Local workmanship, the specificities of a region, the history of a place. With these characteristic properties a number of local breweries have tried to position themselves as pure and unique businesses. The samples of regional flavours are still expanding. Strikingly, the local producers all turn to the same characteristics to distinguish themselves from their trade competitors. Yet, they use the characteristics too in their joint battle against the untouchable giants, the industrial breweries and their universal, bland-tasting beverages.

Regional characteristics, workmanship and site-specific qualities are concepts that have for centuries defined architecture as well. At least, until the moment when the Modernist Movement in the early 20th century developed a universal architectonic language, a language that in the following decades would be put on a pedestal by the new economic elite. From Brazil to Casablanca, from the Parisian suburbs to the workers’ residences in Siberia, the local building styles were replaced by neighbourhoods that were the materialization of that global language.

If you were wondering why contemporary architects are interested in brewing beer: this is exactly why. Or, rather, partially why.

Loorberger beer, brewed by Maurer United, was launched in the summer of 2011. It is the product of a unique region as well as the result of the idiosyncratic position the creators of the beer are taking up in the field of architecture. In the practice of Maurer United beer and architecture have been linked for some time, i.e. ever since Marc Maurer and Nicole Maurer took up office in Maastricht in 2003 and almost instantly projected the iconic map of the London underground unto the region where they had just settled.

The Eutropolis map seems to have actually changed the thinking about the region. Stops such as South Kensington, Spitalfields, Ealing Broadway, Wimbledon, Covent Garden, Pudding Mill Lane and Liverpool Street were replaced by stops that bore names such as Hasselt, Heerlen, Jülich, Aachen, Liege, Amay and Eijsden. The Euregion surrounding Maastricht was suddenly presented as a network of cities and villages typified by a myriad of languages, traditions, landscapes and flavours that have effected each other in the past centuries. The tangible map of the London transport system was transformed into a mental ‘space’ reflecting the interregional culture of a non-existing city with nearly 4 million inhabitants.

With the production of the Loorberger beer Maurer United continues down the same road. It almost seems as if the beer – in imitation of the map – was created without much consideration. Yet, both the map and the beer are products that are the result of in-depth analyses of the location. They force us to take another look at what is overly familiar and incite conversations about new perspectives. Loorberger is not just any beverage or label, just like the map was not a non-committal gesture. It is precisely in the Euregion surrounding Maastricht that through the ages a culture has been established in which diversity generates vitality. Typical aspects of Wallonia were mixed with specificities from the Rhine area. Flemish typicalities merged with customs from Limburg. Across the entire region traces can be found from a long and shared history: from foundations dating from the Roman era and the empire of Charlemagne to the destruction caused by WWII and the marks in the landscape the mining industry has left.

The diversity in the region lies at the basis of Loorberger beer. It is in line with the spirit of the times. Or better: it challenges the spirit of the times. Increasingly, isolationism is being regarded as a fruitful strategy in a society that cannot define its identity, in a Europe that finds it difficult to coordinate its many temperaments and various patterns of civilization. Even on an international scale it has become clear that communities and countries are withdrawing behind fences that seems to provide a sense of security. The feeling of isolation that gated communities generate is considered to be more appealing than precarious interactions between different cultures. In other words: monocultures seem a suitable alternative for the multicultural experiment that has been deemed failed even in the Netherlands.

Architects discern the same tendency in politics, in society and in their own discipline. Architecture has become entrenched in its own discourse and patterns that have become increasingly out of tune with the economic reality and the social surroundings and milieus in which the buildings have to function. Bearing this in mind, Maurer United has decided to operate in fields that are not always taken to belong to official architecture – the visual arts, for example, and graphic design. Rather than starting off from the notion of the monocultural, they look at things from the more fruitful perspective of polyculture, which is the very personification of Europe.

Typical of monocultures is their difficulty in procreating – in a similar vein, when you keep cultivating one single crop, the soil, in the end, becomes infertile. Variety is essential for vitality, in agriculture and in culture. Variety defines the region – take, for instance, the many beer cultures in the Euregion or the sheer number of cultural interactions in the triangle Aachen-Liege-Maastricht. Hence, Maurer United infuses its projects with the notion of polyculture, be they situated in the German brown coal village Inden, in Aachen, Maastricht or Shenzhen in China.

Loorberger beer is polycultural. It is the result of a process of development that has internalized the traditions of the brewer’s trade – from Flanders, Limburg and the Rhine area. What’s more, the beer is constantly subjected to experiments. The taste will change depending on the year. Its taste is never mono. The letter L on the label refers to the beer’s home ground, the mountain Loorberg in Slenaken, but also to the province of Limburg and the sign that distinguishes learners’ cars from the regular ones. Loorberger is constantly in the process of learning, it is an exercise in design in a society in which diversity is an appreciated point of departure and an ultimate goal.

Written by Gert Staal.
Published by The Eutropolitan.