Bringing Home the Beer
Bert Gottbrecht: Entertainer, Dreamer
"Arts, sports, food, men's and women's health, friends and socializing--beer is involved everywhere. It's a staple of our society, as common in the refrigerator as milk. Americans, as a people who love to party, to have fun, to kick back with a brew among good friends, will always have beer on hand."
Gottbrecht has taken a national obsession with suds and bolstered it with his own mania for quality, tradition and the search for the ultimate taste experience. He's put his unquenchable enthusiasm and energy into educating palates raised on "same-old" domestic beers and tickled by the unevenly exceptional microbrews. By bringing home some of the finest beer of his family's homeland, he's changing our perception of what is really good beer.
He's raised the bar, and beer drinkers everywhere can be grateful to his big beer dreams.
A background in beer
"I've been working with beer all my adult life," Gottbrecht says. At 18, he began working for his uncle, a retail beer distributor. A few years later, he'd built himself a sound business foundation with a BA degree from Lock Haven State and MBA from LaSalle to back up his hands-on experience, and his immersion in the beer culture was nearly complete.
"I learned a lot about handling people and managing a business while under my Uncle Heinz's guidance. He gave me a lot of responsibility even when I was still quite young."
(It tells you something about Gottbrecht's creativity that many years ago, before beer became his all-consuming interest, he'd intended to do something that had not yet been done: open up a string of video rental stores.)
In 1986, he became managing partner of Hatboro Beverages, and when his uncle decided to retire, he bought him out in 1995.
"Through the early '90s, I was paying attention to the impact on the beer industry of the repeal, back in the late '70s, of a U.S. law prohibiting homebrewing without a license."
Even though unlicensed homebrewed beverages must be consumed at home, the lifting of the homebrewing ban both acknowledged and augmented a developing fascination with the brewing process. Large numbers of associations sprang up to support the business of craft breweries, brew houses and home craft breweries across the country.
Riding on this interest, Gottbrecht continued to introduce new brands, both imported and domestic, through retail at Hatboro Beverages. He also created Profest Inc., a management group that runs concessions for major events, such as the Singer-Songwriter Weekend held at Penn's Landing every summer by University of Pennsylvania radio station WXPN. The host organizations provide the licensing for sales of alcoholic beverages, and Profest runs the events.
"That was enough to amuse me for a while." But soon, he was itching for new challenges.
Reinheitsgebot
Gottbrecht enjoys describing his first gathering with the German-American Chamber of Commerce, which he joined in 1995. This national organization promotes, coordinates and supports relations between citizens of the two countries and their businesses.
"There I was, a grad student in a roomful of highly successful businesspeople. I was the last one to introduce myself, and I said, 'Hi, I'm Bert Gottbrecht and I'm a beer man!' From that moment, I was the most popular person there."
That's where Gottbrecht met William Antheil III, a Doylestown attorney who shared the familial fascination with German culture. The two took to traveling together to Germany, where they arranged to meet with local businesspeople and visit the country's fine breweries. The more they traveled, the more they tasted, the more impressed they were with the German brews. They reached the conclusion that few American beers, including craft brews--which were often wonderful but could be inconsistent--could regularly meet the expectations that were exceeded by their experience of the German offerings.
Soon, their new German friends were suggesting the two blend their interest for travel, beer and Germany and start an importing business.
"We began asking ourselves the same question. Why limit ourselves to being a local business, a regular distributor, when we can have it all?"
In anticipation of locating the beer that would make them famous, they founded Reinheit Importers. The name refers to "Reinheitsgebot of 1516," the German Beer Purity Law that allows beer to contain only four ingredients: water, malted grain, hops and yeast. Germans still follow it, using no additives such as salt or preservatives. In Gottbrecht's and Antheil's view, Reinheitsgebot ensures that German beer is consistently excellent--and just what they were seeking.
