Back to Bavaria once again!

Every so often, when I travel around Germany for no, one or perhaps several good reasons, I come across strange little places that somehow stick out from the bunch. Most villages in Germany are actually pretty boring – they usually consist of a few well-kept houses clustered around a through road, with perhaps a church, a bakery and – if you’re really lucky – a pub to add a minor amount of interest. The two things that can make a German village leap from complete obscurity to a permanent place in my consciousness are a splendid name and the presence of a brewery.

Village names are usually forgotten as soon as you’ve cycled through, but since there are almost as many villages as there are people in Germany, some are bound to differentiate themselves by naming themselves a bit more adventurously. It could be argued that a handful have taken this too far – the village of “Fucking” situated on the German-Austrian border certainly have their fair share of people driving through with screwdrivers and angle cutters to purloin the signs. There are a few other ones that were no doubt named some time before English became the world language – my favourites, though, are the ones that don’t make sense in English (or any other language I know), but simply sound funny. Which brings me to the main topic of this blog post: beer.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I like beer and that Germany has both good beer and an amazing number of breweries. The fact that I, who likes beer, live in Germany and travel to Bavaria whenever I have the chance, is a happy coincidence. And so it came to pass that, for my lovely wife’s birthday weekend last week, I booked us a nice escape in, you guessed it, Bavaria. I managed to wrap the weekend present in fluffy things such as a gourmet meal, a race, a trip to the local spa/swimming complex and a bit of geocaching, all of which camouflaged the beer hunting agenda very nicely, except that I had made the somewhat obvious “mistake” of booking a hotel next to the local brewery, namely the Löwenbräu (incidentally a very boring brewery name) in Bad Wörishofen. The “bad” actually means “bath”, and was something just about every town that discovered some kind of natural spring decided to stick in front of their name to attract the hordes of tourists that seek to immerse their corpulent bodies in the allegedly healing qualities of the water. There are so many of these “Bad” towns nowadays that the humorous value of reading the name in English has completely faded, with the obvious exception of “Bad Kissingen”.

Another brewery we stumbled  upon

Anyway, having enjoyed a very expensive, fancy and incredibly gourmet meal on my wife’s actual birthday, I managed to convince her to sneak in a little nightcap half-litre in the brewery’s very pleasant and cosy bar. Fresh beer straight from the brewery seldom fails to hit the mark, and the very sturdy beers they had on tap both impressed – the Urtrunk was quite dark, malty and full-bodied whereas the Helles was also malty, but unsurprisingly a bit spicier and lighter.

The real jewel around Bad Wörishofen is a place about 10km away, though – and I’m talking about none other than the world not very famous village of……… DIRLEWANG. Now there’s a village name straight from the top drawer. I have no idea how they managed to come up with such a classic, but considering they also had the sense to reject closing the local brewery, I now officially declare the village of Dirlewang the best tiny place in Germany to visit for between 5 and 10 minutes, unless you’re not driving in which case you should stop for a few beers. As it happened, I was in a car, but I nevertheless stopped for 4 beers, which I requested to be surrounded by brown glass and sealed with a crown cap, a bit like a working class king if you see what I mean. Anyway, the brewery bar itself was an interesting place – probably refurbished sometime just after the Napoleonic Wars and populated by a bunch of geezers who were a smidgeon too young to have fought in them. The reception was friendly though, even though the local dialect can be a challenge, and I was allowed to take away said 4 beers for the princely price of €3.20, which I rounded up to €4 to ensure that the brewery remains profitable.

Why am I telling you all this? Mainly because I haven’t got anything else to say and that I have just tried one of the four beers, just to celebrate the end of yet another working day. And boy was the beer good, in fact even better quality than the work I did today, which wasn’t too bad either. A satisfyingly full body was livened by just the right amount of hoppy spiciness to ensure a pleasurable passage down my thirsty throat. The best news is that I still have two beers left from Dirlewang as well as a six-pack from a very nice brewery in Ottobeuren as well as a few more local ones that I picked up in a bottle shop. Feel free to pop by for a little tasting session.

