Flensburger Brauerei is a brewery located in Flensburg

Flensburg

Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...

 in the Bundesland

States of Germany

Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...

(federal state) of Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is one of the last country-wide operating breweries not being part of a larger brewery group. The company was founded on September 6th, 1888 by five citizens of Flensburg. Today it is still mainly held by the founder families Petersen and Dethleffsen.

Production

Before modern refrigeration, the brewery used to chop blocks of ice from frozen lakes in the winter and bring the blocks back to the brewery to keep their underground storage facilities cool in summer. The brewery is still operating its own water well, which is supplied by an underground vein of very old Ice Age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

 melting water coming from Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

.

The company has about 120 employees (as of 2008) and is known for running technically advanced and highly automated production processes.

Products

All Flensburger products are glass bottled by using the traditional swing stopper as bottle cap. This demands several complicated mechanisms for large-scale production, bottle cleaning and recycling processes.

• Flensburger Pilsener – North German variation of the pilsener
  Pilsener
  Pilsner is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the city of Pilsen , Bohemia, in today's Czech Republic, where it has been developed since 1842, when a bottom-fermented beer was first produced. The original Pilsner Urquell beer is produced there today.-Origin:Until the mid-1840s, most ...
  
   style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Gold – Another Pilsener
  Pilsener
  Pilsner is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the city of Pilsen , Bohemia, in today's Czech Republic, where it has been developed since 1842, when a bottom-fermented beer was first produced. The original Pilsner Urquell beer is produced there today.-Origin:Until the mid-1840s, most ...
  
   (similar to lager
  Lager
  Lager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
  
   style) with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Dunkel – Dunkel
  Dunkel
  Dunkel, or Dunkles, is a dark German beer. Dunkel is the German word meaning dark, and dunkel beers typically range in colour from amber to dark reddish brown. They are characterized by their smooth malty flavour....
  
   style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Weizen – Unfiltered wheat beer
  Weissbier
  Weissbier , also known as Weizenbier , is a Bavarian specialty beer in which a significant proportion of malted barley is replaced with malted wheat: a wheat beer. By German law, Weissbiers brewed in Germany must be top-fermented...
  
   with 5.1% abv
• Flensburger Winterbock – Seasonally available dark bock
  Bock
  Bock is a strong lager of German origin. Several substyles exist, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer...
  
   with 7.0% abv
• Flensburger Frühlingsbock – Seasonally available dark bock
  Bock
  Bock is a strong lager of German origin. Several substyles exist, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer...
  
   with 6.9% abv
• Flensburger Malz – Alcohol-free malt beer
  Malzbier
  Malzbier is a form of sweet, low-alcohol beer that is brewed like normal beer but without fermentation by adding the yeast at or about 0 °C. CO2 and sugar is added later. It's a common beverage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland...
  
  
• Flensburger Kellerbier- Unfiltered kellerbier
  Kellerbier
  Kellerbier, also Zwickelbier, or Zoigl, is a type of German beer which is not clarified or pasteurised. Kellerbier can be either top- or bottom-fermented. The term Kellerbier literally translates as "cellar beer", referring to its cool lagering temperatures, and its recipe likely dates to the...
  
   style with 4.8% abv
• Flensburger Radler – Shandy
  Shandy
  Shandy, or shandygaff, is normally a beer mixed with citrus-flavored soda, carbonated lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale, or cider. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, normally half-and-half. There are also non-alcoholic shandy mixes known as “rock shandies”...
  
   style with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Biermix "Lemongrass" - beer and lemonade mix with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Biermix "Blutorange-Grapefruit" - beer and lemonade mix with 2.4% abv
• Flensburger Frei – Non-alcoholic helles style
• Flensburger Wasser – Mineral water
  Mineral water
  Mineral water is water containing minerals or other dissolved substances that alter its taste or give it therapeutic value, generally obtained from a naturally occurring mineral spring or source. Dissolved substances in the water may include various salts and sulfur compounds...
  
   in the typical swingtop bottle

In popular culture

• The Flensburger beers are usually just called Flens by the local people when ordering one. The swing stopper making the typical "plopp" sound when opening has become part of the corporate identity
  Corporate identity
  In Corporate Communications, a corporate identity is the "persona" of a corporation which is designed to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives...
  
  .
• Since running a marketing campaign emphasizing the stereotype of the stoic, blunt and ironic North German mentality the Flens brand has become a symbol of self-identification for the region.
• Being sited next to the campus
  Fachhochschule Flensburg
  The Fachhochschule Flensburg , int.: Flensburg University of Applied Sciences, is a vocational university of higher education and applied research located in the city of Flensburg in the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein...
  
   the annual visit of the brewery has become a traditional event for the process engineering
  Process engineering
  Process engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and biological processes through the aid of systematic computer-based methods...
  
  students of Flensburg.