Flensburger Brauerei

Flensburger
Location	Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Owner(s)	Flensburger Brauerei Emil Petersen GmbH und Co. KG
Year opened	1888
Annual production	529,000 hectolitres (as of 2008)

Flensburger Brauerei is a brewery located in Flensburg in the Bundesland (federal state) of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is one of the last country-wide operating breweries not being part of a larger brewery group. The company was founded on September 6th, 1888 by five citizens of Flensburg. Today it is still mainly held by the founder families Petersen and Dethleffsen.

Production

Before modern refrigeration, the brewery used to chop blocks of ice from frozen lakes in the winter and bring the blocks back to the brewery to keep their underground storage facilities cool in summer. The brewery is still operating its own water well, which is supplied by an underground vein of very old Ice Age melting water coming from Scandinavia.

The company has about 120 employees (as of 2008) and is known for running technically advanced and highly automated production processes.

Products

All Flensburger products are glass bottled by using the traditional swing stopper as bottle cap. This demands several complicated mechanisms for large-scale production, bottle cleaning and recycling processes.

• Flensburger Pilsener – North German variation of the pilsener style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Gold – Another Pilsener (similar to lager style) with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Dunkel – Dunkel style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Weizen – Unfiltered wheat beer with 5.1% abv
• Flensburger Winterbock – Seasonally available dark bock with 7.0% abv
• Flensburger Frühlingsbock – Seasonally available dark bock with 6.9% abv
• Flensburger Malz – Alcohol-free malt beer
• Flensburger Kellerbier- Unfiltered kellerbier style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Radler – Shandy style with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Biermix "Lemongrass" - beer and lemonade mix with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Biermix "Blutorange-Grapefruit" - beer and lemonade mix with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Frei – Non-alcoholic helles style
• Flensburger Wasser – Mineral water in the typical swingtop bottle

In popular culture

• The Flensburger beers are usually just called Flens by the local people when ordering one. The swing stopper making the typical "plopp" sound when opening has become part of the corporate identity.
• Since running a marketing campaign emphasizing the stereotype of the stoic, blunt and ironic North German mentality the Flens brand has become a symbol of self-identification for the region.
• Being sited next to the campus the annual visit of the brewery has become a traditional event for the process engineering students of Flensburg.

References

Flensburger Brauerei Homepage