They have brewed the best beer in the world

No other brewery in the world can boast such an achievement. The 100 Bridges Brewery led by the graduates of the Faculty of Food Sciences received the Best New Beer in the World award. ART#9 Oatmeal Hoptart beer received three medals. Thus it was considered the best beer of last year by a prestigious RateBeer web portal.

The 100 Bridges Brewery began a beer revolution in Wrocław. It was set up in 2014 as the first craft brewery in years. Its owners brought their love of beer from abroad. They gathered experts and enthusiasts, found a German producer of equipment, an atmospheric location at a place of a former cinema and started producing beer which proved to be an excellent decision. Shortly after, plenty of new small breweries started cropping up in Poland and especially in Wrocław.

The head brewer at the 100 Bridges Brewery is Mateusz Gulej – graduate of biotechnology, food technology and human nutrition at the University of Environmental and Life Sciences. – I’ve always liked beer and its taste, and I became fascinated with it during studies. At the classes of brewing technology I was so excited by the fact that you can make your own beer that I started brewing it in the dormitory. I was probably the most popular student in my year – laughs Gulej. While still an undergraduate, he made a decision to become a brewer and he went away to Canada for half a year: - I was writing the MA dissertation and I ran a tiny brewery where everything was up to me. The equipment was made in China and broke down all the time but I learnt a lot of things which helped me to get the job in the 100 Bridges Brewery.

The staff includes also Michał Żankowski – support of the head brewer, Maciej Kośnik – quality control and evaluation and Jakub Borowski – sales and marketing. They all studied food technology and human nutrition at UPWr and all were members of Student Society of Farming Technology and Food Preservation – Brewers’ Section. Moreover, they all started by brewing beer at home. Now, the University uses its skills and successes in educating brewers in post-graduate studies. The first brewing technology post-graduate course in Poland started in October 2016.

The brewery produces 3.5 hectolitres of beer annually, 80% of which is sold mostly on the local market “around the chimney”. However, the beer is also exported to Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Holland and Denmark. It is also debuting in the USA and China. And it is the customers from the whole world who have chosen the best beers on the RateBeer website, among which they selected ART9 Oatmeal Hoptart from the 100 Bridges Brewery.

The ART brand includes beers created together with other breweries and beer lovers for example from Neonówka comedic group. The winning beer was produced in cooperation with the Bristol Brewing Company from Colorado Springs. – We used more aromatic hops from the States and Australia – Citra, Topaz and Galaxy. We added them using only the late hopping method, that is cold brew adition. We combined them with the silkiness of oatmeal. The beer which emerged is light and sour and, at the same time, refreshing – says Mateusz Gulej. The beer brewed by him achieved also a gold medal in Berliner Weisse category and in the category of low-alcohol beers.

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