A real Dirlewanger waiting to be consumed

All good things must come to an end, they say, and so it was with both the weekend in Bavaria, the bottle of beer from Dirlewang and this blog post. All that remains is to observe that the evening is dark and that the temperature is dropping. This, surely, means that winter is around the corner, and that the Christmas beer is sitting somewhere, maturing, and waiting to be wheeled into the shops and supermarkets, or – if you’re in Norway – the state-controlled monopoly outlets. The only benefit of this monopoly is that they’ve got a catalogue of all the beers you can supposedly buy there, so it makes it much easier to compose your Christmas wish list. In fact, perhaps I’ll just send the entire catalogue off to Santa Claus’ North Pole lair and hope he doesn’t drink it all before he delivers it down the chimney in time for the annual Christmas beer tasting. As they say amongst the Inuits up in that part of the world: Inuuhiqatsiaq!

Bikes, beer and Bavaria!

Bavaria, or Bayern as this part of Germany is known in the native language, has it all, with the possible exception of a coastline. Big bustling cities, small charming towns, snaking rivers, non-snaking canals, tall mountains, refreshing lakes, cycle-friendly roads, non-smoking legislation and lively folk-fests on a weekly basis – what more could you ask for? Well, there’s beer of course. Luckily, Bavaria has more of that than anywhere else on this planet as well as all other planets I’m aware of. So why do people go to Italy on holiday instead? Because people are stupid, that’s why.

I’ve spent most of the last couple of weeks inside the “Free State of Bavaria”, as it’s known to the locals. It might technically be part of Germany, but only because the locals choose this out of their own free will, you understand. This is very important. Should Berlin try and impose some restrictions on the Bavarians that they don’t like, you can safely assume that Europe will gain another independent nation before you can say “Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän”.

There’s an on-going debate as to where the beer-drinker’s heaven on earth is actually located. Some say Belgium. Others say the Czech Republic. Nobody says Iran. I say Bavaria. Mostly because of the fact that in this state alone, there are more than 600 operational breweries that fuel the aforementioned folk-fests and other jolly occasions such as Tuesdays. The vast majority of these breweries are several hundred years old, family-owned, and – not surprisingly – very traditional. This does mean that there’s a certain predictability as to what you will get when you order a beer – almost all have a portfolio consisting of a very drinkable pilsner, an very quaffable helles (light lager), a rich and malty dunkles (dark lager) and a fruity wheat beer. In addition, many also have a Landbier or Vollbier, which is an amber, malty and full-bodied beer.

My lovely wife and I went on a cycling trip through Bavaria a couple of weeks ago. As mentioned in previous blog posts, cycling and beer is a great combination. First and foremost, cycling makes you thirsty, especially on a hot summer’s day. Second and middlemost, you can cover relatively large distances on a bike, so you can visit several breweries in a day. Third and lastmost, a bit of pedalling between breweries means that you sober up sufficiently to avoid risking your own or anybody else’s life due to the combination of your mode of transport and the state of your mental awareness. In other words, with a little bit of planning you can easily visit 4-5 breweries during a happy day of relaxed cycling and even live to tell the tale.

We chose to start our trip in Frankfurt. Not because this is a lovely, charming city (it isn’t), nor because it’s got great beer (it hasn’t), but because it’s got a massive train station that has direct connections from everywhere except Iceland. By following the river Main, which is a tributary to the slightly more well-known river Rhine, you very quickly cross the border into Bavaria – and not just any part of Bavaria, but Franconia, which is where they make loads of wine, until you move a bit further upstream to the region around Bamberg and those nasty vineyards disappear and they start making beer instead.

Small brewery with beer garden

I shan’t describe in detail each and every brewery we visited, since they numbered 42 by the end of the 9^th day in the saddle. There’s a photo of my good self in front of each and every one, but since drinking at all of them would have been somewhat suicidal, especially on the day we visited 11, I’ll limit this blog post to more general observations. Here they are:

1) Most breweries are very small and supply the drinkers at only a handful of pubs, or even just the one where the brewery is situated. In this respect they are similar to modern microbreweries. The main difference is that the vast majority of these breweries have been handed down about a dozen generations of a family with the name Schnausenfutter (or similar), and are therefore typically several hundred years old.

2) The majority of these breweries are found in very small towns or villages where there’s very little sign of life, and a surprising number of these have two or more, often within a few bottle lengths of each other.

3) Each brewery with respect for itself has its own Bierkeller (beer cellar), where people drink in summer. You may think this sounds strange. That’s because it is. What happened was that the brewers needed a cool place to store (lager) their beers, which they found in small underground caves at the local hill – the cellars. Then, the thirsty local people would be drawn like dehydrated magnets to the hill, demanding fresh beer. The brewer, sensing a business opportunity, duly planted a couple of massive trees to provide shade, put up some tables and some chairs, and the rest is history.

