Centred on the beautiful city of Bamberg, itself sporting no
less than 9 breweries that work tirelessly to quench the thirst of the 70,000
or so inhabitants, the region has more than 200 breweries that invariably brew
really high quality beer. Add this to the fact that the region is very picturesque
and easy to get around on the beer lover’s best mode of transport, namely the
bike, and you have a great recipe for a very long holiday.
Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to go there for
several years now, so I was extremely grateful when a friend and loyal follower
of this blog did the second best thing to bringing me to Franconia – he brought Franconia to me. In fact, he
brought back 4 lovely bottles from the Huppendorfer brewery in Huppendorf, a
village so small it could fit comfortably onto a beer mat.
A huppy pils |
To stretch the enjoyment, I have been drinking the beers one
at the time, and I shall follow this strategy of enjoyment prolongation by
reporting on them one at the time. First out was the Pils. This is a beer the
Germans seldom get spectacularly wrong (unlike most of the rest of the world),
but conversely it’s also one that is seldom very memorable. I was therefore not
surprised, but nevertheless strangely pleased, to find that this beer was good,
but not fantastic. It had a decent amount of hop character, a good balance and
contained plenty of refreshment. In summary, a promising start.
A fantastic vollbier |
Next out was the Vollbier. Now those who have experienced
Franconia will nod knowingly at this point, because the Vollbier is in many
ways the region’s specialty. It’s a medium dark and quite malty, and beautifully
balanced with the hops to create a beer that satisfies every conceivable organ
in your body and probably a few you didn’t even know existed. It’s not a beer I
want to drink all the time, but whenever I get one it leaves me with exactly
the same feeling I imagine art lovers get when they visit Florence for the
first time.
A zippy zwickl |
Then it was time for the Zwickl. For those unfamiliar with
this style, it’s normally an unfiltered beer that is otherwise not
dissimilar to a pils or a helles. I like Zwickl quite a lot for the same reason
I like to throw herbs and spices into all the food I cook – it’s tasty. The
unfilteredness of the beer means that a lot of taste, which the world’s big
brewers spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of, gets left in the beer
and it ends up tasting the opposite of bland, which is dnalb. So, basically a
bit like the Pils but with more hoppy spiciness on the palate.
The fourth beer is the Weizen, which I’m saving for a sunny
day. So perhaps I’ll report on that another time. For now, I am just pleased to
have managed to write another blog entry, Google knows that I haven’t been
doing much of that lately. I’ve got loads of ideas for new posts though, so
watch this space. Meanwhile, why don’t you plan your next 3-4 summer holidays
by checking out the relevant web resources for Franconia. Bamberg is a great
place to start, and should be on the itinerary of any person vaguely interested
in enjoying the world’s favourite drink. Then you can rent a bike and go bumming
around the countryside to marvel at all the lovely barley ripening in the balmy
summer wind, and whenever you come across a village that you’ve never heard of,
chances are that there will be a tiny little brewery with a nice beer garden outside
where you can quench your thirst whilst you think how good life is and how
unbelievably more complicated this sentence would be if you had to stick the
verb at the end, like Germans do. Well, nobody’s perfect.