2011 – Balkans and Caucasus

Recent events around the world have been turbulent to say the least, yet here I am calmly boarding the plane from Frankfurt to Turkey to continue the second half of the Editourmobil expedition to the Brau Beviale exhibition. Beneath the plane, the whole of the Balkans and Turkey is gradually unfurling.

My arrival in Turkey was greeted by a soothing 20 degrees Celsius, yet the heating in the hotel is going at full blast. Apparently they are used to rather higher temperatures here. “In summer the temperature here usually gets up to around 40 degrees,” according to Murat Kögoglu, the third generation

Our starting point today is Gaziantep. Here the drinks industry supplies a huge customer base up to and including the oldest mosques. Indeed, in front of the oldest mosque in Gaziantep, the Ömeriye Mosque, built probably in 1150, (but no-one can say with absolute certainty) I found the Coca Cola delivery

At Eskapet I am met by Ramazan Akar, who shows me round his brand-new factory. The new location has enabled Eskapet to increase its capacity by 300% up to a throughput of 50,000 tonnes of PET per year. He told me that for every child in Turkey the name Inegöl is

A new experience this evening, sleeping amongst polyolefin bags. Hasplastik opened their factory doors to me at 10pm so that I had an oasis of calm in the bustling city of Istanbul. Promptly at 9am, Murat Aner, Technical Director of Hasplastik, presents himself at the Editourmobil. This is way beyond the

Time to say goodbye to Turkey and head towards Romania. In between them lies Bulgaria. Kay has already interviewed the major players so I can just drive through the country. After the never-ending slog from the East to the West of Turkey, this would be my second long haul. It is

The journey From Romania to Belgrade was frankly a bit of a slog. 50 km / h was the maximum average speed I managed to achieve. The problem this time was not getting the Editourmobil over the mountains, but the unwelcome arrival of a real pea-souper, a thick blanket of fog

There’s fog,there’s thick fog, then there’s Serbian fog. This morning I got up extra early at 4am, anticipating a slow crawl to my first appointment at 8 with Fruvita. I got there at 7, thinking, good, I can have a bit of a rest. No chance. Ivan Petrovic was standing there

Who would have thought it? My delinquent satnav has now decided to behave itself at last. In Hungary it locks on to the house number like a dream, thus saving me a lot of fiddling with the buttons. Hungary is the last stop in our epic Go to Brau Beviale tour,