Bamberg: The beeriest place on Earth

If I had told you about this trip before, then you would know how much I was looking forward to it. Bamberg is a small town on the border of Bavaria and Fraconia, with quaint medieval buildings (it's a UNESCO world heritage site), and of course, it is a beer-lover's paradise.

The trip didn't get away to the best of starts, however. After an early morning walk to the train station in the rain (was one of the wettest weekends in London for a while - got to love it when that happens), we flew into Frankfurt and quickly picked up our car, chomping at the bit to make our way to Bamberg and start the two days of beer "studies" (well, I was). Whipping onto the autobahn we joined the veritable feast of BMWs, Mercedes Benz's, and VWs that make up European roads. Hoping to make quick time of the 200kms to Bamberg, we were pushing our little VW Polo while still being passed going only 140km in the middle lane. But before we start praising the brilliance of German road engineering, we hit Traffic (capital 'T' intended). And bugger me if we could work out what was causing it all at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Now I'm a beer nerd, not a car nerd, so soon I was sick of all the Beemers, Merks and VeeDubs, I just wanted to have my first beer of the day in front of me. After many do-we/don't-we moments, we finally decided to get off the autobahn and take an alternative route. Of course Murphy's Law tells me that after that turn-off the traffic probably freed up and we would have been off, but we couldn't take one more seemingly needless dead-halt. But the alternative route was a lot more scenic and some of the little towns we drove through were pretty environmentally impressive (plenty of solar panel roofs and wind turbines). But we eventually got to Bamberg and my first beer, though an hour or so later than originally planned.

It was a beautiful late afternoon, so we wanted to make sure we visited the Kellers (biergartens - or beer gardens for those of you not of a teutonic persuasion) that are on some of the hills overlooking the town. Disappointingly one was closed, but the two that were open - Greifenklau and Spezial - were impressive. And at Spezial I had my first taste of the infamous rauchbier - but more about that later.



After enjoying the pleasant views, we wandered back down through the town (which, with its cobbled and winding streets was very cool) and found ourselves at the Klosterbrau brewpub. The beer here impressed us so much that we ended up staying for a few and having dinner - the first of many fine schnitzels andglutinouss dumplings on the trip.

Full of good beer and good food, there was one more stop we had to make - the Schlenkerla Brewpub to taste their famous rauchbier. Though this pub and beer needs it own special attention, so see the next blog....

After our first (half) day out in Bamberg, a couple of glaring oddities seemed evident to us. Firstly, despite Bamberg obviously being a very touristy town, there seemed to be two things that made us stick out - one, we spoke English; and two, we were under the age of 40. Bamberg is attractive and has cheap food and alcohol (pints were typically under 2 Euros and our meals around 7 Euros) - usually enough to encourage, at the very least, a swarm of young antipodean tourists. Clearly, the Germans are in the know but have done a good job keeping it a secret from the rest of us - and lets hope it stays that way, as it is better off for it. The other thing that stuck out - quite literally - the popularity and size of the middle-aged German beer gut. Dart players and members of the South Manukau Bowling club eat your heart out, the owners of these beer guts are at the top of the game, obviously perfecting the rotundous girth on a lifetime diet of hearty fare and good beer. And admittedly, if I had been able to extend my own visit to these parts, I don't think it would have taken too long to cultivate my own little Bavarian ball of gluten.

Waking up the next morning, a little groggy, though with no hangover (we have the German brewing purity laws to thank for that), the weather was fine and there were more brew pubs to visit. Postponing myself to my first pint at a respective hour (12 noon), we used the morning to wander around the town and climb some the hills for some good views. This only confirmed what we had though the previous evening - how good!

Today's brewpubs were all on the other side of the northern branch of the river that goes through the town, with the first stop at Fassla and then on to Spezial. After lunch at Spezial, we took an enjoyable walk up along the river to a couple more brewpubs a little further out. Unfortunately Keesman was closed, but the Mahrs brewpub was a great little place, all wood-paneled and the beer gravity fed from wooden casks (which most of the brewpubs had). Wandering back into town, we took a enjoyable walk through a forested park alongside the southern branch of the river - more surprises from this great town.

Dinner this night was had at the most modern of the Bamberg brewpubs - Ambrausianum - where the beer probably wasn't of the same quality as the more traditional breweries, but the food was fantastic (and massive - see the pic below). And of course, being out last night in Bamberg, a return to Schlenkerla was a must for another pint or two of their superb rauchbier.

With most of the afternoon available before we needed to be back in Frankfurt for our flight back home, we went for a little drive, though not before a driveby of the Keesman brewpub again just to see if it was open. And I wasn't disappointed, a bunch of old-timers had already bet me to it, but I joined them in having the very good Herren Pils at 11am in the morning. One of the other targets of the day's drive was a visit to the small hamlet of Merkendorf and the Hummel brewpub where I had heard the beers were quite impressive, and after tasting four of them over lunch, I can certainly vouch for that.

Driving back to Frankfurt, we were very pleased with our little trip to this hidden gem (hence the monster blog!). So much so, I was already planning my return visit, though probably hoping to go back the next weekend was a little unreasonable. But I think it would be a fair bet to say I will be back within the next year - hopefully taking some new initiates with me.





For some more pics, click here.