From Germany to Siena for a pint of beer. Do you know what links Siena to Saxony? Right there beer. At the end of the 19th century, a German entrepreneur came to the city of the Palio to create his own beer using the medieval aqueduct and introducing the Pilsner method thanks to the “spoils”. His name was Wilhelm Bader, and almost 150 years ago it was not unusual to find the signs of the beer of the same name in Siena. A century and a half later, another entrepreneur, the Sienese Marco Cheli, decided to take over the brand and revive the historic brewery, giving life to a “beerstrò”, a bistro with a high brewing vocation right in one of the capital cities world wine championships. The rediscovery of beer brands of the past in an artisanal way is a fairly widespread phenomenon in Italy such as Birra Perugia in Umbria or Birra Puddu in Sardinia. Commercial operations which, however, allow us to rediscover stories and anecdotes linked to a city or a territory. This is the case of the rebirth of Birra Bader.
From 1876 to 1938 it was the beer of Siena
Birra Bader was born in 1876 by Wilhelm Bader, originally from Wittenbergh, Saxony. He was invited to move to Siena by a local businessman, who convinced him to take over the ownership of a brewery in crisis, which had already been active for a few decades. Bader decided to seize the opportunity and took over the company, continuing to produce beer but in a totally different way, that is, with the Pilsner method, typical of bottom-fermented light beers. In a very short time the success of Pilsner became global, favoring the birth of other similar styles such as Helles in Bavaria or Dortmunder Export in the Rhineland.
When Bader arrived in Siena he presented himself as a sort of Pils specialist. Luckily for him, the city had a system of underground tunnels perfect for the production and maturation of Bader’s bottom fermentations. They are the spoils, which make up an underground aqueduct from the Middle Ages, extending for approximately 25 km below the surface of Siena and in one of these tunnels a bottle of Bader beer was apparently found in recent times. The brewer’s skills and the availability of the spoils allowed the brewery to achieve some success. Birra Bader prospered until the passing of its founder, who left the business in the hands of his son Adolfo who, however, died prematurely and his wife decided to sell the company to Guglielmo Bader Società Anonima. From that moment on, the brand experienced ups and downs until bankruptcy was declared in 1938.
Marco Cheli’s challenge: making beer in the land of wine
“The project to create a Sienese brand of bottom-fermented beer was born in the pre-Covid era – explains Marco Cheli – to differentiate myself from almost all of the numerous craft breweries present in the Tuscan territory. Then I came across an old photo from the end of the 19th century, where the writing ‘Birra Bader’ stood out on the roof of an Art Nouveau cast iron kiosk, with a Sienese basilica in the background. I decided to look into the matter further, and a visit to the archive opened up a world to me.” He discovered the story of Wilhelm Badeilch and that in Plzen, a small town between Munich and Prague, a group of employees had invented the pilsner method. Thus Birra Bader Beerstrò was born in the building that housed an old pharmacy, among ancient prints and relics from the late nineteenth century, where the five classic Bader-branded ones are tasted: “At the four typical Bavarian ones (Pilsner, Weizen, Schwarzbier and Dunkel) we are about add something new: a bottom-fermented IPA for a young target.” An adventure destined to take root. (sg)
