Workers welfare organisation opens a brewery in Munich

Munich has a new brewery. And guess who is behind it? A commercial subsidiary of Germany’s Workers Welfare Organisation (AWO). It was set up, says AWO, to provide employment for people with emotional issues. Haidbräu, as it is called, was put into a building in northern Munich, where AWO already operates several workshops: a joinery and a printing works as well as a bakery.

The plant consists of a 5 hl brewhouse and fermentation tanks for a total of 30 hl. It is run by Jens Tischer, a brewmaster with a degree from Weihenstephan, who previously worked at small breweries in Norway and on Mauritius. He is currently doing further training in social pedagogy because he will work closely with AWO’s clientele. Currently, three of them are employed by the brewery, later it will be nine.

Mr Tischer’s first beers are a Red Märzen, a helles and a wheat beer. The unfiltered beers have a shelf-life of six weeks. 500 ml bottles cost EUR 3.20 (USD 3.70), which is fairly expensive by German standards, but then again, these beers are hand-brewed.

The beers are sold on-site only. They are not predominantly aimed at consumers but at companies which do not/cannot comply with the national quota of employees with handicaps and have to pay a compensatory levy. The levy can be offset against purchases from workshops for people with disabilities – such as Haidbräu’s beers. Companies can serve these beers at corporate dos, for example.

AWO was founded in 1919 as a workers’ self-help organisation. Decentrally organised, it runs about 13,000 institutions like old people’s homes, child care centres and workshops for the unemployed. It has 333,000 members, 66,000 volunteers and over 210,000 employees. It is a major employer in Germany.

With AWO’s new brewery, Munich is now home to nearly two dozen small breweries and four major ones.