The legend of Lenny

Speak to anyone intimate with Berlin’s craft beer scene and, sooner or later, they will inevitably say “oh, you really should talk to Lenny”. Christian “Lenny” Lennartz, founder of Lenny’s Artisanal Ales nomad brewery, seems to embody so much about craft beer in Berlin that – despite his relatively small output – his name is pretty much ubiquitous.

Lenny’s craft beer journey started around nine years ago in Cologne, when he got involved with a small community tasting, rating and generally enjoying beer together. 

“People would bring along some absolutely amazing beers, some of which they’d brewed themselves. This inspired me to travel a lot to taste different beers, and eventually to enroll in a brewing apprenticeship in Dusseldorf. For one year of that, I went to New Zealand, working in a brewery there and helping out with the hop harvest. That was great fun and really broadened my horizons.”

Having looked at several locations to start brewing on his own, including London, Lenny finally settled on Berlin, where the close-knit brewing community gave him a warm welcome.

“Thorsten Schoppe made it possible for me to start my business. He let me brew at his brewery first, starting May 2015 with zero money, on the agreement that I’d pay him back after my first festival. So, my first beer there was a smoky black IPA.”

Lenny has little love for the Reinheitsgebot, viewing it as inhibiting smaller breweries while the big guys flaunt the spirit of the law. But that’s not to say he is against traditional styles of German beer.

“I love the smaller old breweries,” he says. “I love to go to Franconia and drink their beers. Not all of them of course – some are just boring – but traditional styles like lager and pils can be quite exciting, and we have some of the best in the world here.”

It’s interesting to hear Lenny say this, as he has a reputation for wild innovation – seeking out new flavours and defying expectations.

“At the beginning I just wanted to let people see other tastes are possible,” he says. “When I started out, a lot of craft breweries had an IPA or a pale ale, and that was pretty much it. I wanted to look beyond that, to change people’s minds and challenge their preconceptions.”

This doesn’t mean being obtuse, of course. Lenny always sets out to make interesting beers that are still easy to drink.

“I might make an IPA with a rare hop, for example. The special thing about White Weasel for example is that pils drinkers like it because it’s still quite easy, weizen drinkers like it because it’s 25% wheat malt, and pale ale drinkers like it because of its interesting hop character,” he says.

While Lenny enjoys collaborating with other brewers, his ambition is to set up his own brewery – and possibly even a brewpub – once he can afford it. 

“That’s probably a goal for 2018,” he says “That way I could completely control everything in the fermentation. It would also give me more freedom to pursue collaborations, and take my turn in helping out the homebrew community in Berlin.”