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UNDERSTANDING THE SWISS

Seven beers to try in Switzerland

Better known for cheese, chocolate and wine, Switzerland is currently undergoing a beer renaissance. Here are seven of the best.

Published: 7 September 2021 17:53 CEST
Seven beers to try in Switzerland
Beer. Photo by Gerrie van der Walt on Unsplash

Whether you’re a beer enthusiast or a sometime sipper, you’ve probably heard of the big market brands like Feldschlösschen, Haldengut and Gurten.

READ MORE: How the Covid crisis led to a boom in Swiss beer production

Here are some lesser known brands which will tickle your fancy.

Quöllfrisch

While most of the beers on this list are relatively unique, Quöllfrisch is a standard lager type beer with which most people will be familiar.

However, it’s anything but standard and represents perhaps the best a blonde lager can be. From Appenzell, this beer is relatively easy to find no matter where you are in Switzerland.

In fact, it’s served on Swiss airlines.

De Saint Bon Chien

The L’Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien is a truly unique beer. With a strength of 11 percent, the sour beer is aged in wooden barrels that previously contained red wine.

Highly sought after, the beer comes from Saignelégier in the canton of Jura close to the French border. It is the highest ranked Swiss beer on the beer ranking site ‘Untappd’, with several discontinued beers from the same brewery sitting alongside it.

Relatively difficult to get, it is available in small bottles or 20 litre kegs.

Brüll!Bier

Zurich’s Brüll!Bier is one of the city’s best microbreweries.

Unlike many other Swiss breweries which tend to focus their efforts on only a few beers, Brüll!Bier brew several varieties touching on traditional styles, contemporary classics and experimental offerings. 

While the red ale and the helles are excellent session beers, one speciality is the Prince of Ales Yorkshire Pale Ale, which can only be found at the British Beer Corner in Zurich. 

Brewed to resemble a Yorkshire Pale Ale, it’s tasty and delicious – and will go down well even if you’ve never had a YPA before. 

Calvinus

Another beer that can be found in most parts of the country, Calvinus has several different traditional beer styles including a wheat beer, a thick dark ale and a Belgian pale ale.

Originally from Geneva, it is now brewed in the mountains of Appenzell using only organic ingredients.

According to legend, it is based on a recipe handed down in Geneva by Calvin the Reformer.

Ittinger Klosterbräu

An amber ale with a relatively standard alcohol content (5.6 percent), Ittinger Klosterbräu is bitter but fruity.

The beer is brewed in a former Carthusian monastery on the banks of the Thur river.

It’s also one of the rare Swiss beers to be made with local hops – which are actually grown by the brewery itself – with more than 90 percent of beers made with hops exported from elsewhere in Switzerland.

Bier Factory Rapperswil

Rapperswil, on the outskirts of Zurich, is not only a great place to live if you work in the city – but also a great place to have a few beers. 

The brewery has a taproom where you can try many of the beers they brew, including some staples and some experimental favourites. 

One of the best is the Wanderlust Pale Ale, a hoppy pale ale which can easily be a session beer. 

Appenzeller Castégna

Another beer from the beautiful Appenzeller region, Appenzeller Castégna is brewed with chestnuts grown in the southern canton of Ticino which give it a “sweet, chestnutty aroma” according to a rather uninventive online review.

Brewed by Brauerei Locher, the Castégna is relatively difficult to find throughout the country other than in Ticino.

It’s a proud vegan friendly beer, whatever that means, and is often served with desert due to its sweet taste.

Drastic increase in popularity of brewing in Switzerland

When it comes to food and drink exports, Switzerland is best known for cheese and chocolate. While Swiss wine has carved out a niche on the global stage, it is Swiss beer which has recently started to make its mark on the global stage.

In 2020, 80 new breweries were established in Switzerland.

Switzerland now has 1,212 breweries – which gives it a higher ratio of breweries to people than any of the other big brewing nations in Europe, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Belgium.

Just ten years ago, Switzerland had only 246 breweries, while in 1990 there were only 32 breweries in the entire country, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports.

Switzerland is getting thirstier

The explosion in brewery numbers is a consequence of a change in the Swiss appetite for beer.

Reader question: Can you drink in public in Switzerland?

In recent years, the classic lager variety has gradually fallen out of favour, with the share of craft varieties growing by 43 percent over the past five years.

The change is a genuine example of quality trumping quality when it comes to beer consumption.

In 2010, the average amount of beer produced by each brewery in Switzerland was 11,000 hectolitres, while that is now less than 3,000.

According to Switzerland’s NZZ, only 14 breweries produced more than 10,000 hectolitres of beer last year, while more than 1,000 breweries produced less than 50 hectolitres.

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For members

SWITZERLAND EXPLAINED

Five things that are changing in Switzerland — and five that never will

It is true that old habits and traditions die hard in Switzerland — and if they do, it is only through a referendum. But some things many people thought were ‘unshakeable’ are now changing.

Published: 30 March 2023 12:28 CEST
Updated: 2 April 2023 07:49 CEST
Five things that are changing in Switzerland — and five that never will

Many Swiss, especially the older generations, are not fond of changes.

They like things just the way they are — or at least the way they used to be — and will resist any effort to amend or modify the status quo.

Luckily for those people, things in Switzerland change at a snail’s pace:

Why are things so slow to change in Switzerland?

Nevertheless, cross-winds of change have been sweeping Switzerland for a while, in some aspects more than in others, putting the long-held values and beliefs into question.

