Kehrwieder

Oliver Wesseloh won the world beer sommelier championship in 2013, and Kehrwieder is widely recognised as a pioneer of the Kreativbier (creative beer) movement in Germany. The brewery name references the traditional farewell Hamburg sailors received from their families at the harbour, a local word meaning 'come back.' Kehrwieder operates as a family-run, independent business and is a founding member of the Private Brauereien Deutschland association.

The alcohol-free range carries a specific milestone: in 2015, Kehrwieder became the first brewery in Germany to produce an alcohol-free India Pale Ale. Rather than brewing at full strength and then removing the alcohol (dealcoholisation: the standard process of brewing at full ABV and stripping the alcohol out of the finished product), this IPA is made using a specialist yeast strain that cannot ferment maltose, the complex sugar derived from malt. Because that sugar remains in the liquid unconverted, no alcohol is produced during fermentation in the first place. The AF lineup has since expanded to include coffee stouts, produced in collaboration with Hamburg roastery Quijote Kaffee, and an alcohol-free take on the traditional Hamburg Alsterwasser, a lager-and-lemonade style that is a local institution in the city.

Kehrwieder distributes internationally, with the AF range available through specialist alcohol-free retailers. Pricing sits in the premium bracket. The 2015 first-to-market position in the German AF IPA category gives Kehrwieder a provenance story that the brewery has continued to build on in the years since.