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WoidG'sichter - The Kanzelbräu

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WoidG'sichter - The Kanzelbräu

Located to the west of Mauth you will find what you are looking for: The Kanzelbräu - named after the Great Kanzel in the Schönbrunn Forest. It is the house mountain of the operator of the Fuchs inn.

Since December 2020, the mountain has lent its name to a very special beer: Kanzelbräu. Bernhard Fuchs, owner of the stately inn in the center of the village of Mauth, brews this beer together with Stephan Arens in his own small brewery.

"We love the Bavarian Forest - and it was obvious to name the beer after something that goes with it," says Fuchs.

"My mountain. My beer" is logically the motto of the micro-brewery between Lusen and Leopoldsreut. Bernhard Fuchs has invested around 200,000 euros in the dream of producing his own beer. In the desire to produce his own beer and serve it in his own business. And after just under a year, one thing is clear: Kanzelbräu is selling very well. He is confident that the great effort has paid off.

The man with the stand-up collar shirt and the dark-rimmed glasses is a full-time pharmacist. When his father died unexpectedly almost ten years ago, he decided to continue running the inn, complete with overnight accommodations. In 2017, he began renovations to turn the venerable building into a modern inn complete with 4-star superior hotel rooms. Everyone who enters the house notices that a lot of heart and soul went into the remodeling: Fuchs has combined a contemporary ambience with noble details in every corner - and still preserved the original character of the inn.

"The idea of brewing our own beer and serving it in the pub had been haunting my mind for a long time," Bernhard Fuchs says enthusiastically.

Klaus Brämer, a respected brewmaster from the Bavarian Forest with international experience, is a good friend of the owner. Together with him, Fuchs took the idea further - and it was Brämer who provided advice and support in building the small brewery, selecting the ingredients and, above all, developing the recipe for Kanzelbräu. "Klaus provided us with his entire wealth of experience," Mauther is pleased to say.

The recipe makes Kanzelbräu unique. It not only specifies which ingredients Bernhard Fuchs uses for his beer. It also specifies when and how much of the various hop varieties are added to the malt brew, how long the brew boils at which temperatures, and when the various brewing processes begin and end.

But there are also others who have put their heart and soul into converting the former horse stable into a brewery and into beer production. For example, the innkeeper of the inn, Thomas Dorner, who not only brings the Kanzelbräu to the man and woman, but also takes care of the logistics, the procurement of the brewing ingredients and the organization around it.

(Picture from left to right: Stephan Ahrens, Bernhard Fuchs, Thomas Dorner)

The same goes for Stephan Arens. He is a trained brewer, but has not worked in this profession for years. Nevertheless, beer has always remained his passion - and he is all the more pleased that he can now lend his friend Bernhard Fuchs a helping hand in the production process. Brewing Kanzelbräu has become his hobby, so to speak: On weekends and after work, Arens comes to the small home brewery to grind malt, mash it in, pump the finished beer into the tanks and finally fill it into kegs.

The fact that Kanzelbräu is only produced in small quantities also makes it special.

"At the moment, demand is so high that we have to make sure we keep up with the brewing",

says innkeeper Thomas Dorner, laughing.

In the beginning, Stephan Arens and Bernhard Fuchs still bottled the beer relatively laboriously and sold it in six-packs or in the larger 2-liter bottles. Because at the beginning of the beer business, the inn was closed due to the Corona pandemic. In the meantime, most of Mauther's barley juice is served in the pub. Arens still fills a few bottles per brew, but the quantity remains manageable: he can only manage 24 bottles per hour, and the system can only fill one bottle at a time. The brewer has to adjust each one by hand and close it with a swing stopper at the end.

The demand for the bottled beer would, of course, be much greater. If the trio were to put their minds to it, they could probably devote their entire time to the Kanzelbräu. But there's still the pub, the pharmacy and the main job...