Bärenquell Brauerei
Bears’ brewery gone bare
Once the Berlin Wall came down, locals suddenly realized there was more to do than drink. Unfortunately for breweries in East Germany like the Bärenquell Brauerei, this spelled the end for most of them. Beer production plummeted, and in the years after reunification breweries in the former GDR closed down and were deserted quicker than parties when the fridge runs dry.
They simply couldn’t compete with trendy beers available from the West everyone wanted to drink because they could. While they were buying western beers, western breweries were snapping up their counterparts in the East – because they could.
These days, victims of the Great East German Beertrayal are scattered around Berlin, idle and neglected. A hangover from a country that doesn’t want to remember the party, a country which doesn’t even exist anymore. They hulk over vast yards, immense halls empty, loading bays silent, vats as dry as fridges at abandoned parties.
Once busy, now inanimate and soundless, the deserted Bärenquell Brauerei produces a multitude of clues as it begs to tell its sorry story – metal stairways, platforms overlooking great spaces where inebriating substances were once concocted, wires on tiled walls, ladders, steps, weird looking rusty pipes going anywhere and everywhere, paperwork, files and training manuals behind a dusty door, GDR stuff, manifestos and propaganda, labels scattered around, dusty beer bottles in a crate.
Behind a door upstairs was a kitchen! It had desks with drawers pulled out papers scattered, strange machines and contraptions, broken windows onto an outside world, a world that had left this one behind.
When the Bärenquell Brauerei closed its doors for the last time on April 1st, 1994, it marked the end of a brewery 112 years old. It first opened as the Borussia Brauerei in 1882, was bought by Schultheiss AG and expanded in 1898.
After World War II, it came under state control like pretty much everything else. It was renamed the VEB Bärenquell. (VEB stands for Volkseigener Betrieb, people-owned enterprise. Of course, the people had nothing to do with it.)
Bärenquell proved to be one of Berlin’s most popular beers and was renowned for its good taste. By the time of its closure it was one of the ‘big four’ with Kindl, Berliner Pilsener and Schultheiss.
If it was that popular however, I fail to understand fully why it went bust. Perhaps they ran out of bears. (Bärenquell literally means Spring of Bears.) I certainly didn’t notice any when I was nosing around.
After it closed, the brewery was acquired by Mannheim-based property concern Actris AG, then sold on in March 2014 after Bauhaus pulled out of plans to open one of its ubiquitous DIY stores here.
Now it belongs to the Krieger-Gruppe, which owns the furniture stores Höffner und Kraft, and has plans to turn the Bärenquell Brauerei into another furniture shop.
Kurt Krieger is the businessman who wants to build the huge development in Pankow, where the neglected Güterbahnhof languishes in fear of the new plans.
The Krieger-Gruppe already owns Bärenquell Brauerei’s neighboring site, where the VEB Berliner Metallhütten- und Halbzeugwerke (BMHW) was. That’s already been torn down to make way for – you guessed it – a giant fucking furniture store. Berlin can’t get enough of them.
My search for beer at the the Bärenquell Brauerei proved as fruitful as my search for bears. The closest I came to either was a particularly happy looking bear proudly holding a giant pitcher.
He featured on the side of a Bärenquell crate but wouldn’t share any of his favorite brew, and neither would any of the other bears still adorning thousands of bottle-labels strewn around. It was one of the last batches of labels to be printed. It turned out the bears didn’t come any closer to their beer than I did.
LOCATION AND ACCESS (HOW TO FIND GUIDE)
What: Bärenquell Brauerei, abandoned brewery.
Where: Schnellerstraße 137, Schöneweide, 12439 Berlin, Germany.
How to get there: The S8 towards Grünau will drop you off at S-Bahnhof Schöneweide. It’s a 650-meter walk from there. Or cycle through Treptower Park if the weather’s nice, maybe stopping enroute if you dare at Spreepark, and just keep the river on your left until you find yourself on Schnellerstraße with the brewery on your right. Here’s a map so you won’t get lost.
Getting in: Not as easy as it used to be. Entrances change all the time and the amount of razor wire only increases.
When to go: Daytime is best to see the street art. It’s also a lot safer than wandering around at night.
Difficulty rating: 7/10. But this is a volatile rating, subject to frequent change.
Who to bring: Like-minded explorers. A girl or a boy for romance (or both!) depending on your preference.
What to bring: Beer! Ironic as it may sound, it is essential to bring beer. Looking at all those happy bears enjoying their giant pitchers will have your tongue hanging out of your head. And that exploring is thirsty work! Bring a torch too, and a camera if you want to take arty pictures. But do not forget the beer.
Dangers: Watch out for weirdos and security. There used to be people living here, and others having techno parties, but everyone has been more or less turfed out as the new owners clamp down on the fun.
Filed 29/7/2010 | Updated 5/11/2015