It is deafeningly loud in the brewhouse of the Doppelleu brewery in Winterthur ZH. And hot. Outside there is cool autumn weather, inside it is 30 degrees warm. The sweat runs down Ilirida Mahmudi (22) face as she lifts up a 25-kilo malt sack and empties its contents into a huge steel tank. It is one of 60 sacks that Ilirida is heaving around when Blick pays her a visit. By the end of the day she will have moved 1.5 tons of malt. With pure muscle power!
Ilirida Mahmudi is one of the very few trained brewers in Switzerland. The final photo of her three-year apprenticeship shows Ilirida surrounded by her classmates. She is the only woman.
“Women are better at tasting”
“Sure, it’s physically demanding,” admits Ilirida Mahmudi. “But who says women aren’t strong?” Mahmudi is just 1.57 meters tall. She loosely towers over her male work colleagues by two heads. It is all the more strenuous for them to lift the sacks of malt. Mahmudi takes note of this with a shrug. “On the other hand, women are better at tasting.”
Because yes, drinking beer is part of the job. Sometimes as early as nine in the morning. Mahmudi starts her work at six o’clock. A few hours later, the freshly filtered beer is ready to be tasted. “You take a sip or two, not a half-liter.” Coffee to start the day is taboo. “Otherwise I won’t be able to taste whether the beer meets our requirements.” It then only tastes like coffee.
The tasting is needed for quality control. Is the alcohol content correct? The PH value? What is the color of the beer? The prejudice that brewers (and women brewers too) are constantly drunk, however, is not true. “We are not allowed to drink alcohol while at work,” says Mahmudi. Except for the small tasting sips. “Otherwise the safety of the employees and the systems would be at risk.” Mahmudi and her work colleagues often only get an after-work beer after work.
“I’m in love with this job”
After examining two large computer screens, Mahmudi climbs up a metal staircase. From above, she looks into the steel tanks, where hundreds of kilos of malt are now mixed with water and later filtered. “Don’t touch it!” She calls out. The vessels and pipes are boiling hot.
A few minutes later the young brewer is sitting in an office right next to the brewhouse. The drops of sweat on the forehead slowly dry, and the noise from the brewery can only be heard muffled here. The smell of beer is still in the air. Maybe it’s because of the way Mahmudi philosophizes about the banana aromas of yeast. About the orange smell of the hops. “I’m in love with this job!” She enthuses.
Most of the time, Mahmudi brews according to the master brewer’s recipes. The classic Chopfab Draft is made from malt, water, hops and yeast. But sometimes she gets creative. For example, she recently brewed a tiramisù beer together with other students. “An Imperial Stout that we brewed with cocoa, coffee and vanilla.”
Mahmudi only moved to Switzerland five years ago. Before that she lived in Italy, where she attended high school. Focus: natural sciences. In Switzerland, there was not enough for admission to high school, first she had to learn German. So she just became a brewer. “I wanted something that had to do with biology, chemistry and food.”
Germans and pensioners have to step in
The shortage of skilled workers is acute at the Swiss breweries. There are only twelve apprentices per year for 1200 breweries in the country. Many companies therefore work with brewers from Germany – or reactivate retired people from the field, as it is called by the brewery association. He now wants to train more apprentices. Instead of a dozen, it should soon be 20. The problem: Very few breweries are even big enough to train apprentices. For example, if you don’t have your own filling system, you have to send the pen to the competition for several months. In addition, the large breweries can hardly fill the few existing training positions. Obviously, the job is so unknown that applications are rarely received.
The shortage of skilled workers is acute at the Swiss breweries. There are only twelve apprentices per year for 1200 breweries in the country. Many companies therefore work with brewers from Germany – or reactivate retired people from the field, as it is called by the brewery association. He now wants to train more apprentices. Instead of a dozen, it should soon be 20. The problem: Very few breweries are even big enough to train apprentices. For example, if you do not have your own filling system, you have to send the pen to the competition for several months. In addition, the large breweries can hardly fill the few existing training positions. Obviously, the job is so unknown that applications are rarely received.
“The Swiss are doing it wrong!”
Officially, her job title is not beer brewer, but food technologist with a focus on beer. She could have chosen a different focus, cheese or meat for example. Mahmudi thinks about it for a moment. «I come from a farming family. I know where cheese and meat come from. ” In the case of beer, on the other hand, she did not know that. Especially because wine is drunk more often in Italy. «You only drink beer with pizza. The Swiss get it wrong – they drink wine with pizza! ”Exclaims Mahmudi and laughs.
It goes on to the next hall, where the beer is bottled after the fermentation process. Ilirida Mahmudi is now hauling 15 meter long hoses. Connect them to the large steel tanks. In the background, the Chopfab glass bottles rattle on an endless conveyor belt.
“Most of them complain that my tours take too long”
During Mahmudi’s apprenticeship in the brewery, things weren’t always as busy as they are today. “Because of Corona the restaurants were closed, so we worked less.” After the lockdowns, there was also the rainy summer. In the meantime, the situation has calmed down and more than 30,000 liters of beer are brewed every day.
Mahmudi doesn’t let the corona or rainy weather spoil his desire for beer. Even at the weekend she can often be found in the brewery, giving private tours of the halls with friends and family. “Most of them complain that my tours take too long.” She takes three hours to do this. “I just want to tell you everything!”
Even during the holidays, everything at Mahmudi revolves around beer. “I have traveled through Italy and Belgium and visited breweries there.” And what are other countries doing better than Switzerland when it comes to brewing beer? “Nothing,” it sounds like a shot from a pistol. And then, with a resounding laugh: “You may drink more.”