MEBAK - Mitteleuropäische Brautechnische Analysenkommission


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The story behind MEBAK

The Mitteleuropäische Brautechnische Analysenkommission (MEBAK) already exists for almost 35 years. At the 14th meeting of the Deutsche Brautechnische Analysenkommission (DBAK) on April 6th in 1971 the renaming into MEBAK was decided.

The first meeting took place on November 19th in 1971 in the Alte Bibliothek at the VLB in Berlin, Germany.

Participating institutions besides the VLB were: The „Wissenschaftliche Station für Brauerei“ in Munich, Germany, the „Versuchsanstalt für Bierbrauerei der Bayer. Landesgewerbeanstalt“ in Nuremberg, Germany, the „Staatliche Brautechnische Prüf- und Versuchsanstalt“ Weihenstephan, Germany, the „Landesanstalt für landwirtschaftliches Gewerbe“ at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, the „Versuchs- und Untersuchungsstation für die Gärungsindustrie“ in Mühlheim, Germany, the „Lehrstuhl für Chemisch.-technische Analyse“ in Weihenstephan, Germany, the „Versuchsstation Schweiz. Brauereien” in Zurich, Switzerland, and the “Versuchsstation für das Gärungsgewerbe” in Vienna, Austria, and as representatives of the German brewing industry the central laboratory of the Schultheiss brewery in Berlin, Germany, and the Stuttgarter Hofbräu, Germany.

The purpose of this union was – as put down in the articles of association later – to support research on the field of analytics and beverage technology. The name was chosen in order to admit members from the central European area, where identical or similar analytical and technological issues are given. Therefore, already back then the accession of today’s Czech Republic and Italy had been discussed and had been regarded as desirable, which in the meantime has long since been realized.

For a long time Prof. Dr. F. Drawert was chairman, who considerably instigated this expansion and who before also lead the DBAK.

10 years later MEBAK was transformed into a registered association based in Freising, Germany, with Prof. Dr. F. Drawert as chairman and Dr. H.J. Wellhoener as vice-chairman.

As successor in 1990 Dr. H. Pfenninger from today’s “Labor Veritas” in Zurich, Switzerland, and Prof. Dr. E. Geiger from Weihenstephan, Germany, were elected. In 2000 Prof. Dr. H. Miedaner from today’s “Forschungszentrum für Brau- und Lebensmittelqualität“ in Weihenstephan, Germany, followed and on the 63th meeting in April 2004 Dr. H.-M. Anger from the VLB in Berlin, Germany, and Dr. A. Gresser from the Forst brewery in Meran, Italy, hold office ever since.

One of the fundamental objectives of the former DBAK and today’s MEBAK, namely to standardize known and new modern methods and to make them generally “tangible”, is documented in the publication of the method collection “Brautechnische Analysenmethoden”/ Brewing technical Analysis Methods, that besides Analytica-EBC may be regarded as benchmark and which has gradually been translated into Spanish since 1996.

From the start a main objective of MEBAK was to provide students with collected methods as guideline and reference book for their professional training.

This collection is available in 5 volumes and is constantly being reviewed and updated.

Volume I has been published as 1st Edition in 1978 and is presently being divided in a 4th Edition into the volume “Water” and into a second volume “Rohstoffe” due to alterations regarding analytics and legislation (water).

Volume II “Würze und Bier” was already published one year later in 1979 and in the 4th Edition in 2002 the chapters alcohol free beverages and beer mix beverages were added, that are becoming more and more important to breweries.

Volume III was published in 1982 due to the need to standardize “special methods”, which back then were not “common knowledge” and in order to pave the way into laboratory practice. In 1996 an update was required, but times have changed, therefore, volume III will not be continued and is being incorporated including all modern instrumental methods into the corresponding chapters of the named volumes.

Volume IV with the first edition in 1987 and the second edition in 1998 contains under more technical auxiliary materials and cleaning and disinfecting agents.

A special MEBAK subcommittee took on the immense task to collect state-of-the-art analysis methods for containers and packaging during many years, which lead to MEBAK V in the second edition of 2002 by now and due to its complexity it was published as CD-Rom.

The extensive work was only possible, since the number of members in the MEBAK from originally 12-14 has doubled.

The tasks of MEBAK, that feels constrained to analytical options of middle-sized and small breweries ever since its formation, also in times of globalization have not lost any of their up-to-dateness and relevancy.