“Any farm should have a house, barn or other building adorned with a weathercock. We love farmhouse tradition, we have a brewery and own at least a weathercock, so hopefully someday comes the farm..." - says Sam, one of the founders of the Blackwell Brewery. Indeed, nobody knows what the future holds for Aeschlimann brothers, but the labels of core range are embellished with a small black rooster, and it seems that the wind is favorable.
Red train spat me out on the lonely platform in Burgdorf under an overcast leaden sky and carried the rest of the passengers away to Bern, the beer capital of Switzerland (here some would approvingly nod to this “capital” statement, others would disagree, but that's another story entirely). My destination laid somewhere else. I walked down the empty streets to the erie rustling of the leaves, still clinging to the branches, interrupted only by a swoosh of occasional passing by car or cyclist. Christmas lights hanging on the houses and in the shop windows tried to charm sleepy town into the festive mood which seemed an impossible task against the backdrop of broody December day, devoid of colors. Only grey cobblestone, grey tree bark, heavy grey clouds, which could be pregnant with snow if not +8C. I passed a supermarket, a town hall, an old castle on a hill, and there it was, at last, a group of warehouses, sitting alongside the road like a flock of sparrows on wires. Behind this similarly grey structure was the first flick of color: big metal door painted in that universal blue, omnipresent at factories and plants around the world. Over it, lo and behold, the Blackwell Brewery signpost hanged. My reason for the Christmas mood of the day, the brewery to hold an open-door event, submergence of Christmas tree in a porter to-be included.
- We’ve started as homebrewers as early as 2006 and scaled up the volume over the years. In 2015 we’ve reached the limit, though were still brewing on a relatively small scale (200L at a time) in Köniz. Tobias just finished his mechanical engineering degree and worked for a small startup in Bern. I finished my Biology degree as well and started my current job in Basel. Back in the days, we did not have any bigger plans for our brewery. We just enjoyed brewing the beers we liked and felt good. Things have changed in the spring of 2016 when we toured various breweries in Ireland. We literally decided to open a brewery ourselves during a walk along the beach one evening. So we came back home and focused on numbers for a couple of months and moved into our current space in the summer of 2016. -
Samuel Aeschlimann, Tobias Aeschlimann and Gabriela Zimmermann prepared the space for the occasion: tapped the kegs, printed menus, kept an eye on the wort, brought boxes of glasses. All of them were busy with their tasks. Few tours, a brew and tons of questions awaited them throughout the day. Their efficient, yet unhurried moves cocooned me into a kind of slow-paced flow, exuberating assurance that this small team knows what it’s doing, where it’s heading and what it’s looking for. It seemed that I was the only stranger there, other people greeting each other, talking, patting shoulders. But funny enough I haven’t felt excluded from this homey atmosphere woven out of hushed conversations, shuffling of cheese plates across the wooden tables, thuds of jars with spent grain to be taken home and added to cookies or bread. And there was the Christmas tree. You can’t possibly feel lonely in a room with a Christmas tree, its resiny smell plunging you into the depth of memories of childhood, presents and family gatherings, aren’t you? Six years in a row Aeschlimann brothers have been brewing the Tannenbaum Effect (Fir Effect in German), a beer with local evergreen plant added during the boil, the VI iteration of the beer is expected to be a porter. Styles vary, but the idea remains the same, namely illustrating the motto of the brewery “Native wild ales”.
Have no doubts they are wild. Blackwell started with a mixture of different wild strain isolates and some commercial strains to stop using anything besides their house yeast for both primary and secondary fermentation by the end of 2018. All beers of today are fermented by indigenous microflora coming from fruits and flowers of the forest, bordering the brewery. Sam carefully and patiently summons those out of their original home to turn into allies. For him those little creatures are precious team members.
