We're diving back in the barrel, this time with a visit to Diekirch in, well, Diekirch

An article series on the breweries of Luxembourg (see our earlier articles at the bottom) wouldn’t be complete without the bigger actors as well, national icons as they are. My tour of the new (they were still putting finishing touches on it when I visited) brewery in Diekirch was facilitated by Gilles Nackaerts, who is Anheuser-Busch InBev’s country director for Luxembourg — a role he has held since June 2018.

The brewery's roots

Nackaerts explained that the Brasserie de Luxembourg’s roots are found in Brasserie de Mousel (1825), which was located in Rives de Clausen in the City. The Diekirch brewery, meanwhile, has been running since 1871. Back then the brewery was located on the other side of Diekirch, but the land around the train station where they are now was bought in 1880, which they started developing in 1883.

The first major development to the new site happened in 1930, when the built a new brewery – which you can still see next to the new one. Brasserie Luxembourg was formed in 2000 when Diekirch and Mousel merged to become Brasserie Luxembourg Mousel-Diekirch, and this entity was then bought in 2002 by AB Inbev (the current owners).

They invested in a new brewery in 2016, which officially opened on 15 March 2019.

The new brewery, and public outcry

The decision to open a new brewery was taken in 2010, at which point AB Inbev decided to move production to Belgium – a decision that the inhabitants of Diekirch protested. Nackaerts explained that the people of Diekirch proclaimed the brewery a “Luxembourgish jewel.” There were, says Nackaerts, even protests in the streets — which he’s clear is “not something [they] want to deny,” and in the end they listened to the people, with the new brewery essentially being their way of thanking locals and other fans of the brand for their devotion.

It’s tempting to think that the protests will have been spurred more by the loss of jobs than love of the brand, but that’s not really the case. In 2010, Eurofund — a tripartite EU agency aimed at assisting the development of better social, employment, and work-related policies — published an article titled “public outcry over planned closure of Diekirch brewery.” The author notes that “the announcement of the closure of the Diekirch factory and the relocation has brought consumers out onto the streets, although this unprecedented protest has been motivated more by a desire for the Diekirch brand to remain in Luxembourg than by support for the 63 employees.”

And that, in short, is how they ended up investing €25 million into building a new brewery right next to the old one. Nackaert explained that the new facilities — a small brewery by industry standards, by which it’s kind of a “microbrewery” — has all of the new technologies that much larger European breweries have. This means that they use about 10% less water than before, 15% less electricity, and their carbon footprint has been reduced by about 75% compared to their previous operation.

At the moment around 54 people work for the brewery in Diekirch, across the various production and commercial departments.

Focus for the moment

Nackaert explained that their current focus is very much on the Diekirch brand, which is also why they, for instance, changed the visual identity of the brand. In short, they wanted to make it more relevant to younger people, as well as those of us who are not from here originally. That doesn’t mean that they’ve put Mousel aside, however.

They’ve no real plans to take it international at the moment, at least not beyond the immediate neighbouring areas. Their main focus at the moment is to continue cementing it as a national brand here in the Grand Duchy.

Part of that has also been done through their Diekirch 0.0% alcohol-free offering. Nackaerts also explained that one of the advantages of the new brewery is its flexibility – the state-of-the-art technology allows them to experiment more, and try interesting new product offerings.

Their view on craft beer

Since we’re talking to a lot of craft breweries for this series, I wanted Nackaert’s view on the growing craft beer scene in Luxembourg: “I think it’s very positive, and I think our new brewery is also proof that we’re not blind to this. Basically what you see happening in Luxembourg is pretty much what you see in a lot of mature markets in Europe. What you see is basically that the core of the business is lager, mainly pils, generally. People used to drink a lot of lager and it used to be 90% of the business, but you see a shift there. First people go from the pub to the couch […] and second you see that indeed the needs of people are complexifying.”

He said that the two major trends are first, that people want more transparency and options that help them “keep in control” when it comes to alcohol consumption – hence the Diekirch 0.0%, as well as the group's Leffe 0.0% and Franziskaner alcohol-free.

That, and of course the brewery noticed that a part of consumers are keen to discover more complex beers from a taste perspective (e.g. more bitterness, pronounced yeast taste, or aromatic hoppiness). At the moment they are answering that need through the group's international portfolio… but he also coyly noted that “we have a new production unit and so on, it opens a lot of possibilities for the future.. this was certainly one of the ambitions.” Of course, I prodded to see if we could get an idea of what’s in store for the future, and while he remained tight-lipped at the time.. we now know that at least one of their future plans (at the time) was for the release of Diekirch Unfiltered, which I personally find an improvement over the original.

The beers

As we’ve noted earlier, Diekirch and Brasserie de Luxembourg are part of Anheuser-Busch InBev – which as a whole has a large product portfolio of beers such Leffe, Hoegaarden, and Corona. But focusing just on the Luxembourgish arm, they offer:

• Diekirch Premium – their standard lager and biggest seller
• Diekirch Grand Cru – maltier amber lager
• Diekirch 0.0% - their standard alcohol-free offering
• Diekirch Radler – a low-alcohol option which comes in two flavours including lemon & lime, and agrum (orange and blood orange)
• Diekirch Bière de Noël (Christmas) – a seasonal, maltier Christmas offering.
• Diekirch Unfiltered – Unfiltered Lager with late hopping

For more on our ongoing series on Luxembourg's breweries, check out the links below and happy (or should we say, hoppy?) browsing!