About Brauwelt

Brauwelt

Brauwelt is the international specialist journal for the brewing and beverage industry, published fortnightly by the Fachverlag Hans Carl GmbH in Nuremberg. In its 165th volume in 2025, it is one of the world's oldest continuously published brewing journals: founded in 1861 by Johann Carl as the "Allgemeine bayerische Hopfenzeitung," it was the first brewery trade journal permitted to reappear after the Second World War — on 31 January 1946, with the American military administration's permission. The journal addresses the executives from the commercial and technical management of breweries, malthouses, and soft-drink manufacturers; the German edition is read in 94 countries. Under editor-in-chief Dr. Lydia Junkersfeld, Brauwelt stands for the worldwide, highly qualified research and compilation of all economic and technical developments of the beverage industry.

Overview

The brewing industry is the beverage economy's craft-and-scale business: the breweries from the village craft to the global groups, the malthouses, the hop growers, and the suppliers of the brewing technology. Brauwelt addresses this industry's professionals with the fortnightly journal's program: the economic and technical developments — the raw-material markets, the brewing technology, the business management, and the industry's companies. The target group spans the international brewing and beverage industry and the supply industry: all professionals and executives, plus the teachers and students of the relevant teaching and training institutions.

The multilingual editions make the Nuremberg journal the brewing world's global medium. Brauwelt International — the English edition since 1983 — serves the international brewing industry: the multinational brewers, the global suppliers, and the emerging markets. "Mir Piwa" — the Russian edition since 1995 — addressed the post-Soviet brewing boom: the Russian breweries modernizing, the international groups entering. Brauwelt En Español — since 1996 — serves the Spanish-speaking brewing world: Spain and Latin America's breweries. The Chinese edition — since 1997 — covers the world's largest beer market: the Chinese brewing industry's explosive growth. The German edition's 94-country readership — the Nuremberg fortnightly reaching the brewers from Bavaria to Brazil — shows the original's global authority: the 165-volume tradition as the brewing world's reference. The BrewingScience monthly — the scientific journal with its yearbook and its sponsoring model — serves the research community: the institutes, the universities, and the R&D departments. The fortnightly frequency — 25 issues a year — serves the industry's continuous information need: the hop-market reports, the technology news, and the company developments arriving as they happen. The 2023 volume — 36 issues, 1,392 pages, 78.7 percent editorial — documents the journalism's weight.

History

Johann Carl's 1861 founding deserves its market-historical portrait. The hop market of the 1860s — Bavaria's "green gold," the Hallertau's harvests deciding the brewers' costs — operated on the oral agreements: the hop growers, the traders, and the brewers striking their deals by word of mouth, with no written documentation of the prices, the qualities, or the volumes. Carl's "Allgemeine bayerische Hopfenzeitung" created the market's first transparency: the printed hop-market reports giving the growers, the traders, and the brewers the common information base. The 1871 Deutscher Brauer-Bund founding in Dresden — with Carl significantly involved — made the paper the industry's sole organ: the brewers' association and the brewers' newspaper growing together. The title evolution — from the hop newspaper (1861) through the brewer-and-hop newspaper (1882) to the Brauwelt — tracks the industry's broadening: the raw material first, then the brewing, then the whole beverage world. The 165th volume in 2025 counts from this 1861 origin: the 164-year continuity. After the 1871 founding of the Deutscher Brauer-Bund in Dresden — in which Carl was significantly involved — the "Allgemeine Hopfenzeitung" became the industry's sole organ. As the brewing coverage gained importance, the journal carried the title "Allgemeine Brauer- und Hopfenzeitung" from 1882, and "Die deutsche Brauerei" from 1943 to 1945.

