Brazilian convent brewery wins top global beer award with 40-day fermentation

Hofbauer brewery turned a basement in Juiz de Fora into one of Brazil’s most unusual medal factories, and its latest win came from doing things the slow way. The convent brewery inside the Church of Our Lady of Glory, or Igreja Nossa Senhora da Glória, took gold for its WeissBier at the Brazilian International Beer Awards in Alagoinhas, Bahia, with a 97 out of 100 score in German-Style Leichtes Weizen.

That result matters because Hofbauer is not a polished modern taproom operation with a stainless-heavy brewhouse and a marketing budget. Local reporting described it as the only fully artisanal convent brewery still active in Brazil, a place that has operated since 1894 and was tied to Dutch Redemptorist missionaries Father Mathias Tulkens and Father Francisco Lohmeyer. The brewery’s process still leans on original Dutch machines from 1907 and a 40-day natural fermentation, a timetable that looks old-fashioned until the medals start coming home.

The brewery produces beer about four times a year and makes seven styles, including Pilsen, Russian Imperial Stout, and the recently highlighted WeissBier and Belgian Blond. All of the revenue from beer sales goes back into social projects maintained by the church, which gives the operation a distinctly different purpose from most craft brewers chasing taproom traffic or distribution deals. Father Flávio Leonardo restored production in 2009 after a period of interruption, bringing the brewery back into service after the long break.

The competition itself was no small local tasting. Reports said the Brazilian International Beer Awards drew about 200 breweries from 43 countries and handed out 327 medals. Taylor Bertoli, the brewery’s current master brewer, said the contest’s apuração was judged live online while only the judges were present in person, a modern setup matched against a beer built with century-old hardware and patience measured in weeks, not days.

That is the sharpest lesson in Hofbauer’s win. In an industry full of shortcuts, the brewery’s medal came from the kind of discipline many brewers talk about but fewer commit to: slow fermentation, stable process control, and equipment that may be old, but still does exactly what it was built to do.