Unusual ingredient Two Bonn guys launch new gin

Bonn · Bönnsch owner Timo Klein had 3,000 litres of beer, but didn't know what to do with it when visitors to his brewery stopped coming during the pandemic. His buddy Martin Wiechers gave him an idea. He had brought it with him from Asia.

 Timo Klein (left) and Martin Wichers from Brauhaus Bönnsch have created a Bönnsch gin. We give it a try and summarise which gins from Bonn are now available.

Timo Klein (left) and Martin Wichers from Brauhaus Bönnsch have created a Bönnsch gin. We give it a try and summarise which gins from Bonn are now available.

Foto: Benjamin Westhoff

What to do when there are 3,000 litres of beer in the cellar but no one to drink it? For Timo Klein and his buddy Martin Wiechers, the answer was to make schnapps. Klein is the owner of the Bönnsch brewery. When the guests stayed away during the first lockdown, the beer in his tanks threatened to spoil. Wiechers, who travelled a lot in Asia on business, then had the saving idea. "That's how I knew that the Japanese make gin from beer," he says on the phone. And so the 3,000 litres of beer were turned into 600 bottles of gin. If you want to taste it, you can go to the Bönnsch, or order a bottle for home on the brewery's website.

Beer distillate is an ingredient in gin

Producing gin is relatively easy. "You can tip grain or vodka into the bathtub, put juniper in and the gin is ready," says Wiechers. "And then if you have a permit, you can even sell it." In fact, a high-proof alcohol is the main ingredient, then so-called botanicals are added, such as juniper, coriander or lemon peel. There are different processes for how the gin then takes on their taste. Perhaps the simplest is to add the crushed ingredients to the alcohol, wait, then filter and bottle.

Klein and Wiechers' idea was to obtain the alcohol for the production from beer. "But then the distillery called us and said that wouldn't work under EU rules," says Wiechers. So they produced a beer distillate that the distiller used as a botanical.

It took eight months from the idea to the product, Wiechers reports. "On countless weekends we drank gin from pint glasses to fine-tune the final product." In the end, he says, it became a gin with a refreshing citrus note and a fruity finish. And what will happen when the 600 bottles are gone? "If the demand is there, we will keep producing," says Wiechers. "So far the feedback has been very positive."

Other people in Bonn also produce gin

Klein and Wiechers are not the only people from Bonn producing gin. Daniel Wartacz from Lessenich created Naked Gin in 2015. What started as a hobby in small production of a maximum of 290 bottles has now become a real business. Wartacz's gin has won several awards and can be found in shops all over Germany.

For Stephan Quick, gin is still a hobby, to name a third example. The Bad Godesberg native has been a gin drinker since his youth. Seven years ago, he took part in a seminar and learned to distil. He made a gin for friends on special occasions - according to their preferences, for example with plums or raspberries. "I was asked more and more often if it was available for sale," he says. "I always had to say no." He used the Corona period with a friend to change that. In the meantime, the first 1,000 bottles have been sold. (Original text: Dennis Scherer / Translation: Mareike Graepel)

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