in the lov­ingly designed and restored build­ing and grounds – called now the ‘The old sta­tion’. The vari­ous rooms with their unique themes and fur­niture pieces as well as the beer garden by the old rail­way tracks offer a won­der­ful ambi­ence to enjoy the in-house craft beers. They taste great at any time of year.

Pas­sion & ded­ic­a­tion - Julia has found her call­ing. Although there is still the idea of spend­ing a season watch­ing the shore birds at the German sea­side.

Name:  Julia Trunz

She is: Beer Som­melière & Beer Brew­ery, She has an MA in Bio­lo­gie

She can be found:  at the family owned brew­ery & res­taur­ant 'Alten Bahnhof' in Frechen, in the sub­urbs of Cologne, Ger­many

Her WIASOLA advice: Learn! Broaden your hori­zons. Believe in your­self. Net­work and talk to each other. This is often easier with a good beer.

Her favour­ite 5 Craft beers at the moment (in brack­ets: the beer brew­ing style )

  1. Our beer 'Wit.ch' -for the Inter­na­tion Women's Day (Wit)
  2. Our 'Lok­stoff' (Wheat beer)
  3. 'Sym­bi­ose' by Boerenerf (Blen­ded Lambic with home made Cider und honey wine Met)
  4. 'Super A' Art Bier #5 by Maisels & Friends (New Eng­land IPA)
  5. 'Abt 12' by St. Ber­nadus  (Quad­ruple)

To be found:

Inter­est­ing links:

The 2 beer som­meliere friends Jutta Knoll and Anja Knober-Stege­mann who helped to create the unique craft beer

Info:

Malt is grain or pseudo-grain that has been briefly ger­min­ated and then dried again. This pro­cess, known as malt­ing, forms and activ­ates enzymes in the grain that are neces­sary for brew­ing beer, for example.

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