The Foreign Residents (TFR) Day Trips

Do you want to do something different and meet new people?

Having been to the recent TFR Annual General Meeting and getting into conversation with a number of members, we talked about when we all enjoyed a visit to a brewery in Famagusta which I wrote about in a newspaper. I decided I would publish this article again for those TFR members who did not go on the trip and anybody else who may find it to be interesting reading.

“TFR Days Out”

“Do you want to do something different and meet new people? I had that experience recently when I went with The Foreign Residents Society to Famagusta and we visited the Gold Fassl Brewery. Cheers some would say.

To me it was an eye opener as A.M. Gazioĝlu & Sons Ltd are the brewers of Gold Fassl, Lager, Antique and Safa Brandy and a range of over 50 alcoholic beverages plus they are a suppliers of Gurpinar water and have a very impressive piece of land with very modern buildings and even more impressive brewing and bottling equipment which is computerised.

Gõkhan Gazioĝlu the Director took us all on a tour of the plant where we saw huge stainless steel vats and distillation equipment where the Gold Fassl (Ottakringer) Austrian Vienna Lager is brewed under licence using barley and takes upwards of 25 days to achieve the standards they want. Everybody was offered a sample of the virgin lager beer to try.

Next we went into a huge bottling area where a machine was loaded with clear plastic blanks which resemble a large teat and these were drawn through a heating section before entering a compression area where these blanks appeared in the form of a full size water bottle minus its screw on cap. These bottles were then loaded onto the main bottling system where the bottles travelled round tracking and onto a circular water filling rotunda before the bottles moved off to receive their caps and go off for boxing and distribution.

From here we went into the yummy section where huge Italian oak casks stood with their mysterious contents and everybody was offered a wee tipple of the local whisky. If we had tried to sample all of the Vats we would still be there.

Soon it was time to leave and after bottles for the journey were purchased and pictures taken we all went off for lunch in Famagusta next to the main Mosque before travelling back to Girne in good time for tea. TFR trips are really great events and well worth trying   

Why not spend an afternoon with this great group of people by visiting the Cabin, Lapta on any Friday from 4.00pm   If  they could all be there they comprise 112 members of 15 nationalities and a friendlier bunch you would not meet.

Would you like a day out with TFR (The Foreign Residents Association), then contact Horst Gutowski on 0533 845 0923 or 821 1722 or email horstgutowski1949@gmail.com to find out what they are planning for the future”. 

By Chris ELLIOTT

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