Marcel Krueger reports on Berlin’s (non-hipster) craft brewing scene…

“It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the amount of money that goes out of the country as a consequence. Everybody is using coffee; this must be prevented. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were both his ancestors and officers. Many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer, and the King does not believe that coffee-drinking soldiers can be relied upon to endure hardships in case of another war.” – Frederick the Great, 1777

When I moved to Berlin, I had high hopes for finding and drinking local craft beer. After all, this is the capital of the country that is most associated with beer worldwide, and the city itself has a long tradition of brewing (and drinking, of course).

Friedrich the Great, the Prussian King, insisted in the above-quoted decree that his soldiers drink home-brew rather than coffee, and during their heyday in the early 19th century, areas like Prenzlauer Berg used to house between 40 and 50 local breweries.

This was the age in which many of today’s best-known Berlin beers made their debut. Berliner Kindl Pilsener, for example, was introduced in 1872, leading to industrial scale brewing across Berlin; at its peak, Kindl was the 17th biggest German brewery (quite an achievement in this country).

Kindl’s competitor, Schultheiss, was established in today’s Kulturbrauerei. After the Iron Curtain fell, there were breweries operating under the Schultheiss and Kindl names in both East and West Berlin (though of course those in the East were state-owned). In fact, it wasn’t until reunification that Berlin started to lose its last local breweries. Schultheiss and Kindl were bought by the Radeberger group – a subsidiary of food company Dr. Oetker – and other smaller breweries rapidly relocated out of the city.

But thankfully, the microbreweries trend is finally emerging in Germany too and, as with many other ‘slow’ trends, Berlin is spearheading the craft beer renaissance. The total number of microbreweries in Germany has jumped from 300 to around 900 in the last ten years, with Berlin adding around twenty local breweries – and counting. More and more people in the city are eager to produce great new beers in the tradition of the district breweries of old.

One of the longest-running craft breweries in Berlin is Wedding’s Eschenbräu. Operating since 2001, its owner Martin Eschenbrenner has so far produced three main beers on tap – a pils/lager, a dark beer and Panke Gold, an export lager named after the local river – as well as monthly guest beers and ciders. Eschenbräu operates its own small brewery in the space above the taproom, with three 700-litre brew kettles; it also produces fresh apple juice with supplies from local farmers and a variety of spirits in the site’s very own distillery.

The main taproom is in the yard of a 1980s housing estate near Müllerstrasse, and with its metal door, tiled floors and white-washed walls, it resembles a large rumpus room in a youth centre more than a cosy pub; but that doesn’t stop locals and beer lovers from all across Berlin crowding in every night. The room also offers beer-friendly snacks like Flammkuchen or Pretzels, and in summer, the area in front serves as a small beer garden.

Over in Prenzlauer Berg, master brewer Marcus Wanke does not have his own brewery – yet. The main man of Leibhaftig, a small <…