The 1946 reappearance — the first brewery journal after the war — carries the occupation-era significance. On 31 January 1946, with the American military administration's permission, the Brauwelt restarted: the brewing industry's press returning while the breweries themselves were being rebuilt — the malt scarce, the equipment damaged, the beer rationed. The journal's early postwar issues documented the reconstruction: the breweries' denazification, the raw-material allocations, the production restarts. The name Brauwelt — the "brewing world" — claimed the international horizon even in the rubble years: the world the German brewing would rejoin. The Fachverlag Hans Carl — the Nuremberg house carrying the journal through the war's "Die deutsche Brauerei" years (1943–1945) into the Brauwelt era — embodied the publishing continuity: the 1861-founded journal surviving the Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the occupation. The 1991 electronic turn — the Brau databases, the BTX archive, the internet from 1997 — made the traditional journal the digital pioneer: the 165 volumes' archive integrated into the subscription, the newsletter complementing the fortnightly. The internationalization began in 1983 with Brauwelt International in English, followed by the Russian, Spanish, and Chinese editions in the 1990s. In 1991, the Brau databases marked the entry into the electronic publishing age: the archive — accessible via BTX in the early years, via the internet from 1997 — was integrated into the subscription in 2005 and complemented by the e-mail newsletter, so every subscriber can read the journal in print or online. Under the Brauwelt brand, the publisher also issues specialist books and organizes events and seminars on brewing and beverage technology.

Coverage and Content

Each fortnightly issue follows the brewing industry's agenda. The raw-material coverage reports the hop and malt markets: the harvests, the prices, and the varieties — continuing Johann Carl's 1861 hop-market mission. The technology coverage treats the brewing and beverage technology: the brewhouse, the fermentation, the filling, and the automation. The business coverage addresses the management: the company strategies, the market developments, and the industry's consolidation. The international coverage follows the brewing world: the 94 countries reading the German edition, the editions in English, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese.

The BrewingScience — the monthly for brewing science, with its yearbook — serves the research: the scientific papers, the institute news, and the academic community. The specialist books extend the brand into the reference: the brewing-technology handbooks. The events and seminars — on brewing and beverage-technology topics — gather the industry's professionals for the continuing education. The online archive — all Brauwelt issues since 1991 — makes the 165 volumes the industry's searchable memory.

Organization and Ownership

Brauwelt is published by the Fachverlag Hans Carl GmbH, Andernacher Straße 33a, 90411 Nuremberg. The publisher (Verleger) is Dr.-Ing. Karl-Ullrich Heyse. The editor-in-chief is Dr. Lydia Junkersfeld. The advertising and distribution: Michael Schmitt (responsible). The Nuremberg specialist publisher — the Hans Carl house — has published the brewing journal since the 19th century: the family publishing continuity from Johann Carl's 1861 founding.

Commercially, the journal follows the B2B trade-press model: subscriptions from the brewing industry's professionals — the fortnightly journal's international readership — and advertising from the industry's suppliers: the brewing-technology manufacturers, the raw-material suppliers, the packaging providers, and the service companies. The cross-media publishing — the print editions, the online archive, the newsletter — and the books, events, and seminars diversify the revenues. The circulation of 2,422 copies (2025 media data) reaches the industry's executive core in 94 countries.

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is brauwelt.com, the portal carrying the journal's content in the language editions: the German Brauwelt, the Brauwelt International, and the Russian, Spanish, and Chinese editions. The online archive — all issues since 1991 — gives every subscriber the fast archive access: the 165 volumes searchable online. The e-mail newsletter delivers the regular briefing to the subscribers' inboxes. The BrewingScience portal (brewingscience.de) serves the scientific community.

The digital strategy is the cross-media publishing: the print fortnightly for the curated industry reading — 25 issues a year — the online archive for the research, the newsletter for the briefing, and the language editions for the global reach. As the brewing industry's journal — from Johann Carl's 1861 hop newspaper through the 1946 reappearance to the multilingual present — Brauwelt remains the brewing world's medium: the economic and technical developments, worldwide and highly qualified — fortnightly in print, always on brauwelt.com.