Are those ales native? You bet. As with yeast, Blackwell is trying to source whatever ingredients they need as close to home as possible. Everything non-malted (be it rye, wheat or spelt) comes from a mill that only accepts grains no further than 20 km away. Aeschlimanns grow some hop plants in their parent's garden exclusively for the coolship projects and some Swiss malt available as well, in small quantities though. They talk to local maltsters and producers to check for options that would work for Blackwell, otherwise, they would even consider growing ingredients themselves if possible (and here comes the dream of the farm again). But for now the brewery occupies two floors of the former packing factory, brewing, fermenting and packaging equipment, storage, stacks of barrels, lab and coolship included.
- We initially wanted to focus on a relatively cheap space to see how things move and work for us. The plan was to build up a production brewery, to be allowed to make mistakes, to focus on beers we really want to push forward and still be the complete owner of our business. Both of us basically graduated from university into owning a brewery. We’ve put everything we had into it, and I’m still going every weekday to my full-time job to be financially independent. Directly moving into an ideal property was not an option, and honestly speaking I am very glad that we have a space with relatively low running costs. Now we feel able to raise more financial capital to move into a rural space eventually. I believe we can start shifting from the "survival" stage of the "startup" and now have to make sure we actually make money as a business. -
One fundraising undertaking was mighty successful already. As they had no means to acquire a fleet of barrels themselves, Aeschlimanns calculated all the costs and founded the Blackwell Barrel Society. The 3-year membership in Society could be bought for 300 CHF (approximately 300$), benefits including getting 6 large-format bottles of beer each year, 2 beers brewed exclusively for membership holders. You’d be surprised to know that the number of these aficionados is limited to 70 people. The reason? Sam wants to be sure the brewery is able to fulfill the obligations to the fellowship, built on trust that whatever he would conjure from the wooden bellies would be good. People dig the pockets, paid upfront and made the expansion happen, so no way he is risking this trust in haste to get more funds. They do things slow in Blackwell. Slow and intentional. They’ve been turning down invitations to festivals around Europe ever since their exposure at ‘15 edition of Carnivale Brettanomyces (small festival featuring wild and mixferm ales around the world and their creators) in Amsterdam because there’s not enough beer to take to each of events and they want to focus on the home market. Even if their beers are extremely niche and there’s not that much space for it, local comes first.
- Ah, the challenges… The most demanding was to stay mentally intact in the very rough times where lots of things did not work according to plan, and the lack of experience and knowledge was evident. Communication and raising awareness for our brewery and brand is tough as well. But you can’t expect to build a business, which puts in the spotlight extremely unconventional beers, be easy. -
Sam, brewery and coolship captain and the yeast whisperer, talked of days past and present. He is beguilingly good in translating the mood, brewery values, sense of belonging densely packed into just a few words. He continued delivering the story of the brewery’s name, while people came and shook his hand, exchanged smiles, one or two words, and it was stunningly evident how cherished and loved Blackwell and its team are. And yes, the name. Actually, there’s no story. And it is a revelation of sorts, an eye-opener in these days of eloquent, diligently cultivated storytelling and using names as tools to connect, a hidden message for initiated, a knowledge shared among your kin. The team just loves black and white photography, and indeed walls of the brewery are adorned with monochrome pictures, minimalistic labels likewise aren’t bursting with color. Minimalistic they are, but not austere or devoid of information on each and every beer produced, which is essential when operating in a niche market. And if visuals are not those you’d call flamboyant, what beer not lacking is creativity and imagination. Sourdough ale, peated dark with raspberry, golden sour with coffee, wild IPA, but mostly it is farmhouse ales, apt to a dreamed of farmhouse brewery. A brewery with a weathercock installed close to the bottling and labeling machine.
All these pieces: no legend whatsoever, responsibility towards every member of the club, the weathercock, amounts of love and labor invested, arrange themselves into elaborate mosaic you can’t grasp in full yet, but can’t shake off the feeling that entire picture will be spellbindingly beautiful. And you know you’ll be back to this small sleepy town with a castle on a hill and a brewery, cultivating its otherness and proud of it, to see it again. And yeast, cultivating yeast, of course.
https://blackwellbrewery.ch
Einschlagweg 59, 3400 Burgdorf
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