Perfect Beer Talks webinar continues to feature the top voices of the beverage industry, as we had a pleasant and enlightening chat with Dr. Stefan Lustig. His insights on the culture of beer, how he thinks beer should be treated, and the combination of these viewpoints with his projections about the future of beer as technology and new developments change the landscape make it imperative for everyone involved in the industry to listen.
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When asked about his career, Stefan rightfully started the story not from his first position but with his experience growing up in Bavaria and being surrounded by beer culture. “I grew up in Bavaria… Everyone in Bavaria grows up with beer, You certainly experience beer as a very special drink, not only a drink but also as a nutrition…” Later on, he shared with us the ceremonial aspects of drinking beer and the sacrality of it in Bavaria, from the personal beer glasses to certain limitations where or when beer is served.
The educational period is certainly an important part of our lives and it was no different for Stefan Lustig as he embarked on an academic journey to understand brewing and beer in a very technical and scientific approach. One of the few universities that has dedicated studies to beer and brewing, the Technical University of Munich Weihenstephan was where he met a very important teacher and mentor, the late “godfather of beer,” Ludwig Narziss. When asked who he would have wanted to have a pint with, after jokingly mentioning a desire to share a pint of Efes with Messi due to his love for football, Stefan voiced his admiration for his late teacher once more: “He was this dedicated brewing technologist… he was such a nice guy to share a beer with because he was very famous yet very humble and open, he could literally inject you with this passion for the details of brewing…” he said, remembering his teacher.
During his academic training he participated in various breweries as an apprentice, seeing the daily processes. Later on, after graduating and finishing his PhD. he employed his technical knowledge in various companies touching every aspect of the process, “I went into the industry many, many years ago when I started with Becks as a standalone brewery… and did there basically everything that you would do in a brewer. So, I started as an R&D assistant, went to the quality department, went into production, I was the head of the brewery. Then in the meantime Becks was bought by Interbrew which then became AB InBev and at the end of this process I was the Brewery Operations Director…“. He later described this period of acquisitions and corporate technicalities as one of the more challenging periods of his career yet also a period that provided him invaluable experience.
Words of Wisdom from Stefan Lustig
The invaluable experience of Stefan Lustig imparted some crucial insights on some aspects of the beer and brewing industry that are mostly behind the scenes, especially for consumers. What he appreciated in his teacher Ludwig Narziss was his understanding of the sector in a wholistic perspective, “everything, from harvested agriculture to how they are transported and stored in the breweries, the recipes and the methods of the brewmasters… how the products arrive to the establishments and the quality of the servers, their trainings, even maybe their attitudes while serving the beverage might ruin the whole process…” he delivered, highlighting the complexity of beer’s journey. Here at Pubinno we have products that make the delivery of the beer in these establishments from keg to glass more efficient and persistent in quality, our guest for this episode also recognized the importance of this part of the process with these words: “I think first of all the brewers, they understand the ‘no brainerness’ of cleaning the beer lines, not to do too much promotion for Pubinno but not only perfect cleaning, but also a perfect pour, you know you have the advantage to kind of eliminate a certain human influence, so this is certainly an advantage, if your system of course is maintained.” he said, calling attention to efficient and optimized technological solutions Pubinno provides.
When we asked about his outlook to how the beer industry might change and benefit from technological advancements and optimization in the beer and brewing industry in the coming years, he made the distinction that we should try to avoid the stigma that technology and automation are things that replace humans in the process, “I think the opportunity is that if you have those systems available and if you tailor them to your own processes, you will be moving away from this, not to say boring but from those repetitive processes where somebody spends hundreds of hours… and if you change this into a very automated way of running processes…you will be able to set free resources, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you make people redundant or reduce your work, but you have more time to use those resources to upscale people or to use resources for questions that you have no answers to…” he said, underscoring his belief in the harmonious relationship of technology and the human element. We at Pubinno hold similar values as we design and implement our products to establishments that serve draft beer, with the motivation to make the lives of bartenders easier.
These were only a few of the things we discussed with Stefan Lustig in this Perfect Beer Talks webinar. For the entirety of the webinar, click here.
And if you would like to learn more about Pubinno’s Smart Solutions, click here.
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Cheers!
