Beer lovers on pilgrimage to new monastery brewery

Those, who can, do. And those who cannot, play golf. It’s a cruel saying (my apologies to golfers) but it came to mind when recently talking to Martin Wartmann, a Swiss brewer, who coquettishly explained his decision to open Switzerland’s only monastery brewery at the advanced age of 67 because he does not enjoy playing golf.

For over 40 years Mr Wartmann ran the Actienbrauerei Frauenfeld near Lake Constance and developed the first Swiss monastery beer brand, Original Ittinger Klosterbräu, which today is brewed by Heineken Switzerland. Deciding to scale down in 2003, he refurbished his brewery and turned it into a brewpub. As he always wanted to brew speciality beers, he had to realise to his chagrin that brewpub operations did not allow him to devote attention to such beers. In pursuit of his dream he next decided to buy a small brewery but this scheme did not come to fruition.

He hit upon the idea to set up a brewery in a monastery and call it – appropriately – Pilgrim a few years ago, when he did a course in meditation at the Fischingen monastery and saw that an outbuilding was standing empty.

Realising that this would be an ideal spot for a small brewery to produce some fine gourmet beers in abbey style (a Tripel Blonde, Blanche, Ambree and Noire), he introduced his friends to the plan. Guess what, they were enthusiastic to join him in providing the initial investment of EUR 1.5 million for a plant which is to do 2000 hl beer eventually. The deal among the partners is that Mr Wartmann will run the business and that none of them can exit for five years.

The Pilgrim brewery at the Fischingen friary is Switzerland’s only abbey brewery. It lies about 60 km to the east of Zurich in Switzerland’s German-speaking heartland. Although Fischingen is an operating monastery with a conference centre attached, it is also self-funding. Fortunately, the monastery site is owned by a registered society to take care of the monks’ commercial interests so Mr Wartmann met with no resistance when he presented his proposal.

Befitting the location and its spirit, the brewery is called Pilgrim as are its beers. Apart from genuine abbey-style beers, craft beers and various seasonals, Mr Wartmann’s crew also brews a monastery lager strictly reserved for on-site consumption. As Mr Wartmann acknowledged, visitors to the monastery’s restaurant cannot quench their thirst on a Tripel at lunch.

The new venture may bear all the signs of a craft beer brewery, but in Switzerland this only means that a brewery is small. The main style of beer produced by the country’s 400 or so microbrewers is lager, which is probably due to the fact that beer in general in this mountainous country does not enjoy much of a reputation. Per capital consumption of beer is only 58 litres – and declining – compared with 106 litres in neighbouring Austria and Germany.

Mr Wartmann blames this sorry state of affairs on the former beer cartel, which lasted from 1935 until 1991 and regulated everything from production in terms of styles to individual distribution territories. With the fall of the cartel many Swiss brewers realised that competition was not their thing. This led to a bout of consolidation and takeovers by international brewers. Today Carlsberg allegedly enjoys a market share of 43 percent, followed by Heineken with 20 percent.

In actual fact, Swiss microbrewers enjoy quite some cult following these days. However, this does not translate into a significant market share (under 1 percent) or imply that consumers on the whole know a lot about beer and different styles, despite various brewers experimenting with more exotic flavours. This made Mr Wartmann devise a different marketing strategy and logistics for Pilgrim. Circumventing the country’s retailers, he will sell his beer only on site, via the internet (“make the postman the beer distributor” is Mr Wartmann’s catch-phrase) and in specialised shops around Switzerland. At this stage, exporting his beer remains a challenge because Switzerland is not part of the EU. However, I am sure that Mr Wartmann will overcome this snag in the end.

Intentionally low-key, the brewery was opened in April this year. Only those who had registered at www.pilgrim.ch received an official invitation. The launch party nevertheless drew quite a crowd and proved Mr Wartmann’s faith in the internet as his marketing platform right. As of June, Pilgrim’s full range of beers will be available.