(Press Release)
ST. LOUIS—Urban Chestnut Brewing Co., a craft brewer located in St. Louis, has purchased a small brewery in Florian Kuplent’s (Urban Chestnut’s Co-Founder & Brewmaster) homeland of Bavaria and plans to brew small batches of its beers in Germany.
Bürgerbräu Wolnzach, a small brewery located in the town of Wolnzach, Hallertau, recently closed its doors which provided Urban Chestnut the opportunity to do something they had always hoped was possible…own and operate a brewery in Germany. Wolnzach, which is situated in the world’s largest producing region of hops, Hallertau Bavaria, is also the home of The German Hops Museum.
“Since my apprenticeship as a teenager at Erharting Brauerei, I’ve always dreamed of owning my own brewery in Bavaria,” said Kuplent. “I’m thinking we might be a little crazy opening our third brewery in 5 years, which is much sooner than we planned, but the Wolnzach opportunity was too good to pass up.”
Urban Chestnut has been exporting small quantities of beer to Germany since 2013. Fellow Co-Founder, David Wolfe believes the marketing opportunities the new brewery provides are very substantial, “In considering different ways to grow Urban Chestnut in Germany and in Europe as a whole, we believe the U.S. craft beer model of ‘local’ is a more than viable strategy. Actually owning and operating a brewery in Bavaria will provide us with a solid platform for growth via direct interaction with local beer drinkers and with beer drinkers visiting the Hallertau region during their beer pilgrimages.”
Urban Chestnut plans to open the brewery in Wolnzach a bit later in 2015. And while the new brewery will be the smallest of the three UCBC breweries, it will carry a big load. The Wolnzach operation will be utilized to brew beers to distribute in Europe as well as to brew unique, German-brewed beers to export to the U.S. It will also act as the central point of operations for the importing/exporting of raw materials, beer, and other goods to and from the U.S. Urban Chestnut currently receives weekly container shipments of raw materials, their standard .5L Euro bottles, and other goods from Germany.
“I’m really looking forward to the synergies we will realize and the fun we will have importing & exporting beer back and forth from the U.S. and Germany…I’m more than anxious to get the Urban Chestnut Brauerei up and running!” exclaimed Kuplent.
Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (UCBC), a St. Louis, MO craft brewery, is an unconventional-minded yet tradition-oriented brewer of craft beer, producing both artisanal, modern American beers (their Revolution series) and classically-crafted European styles (their Reverence series). Founded in early 2011, when UCBC opened The Urban Chestnut Midtown Brewery & Biergarten in Midtown St. Louis, it expanded in March 2014 with the opening of a second brewery, The Urban Chestnut Grove Brewery & Bierhall, located in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood of St. Louis, aka The Grove. The founders and principal operators are Florian Kuplent and David Wolfe. Kuplent is a German born and trained brewmaster with extensive experience at both small breweries, worldwide, and with the world’s largest brewery, Anheuser-Busch. Wolfe is a 25-year beer industry member, who was also with Anheuser-Busch, prior to joining Kuplent in founding Urban Chestnut.