They are:

Neutrality

Officially, Switzerland is still a neutral nation, as it has been continually since 1815.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a major paradigm shift in how ‘neutral’ (or not) Switzerland wants to be in the current geo-political situation.

Since February 2022, the country took some unprecedented measures, which incited comments from certain quarters that Switzerland is shedding its neutrality, at least partly.

For instance, the government departed from its policy of non-intervention in foreign affairs by adopting all EU sanctions on Russia.

But there is more: ever since the war erupted, Switzerland has been trying to get closer to NATO.
 
Earlier this month, Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd travelled to Brussels to discuss with NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg the “strengthening” of the relationship between Switzerland and the alliance.

This move too has been seen by many as a violation of the neutrality clause.

Why is Switzerland trying to get closer to NATO? 

Banks

For years, Swiss banks have had a certain reputation — perhaps not exactly for ‘cleanliness’ but certainly for reliability.

That is no longer the case.

With the fall of Credit Suisse, many in Switzerland and elsewhere have come to realise that the nation’s banks are not the ‘safe haven’ they were once thought to be.
 
Civil unrest

In the past, the mere thought of Swiss population taking to the streets to express their dissatisfaction was, well, unthinkable.

Industrial action is still relatively rare in Switzerland, but public protests are not as uncommon as before.

This change in mentality had first manifested itself during the pandemic, when thousands marched across the country against government measures aimed at reducing the spread of the disease, and claiming that the Covid certificate requirement was discriminatory and violated personal freedom.

Switzerland, is this you? Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Such anti-government actions were unheard of in recent decades.

Also, while Swiss workers have not undertaken any economy-immobilising strikes as their counterparts in neighbouring countries have in recent weeks, they have threatened to do so if their demands are not met.
 
SWISS pilots threaten an October strike action 

Punctuality

Not too long ago, Swiss trains always ran on time, and even a 10-minute delay was a big deal.

In such cases, the Swiss did what they usually do when things go wrong in Switzerland: they blamed Italian, French, and German trains for the delays.

According to Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), the German rail company Deutsche Bahn has the worst track record — no pun intended — because those tardy Germans mess up SBB’s intricate transport system.  

This may indeed be part of the problem, but not the whole picture. As it turns out, other factors are derailing train travel, the chronic shortage of train conductors in Switzerland foremost among them.

Be it as may, Swiss trains run behind schedule more often than before.

Why Swiss trains are less punctual — and what is being done about it

To be fair, however, on an European scale, Swiss trains still perform well. 

Chocolate and cheese

Who would have ever imagined a day would come when Swiss chocolate and cheese would no longer be ‘Swiss’? But that has happened.
 
The Toblerone chocolate that has been created and produced in Bern since 1908, will now be partly manufactured in Slovakia, losing, in the process, its ‘made in Switzerland’ label along with the Matterhorn logo.
 
And Gruyère cheese has lost its innate ‘Swissness’ as well.

The quintessential Swiss cheese which is produced in canton Fribourg, has been stripped of its ‘Swissness’ by a US appeals court, which recently ruled that gruyere is common label for cheese and cannot be reserved just for the kind made in Switzerland.

It used be 100 percent Swiss. Photo by ELIOT BLONDET / AFP

On the bright side, however, nobody has yet stripped the army knife, or Roger Federer, of their Swissness.
 
Cuckoo clocks and Toblerone: The ‘Swiss’ products that are not actually Swiss

Now, what about five things that will never change?
 
Ok, ‘never’ is a very long time, but let’s just say these things will remain intact — at least for the forseeable future.
 
Neutrality (again)
 
Yes, we mentioned it under the things that change, but in fact, this fits under both categories.

While the war in Ukraine has prompted Switzerland to seek closer ties with NATO, it is highly unlikely that the government will shed its neutrality altogether.
 
This would require a law change which, even if  passed in the parliament, would have to be approved by voters in the referendum.

That is even less likely as, according to surveys, 89 percent of Swiss support the principle of neutrality.

Direct democracy

The Swiss are very attached to their centuries-old system of direct democracy, which gives them, rather than elected officials, the power to to shape local and national policies.
 
While there are many controversies and contentious topics in Switzerland, nobody so far has as much as suggested that the Swiss should give up their right to vote on issues that affect their lives.
 
That, in itself, would require a referendum.

EXPLAINED: Who is in charge of running Switzerland? 
 
Attention to detail

Nobody and nothing has changed the fact that the Swiss are extremely well organised, meticulous, and detail oriented.

That is one characteristic that is not likely to change, regardless of world events or other global shifts.

This will remain, whether in the realm of rules and regulations, or the way the general infrastructure is set up.

Everything in Switzerland must be ‘just-so’. Image by Ron Porter from Pixabay

Attitude to immigrants

Here the Swiss are divided into three camps: one consists of people who believe diversity is a good thing and Switzerland benefits from this multicultural component.

The second group, while more reticent about foreigners, still recognises that they are needed for the Swiss economy to function and prosper.

The third group is against immigration and wants to revoke any laws that allow foreigners, including those from the EU, to live and work in Switzerland.
 
These divisions have been deeply entrenched in Switzerland and will likely remain thus in the future.

Feeling of superiority
 
When it comes to their perception of themselves, the Swiss believe they are far superior to their neighbours and other countries as well.

They claim their economy and general infrastructure are stronger, they are more efficient, have more political stability, and — nobody can argue with this — speak more languages than anyone else.

This kind of attitude is likely to prevail.

Why do the Swiss think they are superior to everyone else?

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