Little by little, Florida brews are becoming known to beer lovers around the globe, but this isn’t about Florida beer. It’s about German beer made in Florida. Our very own brew master Chris Van Vliet has the deets, and he says, for these guys, the secret is in the water.
Going to Germany for the good beer? No need! Step into Khoffner Brewery, a well-kept secret in Fort Lauderdale.
Rauf Khoffner: "We have 14 different beers."
All of them strictly follow the German Purity Law.
Rauf Khoffner: German Purity Law, called Reinheitzkibalt, which means that you cannot use anything in brewing process but water, malt, hops, of course, yeast.
The recipes vary, but all of them have been passed on from generation to generation.
Rauf Khoffner: "My grandfather left me a recipe book of more than 200 different recipes, authentic recipes of all Germany. Also, there were Czech beers, Russian beers, stouts, porters, English beers, Irish beers."
The family has been making beer since 1933. No wonder they say it’s in their blood.
Rauf Khoffner: "Some of the recipes go back to 100 years old; some of them are older than that."
Here, all the ingredients are authentic, from the malt to even the water.
Rauf Khoffner: "Unfortunately, in Florida, the water is far away from good, not perfect. It’s too high alkalinity, it’s too much chlorine, and depending on the season, it changes."
So , they built a custom water treatment system to filter 305 water, and match it to any city they want.
Rauf Khoffner – After we have the perfect, clean water — based on a 7.4 PH, same as our blood PH, completely neutral water — then we can build any water profile around the world. It could be German water, because we know the water profiles in Germany, not just in our country but town by town."
Now, they have 14 different beers — darks, ales and lagers.
Rauf Khoffner: Pilsner is No. 1 for now. Florida State chose the pilsner; it’s going wild, it’s selling everywhere. This is one of the oldest recipes we have, this is about 110 years old recipe from Karl Khoffner’s book, my grandfather. We didn’t change anything."
Another popular beer: the reserve raspberry chocolate stout.
Rauf Khoffner: "We decided that we can use some real organic fruits or real organic berries to flavor some of our beers."
So, cheers to the old and the new, and to you, too.
The brewery is located in a hidden warehouse just off East Sunrise Boulevard, which kinda makes it feel even more authentic, right?
FOR MORE INFO:
Khoffner Brewery USA
1110 N.E. 8th Ave.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304
(754) 701-8860
www.facebook.com/khoffner.us