{"id":956,"date":"2020-05-19T18:57:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:57:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/2020\/05\/19\/urban-chestnut-brewing-company\/"},"modified":"2020-05-19T18:57:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:57:36","slug":"urban-chestnut-brewing-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malteuropmaltingco.com\/en\/news\/urban-chestnut-brewing-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Chestnut Brewing Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

About Urban Chestnut Brewing Company <\/strong><\/p>\n

Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (UCBC) has long been a staple of the St. Louis brewing community. UCBC refers to their unique brewing philosophy as Beer Divergency, “a ‘new world meets old world’ brewing approach wherein UCBC contributes to the “revolution” of craft beer through creations of artisanal, modern American beers, and pays “reverence” to the heritage of beer with offerings of classically-crafted, timeless European beer styles.” What’s even cooler is when you find out these same philosophies that shake up the American craft beer scene are also utilized across the world at Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei located in Wolnzach, Bavaria.  With such a unique story to tell we knew we have to reach out virtually to Florian Kuplent, Brewmaster\/Founder\/Owner, to get the full story of how he began, his passions and Urban Chestnut’s status over the last months.<\/p>\n

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Passion for the craft brewing industry<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were curious at how Florian entered the brewing industry and what excites him most at his UCBC. He explains where his passion started, “I worked for a local brewery in my Bavarian hometown during summer break when I was 16 (the drinking age in Germany is 16) and fell in love with the business.” Fast forward to today Florian notes that, “working with our team here in the US and in Germany is the most exciting part of the job. It makes for a very dynamic environment and allows me insight into what’s going on in the world of brewing in the US and Europe.” People and process certainly seem to be at the top of Florian’s mind so it was no surprise as to what keeps him motivated explaining, “Being able to combine art and science is the most exciting thing. Working with people who grow the ingredients we brew with, combining them and turning them into beer, and then serving them directly to drinkers in our breweries is very satisfying.” We couldn’t agree more! Their taprooms are wonderful gathering spaces for the community of STL to come together and enjoy these brews. Given Florian’s opinion of favorite beers style that he shared I can’t wait to have a Zwickel the next time in STL. Florian writes, “I love well-brewed, session beers. Helles is also still very dear to my heart since I basically grew up with it. I like the subtlety of aromas and flavors, the combination and perfect balance of malt, hops and yeast.”  Prost to that!<\/p>\n

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Challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like so many other breweries, UCBC has faced challenges, recently, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Florian tells us, “Unfortunately we had to stop brewing on our smaller system and focus on the main brands that we can and bottle, so there hasn’t been much experimenting. We do always tweak our existing recipes and have a few things that we plan to release in the not so distant future that I am very excited about. We’ve had to decrease our overall operations quite a bit and have had to figure out how to adapt to a new way of doing business with our small curbside pick-up and delivery service.” Due to these changes UCBC has had to find new ways to reach their customers and it sounds like the community has been tremendously supportive. He writes, “We implemented our online store with curbside pickup as soon as possible once the stay-at-home orders went into place. Then we followed up quickly with direct-to-home beer delivery.” Using this time to hone in on what’s important Florian continued, “We’ve really focused on our core brands, encouraging the customer to ‘fall back in love with them’ by focusing on their stories and flavor profiles.” Here at Malteurop Malting Company, we love to hear people diving into the how’s and why their beer tastes based on their ingredients! UCBC has “also implemented partnerships with other local STL breweries for fundraising campaigns and to help boost each other’s sales. The brewery has completely shifted to carry out orders in such a short period of time” said Florian.<\/p>\n

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Moving forward with support<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even though there has not been much time to experiment through the changing business model UCBC was able to produce a pair of radlers. Big Shark Grapefruit and Big Shark Lemon Radler were both released in the last couple of weeks in St. Louis. Florian says, “They are both Lagers blended with house-made grapefruit and lemon soda.”  With the weather warming up I can only imagine how tremendously refreshing these are on a quarantined back porch!<\/p>\n

Florian was also quick to point out that, “Our community has shown tremendous support, both by contributing to our fundraiser for our out-of-work staff and by purchasing beer and food from our online store.” We are so happy to hear STL is stepping up for UCBC, and are equally as inspired by all the communities across the country pitching in to help support their local breweries!<\/p>\n

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Thank you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We want to extend a big thank you to Florian at Urban Chestnut Brewing Company for participating in this initiative during American Craft Beer Week! We know many breweries across the country are going through similar situations. Our goal is to celebrate our partners and tell their story’s during this difficult time. Raise a glass to all the breweries fighting to stay alive as we reflect over this week and continue to go support those that you can! Cheers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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