What a year!
We started strong, right
on course, plenty of inquiries,
requests from
the laboratory for more
staff and the new building
on budget and on
schedule. A trip to Chicago
at the beginning of
March. There we heard
the question: “What
about Corona in Europe?
My answer: “It’ll be gone by Easter.”
Easter came and went. Corona stayed. Doemens
activities went into part-time mode,
more home office, the laboratory was divided
into two teams that no longer met
physically, inquiries for consulting/training
stopped. This was called lockdown, one of
those words you hadn’t heard before, as
well as “Corona hygiene concept” … I can’t
even begin to quantify how many hours were
spent on this.
But even then there was still hope. We were
able to maintain our webinars at nearly full
capacity due to our many years of experience,
and preparations for final exams were
also underway. And when, in May, we were
allowed to open up for instruction and practical
workshops again, things seemed to be
returning to normal.
New building construction proceeded as
expected throughout 2020. Apart from the
usual squabbles between teams of specialists
about mutual obstruction, visits to the
construction site to meet with project managers
were a pleasant timeout from Corona
worries.
December 2020: The outlook for 2021 includes
the final spurt of new construction,
though not without some added stress because
we have to redouble our efforts to
complete sections that were slowed down
or even halted this year. It will be a time to
implement new ideas, to roll up our sleeves
and hit the ground running, because there is
still a lot to do.
It’s also time to take a breath, open up a cold
beer as we think back on all those months
of uncertainty, and be thankful for all the
colleagues who actively helped tackle all of
these problems, for the students and seminar
participants who hung in there with us,
for our valued customers for their loyalty to
Doemens, and of course for the one who has
held his hand over us – we have not had a
single instance of Corona-related impact to
date.
It works even if things are not like we expected
at the beginning of the year!
Dr. Werner Gloßner
CEO Doemens
30 · BBII 6/2020
European Beer Star tasting 2020 at Doemens
Once again, the Doemens Academy
was the stage for Europe’s greatest
variety of beer. From October 8 to 10, a
two-and-a-half-day tasting session was
held in Gräfelfing for Europe’s biggest
beer competition.
The European Beer Star is one of the
most coveted international awards for
beer: in 2019, 2483 beers from 47 different
countries were entered worldwide,
and for 2020, despite the Corona pandemic,
there were 2027 beers – a great
challenge for the Doemens team led
by Björn Bleier, who meticulously unpacked,
registered, labeled and sorted
the beers in three weeks.
During the two-day expert tasting with
a total of 22 tasting rounds, the brewing
technology students of the Doemens
Academy supported the competition
in a very professional way. The beers
for the tasting were taken from the refrigerated
containers and brought to
individual helper teams. These teams
poured the beers into labeled glasses
and brought them to the designated
tasting tables. This year, the challenge
for the Doemens Academy and Private
Breweries Bavaria was far greater than
ever. A hygiene concept was created
and implemented.
“Thanks also to the discipline of the
tasters and the teams of helpers, the
tasting competition went without a
hitch,” emphasizes Doemens CEO Dr.
Werner Gloßner. Stefan Stang, CEO
of Private Breweries of Bavaria, adds:
“Without the enormous commitment
of the team surrounding Kilian Kittl and
the Doemens Academy team, we would
have never seen such a large number
of submissions. Together with Doemens
and the tasters, we succeeded in representing
the beer in a worthy manner
even in Covid-19 times.”
However, Doemens Academy did not
only act as a logistics and execution
service provider, but also as a strong
partner of the Association of Private
Breweries in Bavaria in its function as
an expert in the field of sensory analysis.
For years, Dr. Michael Zepf has
been responsible for the descriptions
of the beer categories in a competent
manner. In addition, the business unit
manager of the Doemens Savour Academy
instructs the “Team Captains”
(including Dr. Werner Gloßner and Dr.
Wolfgang Stempfl from Doemens) on
the day before the tasting competition
in new and tricky categories such as
“Bohemian-Style Session Lager,” “Austrian
Style Märzen,” “Speciality IPA,”
“English-Style Strong Ale” and “Non-
Alcoholic Hoppy Beer.”
This year there were 70 categories
in total, from German-style light beer
to non-alcoholic Hefeweizen. In each
category, the three best beers were
awarded gold, silver and bronze.