In 1949, Albert Jaenick started in the beer industry as an apprentice for a medium size brewery in Berlin. Three years later he became a trained brewer and maltster. This qualified him to work at multiple breweries in Berlin, Hamburg, Switzerland and Sweden.
Albert continued his education at the VLB, a brewing facility of the Technical University of Berlin. He earned his Graduate Brew Master degree and continued to study, eventually earning the title of Technical Engineer of Brewing. This education allowed Albert to join a major German brewery as a quality control engineer and assistant brew master. While there, he assisted in the modernization of a second brewery facility during its construction. At the time, one of Albert’s major responsibilities was to purchase hops, and this led to an entirely different career path for the brew master.
In 1966, Albert and his family moved to Yakima, Washington to enlarge and rebuild the first hop extraction company in the world. This extraction company was co-owned by the Horst family of Germany and Bavaria Brewery of Bogota, Columbia. The father of Dr. Louis von Horst was the individual who invented the hop extract process and later built the first extraction plant near Berlin.
Albert soon became the technical director at the Yakima plant and later, was promoted to president of the company. In the ensuing years, Albert, along with the Horst family, opened the Von Horst Company which extracted hops and traded hops, thus making Albert the president of the first company to introduce, produce and sell hops and hops pellets. Since Albert and his company were in Washington, he had the opportunity to sell hops to a new segment…craft beers. Now under management of the Hop Union, the Von Horst Company became a major supplier of hops to the craft industry.
After 17 years with Von Horst, Albert left to become President and owner of a new company in Yakima, Fromm Mayer Bass, known as FMB. Robert Fromm was one of the inventors of hops extraction in Germany with CO2. After many successful years in hops, Albert and Robert sold FMB. Albert, however, was not yet done with hops.
With the assistance of his wife, Rosemarie, Albert soon started Jaenicke, Inc. During this time, he also assisted his close friend Albert Cramer of Warsteiner, and even was elected as a director of the US operation.
After many successful decades in beer, brewing and hops, Albert has finally retired to enjoy his passions: skiing, tennis, and drinking Warsteiner.
Today’s craft industry should make a toast to Albert and Bert Grant, a former colleague with Albert at the Hop Extraction Corp. in Yakima, who built the first real craft beer brewery in the US in Yakima.
In regard to beer Albert always said that his second favorite beer in the world was Warsteiner. When asked which is his favorite? He always stated…free beer!
BBU Honor Roll;
2015 – Albert Jaenicke – Hops
2014 – R.D. Hubbard – Coors Distributor
2013 – George Henricksen – Royal Imports
2012 – Diane Fall – Warsteiner
THIS IS THE LAST POST OF 2015. NEXT ONE WILL BE JANUARY 5, 2016. HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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