Raw ingredients
Beer brewed with domestically-grown raw ingredients
Fair and valuable
The best raw ingredients
guarantee the best beer
Only hops, water, yeast, and malt belong in a good beer. So much was already stated in the beer purity law of 1516. We make long-term agreements with selected regional farmers, the “EGZ” farmers, thereby ensuring the quality of our resources for years to come.
That provides us with price stability and the certainty that we will get the raw ingredients for our beers in the quantities and quality we expect. Stiegl thus not only helps protect Austrian jobs, but also keeps transport routes as short as possible. That makes us a fair and valuable business partner.
We source our water from the region around the Salzburg Untersberg, Salzburg’s local mountain. The majority of our hops comes from the Mühlviertel region. Our malting barley comes from the Weinviertel region and from our own organic farm, Stiegl-Gut Wildshut. There, we recultivate long-forgotten ancient grains. We are the only Austrian brewery to malt them ourselves, using the malt to brew very special new types of beer and works of brewing art.
Incomparable flavour
Hops – the “soul” of a beer
It’s what gives a beer its flavor, its pleasant bitterness, its refreshing character, and makes up the soul of every Stiegl beer: hops. We only use the hop cones from female plants. But hops have more to offer than aromatic properties. They also have a preserving effect and give the beer its foamy head as a completely natural foam stabilizer. Hops need to be harvested between the end of August and mid-September.
They are then dried for six hours at 62–65°C (144–149°F). To preserve the quality of the hops’ ethereal oils, we at the Stiegl Brewery keep them in a refrigerated storeroom at 4–6°C (39–43°F) and only open them shortly before processing. Only in that way do the hops give our Stiegl beer its incomparable flavor.
Regionally-sourced water
Spring water from the region around the
Salzburg Untersberg
Water is not only the source of all life. It’s also a very significant component of our beer specialties. After all, 92% of a Stiegl beer consists of water. And precisely in this relationship to nature, we are already very fortunate. Because our water comes right from Salzburg’s Untersberg region and therefore from a very special, powerful source.
For centuries, the crystal-clear spring water has provided us not only with the purest quality but also with a water hardness of approximately 10˚dH, which is ideal for brewing. The water’s high oxygen content, medium hardness, and relatively low lime content are optimal preconditions for optimal beer quality.
Aroma and flavour
Yeast from our own
pure culture
Yeast is a single-celled fungus responsible for fermentation, a process by which it metabolizes malt sugar to alcohol, carbon dioxide, and other fermentation byproducts typical of yeast that are essential for flavor and aroma. Various yeast strains from Stiegl’s own pure yeast cultures are used depending on the type of beer.
At Stiegl, we cultivate our own yeast strains to ensure consistent flavor. There are two types of beer yeast: Top-fermented yeast accumulates at the top of the fermentation tank during fermentation, whereas bottom-fermented yeast sinks to the bottom. The chosen yeast determines whether a beer is top-fermented or bottom-fermented.
Born of tradition
Sustainable brewing begins
with sustainable malting barley
The high-quality, two-row spring barley we use as a basis for our malt comes from the Weinviertel region in Lower Austria and is processed in a specific way for each kind of beer. Malt is brewing barley that has been converted by soaking, germination, and drying, which gives our beer its content and full flavor.
Every stage of the malting process is an important factor for the body and color of the resulting beer. Here too, Stiegl is pioneering a new diversity of varieties, originating from the traditional malthouse and roasting facility at the Stiegl-Gut Wildshut.