"Bring a German beer, brewed under Reinheitsgebot, to the U.S., let enough people sample it, and 'they will come.' We wanted to find the best of these for Reinheit.
"We were looking for special German breweries that would give us distribution rights in the U.S. and with which we could develop a close relationship," admits Gottbrecht.
German ways
Out of their extensive networking came a suggestion from a north German glassmaker to check out a small, family-owned brewery in Bavaria. In early 2000 Gottbrecht and Antheil met with Uli Leikeim, third-generation owner-brewmaster, and Waldemar Foertsch, Leikeim Brewery's general manager. Gottbrecht built his case, characteristically direct and ardent.
"I was raised European-German, so I have a cultural understanding and can grasp the subtle but important differences in how Germans do business. Like many Germans, my handshake is my contract. Once I win their trust, I have the foundation for a strong working relationship. Germans aren't much for change: if it's proven to work in the past, they like to keep it just the way it is.
"And so, face to face, I admitted to Uli and Waldemar that I know nothing about importing, nothing about regional or national distribution. But I'm a firm believer in building a concept and product, stone upon stone. Others may know more, but no one is as patient, passionate, honest and determined to see that everything revolves around quality. I may know nothing, but I'm a fast learner, and no one will work harder for you."
Less than one week later, Reinheit was Leikeim's U.S. importer.
Fast-forward two years. In spring of 2002, the first Leikeim pilsner imported by Reinheit Importers LLC rolled into the country, accompanied by its weisse (wheat) beer. In November, Reinheit introduced Leikeim Schwarz dark beer, X-Winter winter lager and a variety pack containing all four traditional German beers. This is true Bavarian beer, brewed under Reinheitsgebot, and sold exclusively in draft kegs or traditional bottles with distinctive b¸gelflaschen, the recloseable stopper-and-wire-bail tops.
Leikeim is able to accommodate Gottbrecht's push for innovation in product lines. "We're introducing the newest Leikeim, Leikeim Light," he says. "This is a full-bodied, lower-calorie, lower-alcohol beer, with these qualities brewed into it, not created from merely watering down regular beer. It tastes like the exceptional German master-brewed beer that it is."
When it comes to these shores, Bert predicts Leikeim Light will gain a contented--if not rabid--following among those who seek a light brew with exceptional flavor.
Home-town brauerei
To meet the demands of a constantly expanding market stateside for high-quality European beer flavor, Reinheit has already established its m.o. By adding breweries rather than enlarging individual capacities, Gottbrecht intends to maintain the quality of product from each closely managed family facility.
Engel Brauerei is in "the town my family calls home, Crailsheim, in southwest Germany," says Gottbrecht. Many cousins, aunts and uncles still live there. Crailsheim is in southwest Germany, halfway between Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Like Leikeim, it is owned and operated by later generations of the family that founded it more than 125 years ago.
At the end of November 2002, Reinheit's relationship with Gottbrecht's "home-town brewery" resulted in the first import of Engel Gold lager--first in draft, then in bottles.
"Engel Gold is a phenomenal drinking beer. It has extraordinary flavor and it just looks so good--great golden color, good head," boasts Gottbrecht.
Marketing to the American masses Gottbrecht recognizes that the educated beer consumer is his best customer, for only he or she would be willing to pay the significant price premium for--or appreciate--the premium taste of a high-quality German beer brewed under the Reinheitsgebot.
"Trends and fads are typically American, and Reinheit is neither trendy nor a fad," he says on a serious note. "We're a first-class company offering first-class products to those who know and appreciate the best. We expect to be around for a long time, providing a degree of quality that has proven itself for over five centuries.
"Our very successful first year verifies that there's room for Reinheit and for the exceptional products we're importing. We believe, as Germans believe, that pure ingredients make possible a product that offers a difference to those with discerning tastes and an educated palate. If we provide a quality product, they will buy it and drink it.
"Every day I leave the house and go to life...and my life is beer. I love the beer business, I love what I do, and I invite everyone to join me!"