4) The beer is, without exception, very good and sometimes absolutely wonderful.

One of the larger ones

Of course, there are plenty of other things to see and do in Bavaria as well. However, since this is a beer blog, I’ll just encourage you to read a travel blog if you crave details on museums, art and outdoor pursuits other than sitting in the beer garden. Meanwhile, you could do worse than cancelling your planned trip to Italy next summer and going to Bamberg instead, which is arguably the beeriest town in the world, being host to no fewer than 9 breweries, including ones that brew beers that taste like bacon, ideal for breakfast. The real treasure is the land that surrounds Bamberg, though, where the main output of most brewers is a malty amber lager that tastes so good that it makes you want to drink nothing else for the rest of your life, which in which case would be happy and short, though considering the number of old fellows seemingly spending all day in the bar, perhaps the opposite is true. The fact that the price of a half litre of this amber treasure is around two euros also means that your holiday budget will stretch very far.

In conclusion, Bavaria should be a mandatory stop on every beer lover’s agenda, and just attending Oktoberfest in Munich does not count. Visiting in summer is recommended, since the shady trees of the Bierkeller provide the ideal environment in which to enjoy a half litre or nine. There’s still time this year, so off you go! See you there - I’ll be the one in the corner with the sweatiest bike and the happiest smile.

Four more beers!

It’s been an inspiring few weeks for beer lovers. Whenever I’ve turned on the TV I don’t have (which, to be fair, wasn’t that often), read a newspaper or surfed the internet, I’ve been completely swamped by reports pouring in from a big country far, far away. The citizens of this country have, according to a Japanese news report I stumbled upon, just had a big erection. This sounds intriguing in its own right, but what I found even more interesting was images of crowds tens of thousands strong chanting “four more beers” whilst waving posters with logos for what I presume must have been various local breweries. I find such footage very stirring, and in my emotionally hoisted state I found myself drawn to my fridge. The rest is, as they say, a history I intend to share with anyone who can be bothered to read on.

Note that even the beer glass is right

The first beer I could lay my grubby mitts on was a fairly local one, in fact one that a colleague of my wife very kindly gave me a few weeks ago: a “Schwarzes Wäldle” brewed by Lammbrauerei from Weilheim, a small village tucked away behind some other equally obscure villages in the south-west of Germany. According to the Internet, this village has, together with its neighbouring village of Rietheim, a grand total of 2637 inhabitants – and one brewery making about 800,000 litres of beer per year. This corresponds to about one litre of beer per day per inhabitant, which sounds about right. I have tried both the pilsner and the “Schwarzes” (black beer, though it's not that black as you can see from the picture above) from this brewery, and in keeping with the output from almost all such small breweries around Germany, the beers are very good without being truly memorable.

A couple of weeks earlier, my wife and I decided to celebrate the unexpected arrival of winter by running a race in southern Bavaria, not far from Munich. After pounding through about 7km of mud with the snow whipping around our whiskers, it was a great relief to discover that the neighbouring hamlet, which boasted a total of 23 houses, had a very nice little brewery called Rössle-Bräu, with a pub attached. Therefore, after collecting a terrific toothbrush as the race prize, we made a beeline for the bar and begged for beer. The lady behind the bar obligingly started to pour me one, but then thoughtfully decided to change the barrel, which meant that I had the privilege, for the first time in my life, to drink the very first beer drawn from a completely fresh cask brewed less than 20 metres away from where I was sitting. Needless to say, this was a special occasion, and the beer did not disappoint: like all good Bavarian house beers it was copper-coloured, malty and beautifully balanced on the palate.

A copper-coloured blogger and ditto beer

The next day brought the opportunity to visit another two local breweries. First up was the Lövenbräu in Bad Wörishofen, a little spa town close, but not too close, to the motorway that goes through Germany. The brewery was classic Bavarian, essentially a brewpub except that unlike its many modern counterparts it’s been brewing for more than 100 years, serving the local population with tasty brews throughout this turbulent time in European history. I had the Export, which again was wonderfully fresh and malty even though it was just after 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Finally, we made a brief stop at the Storchenbräu in Pfaffenhausen, which is situated conveniently a little further from the motorway. Sadly, the brewery pub had closed there, so we had to find the nearest outlet that served their beer, which was a whopping 120 metres away. They actually had a very good black beer, which I tried, but since I’ve forgotten what was nice about it I shan’t try to describe its lovely roasted coffee and dark chocolate notes.

No prizes for guessing what "storch" means

All in all, these four breweries illustrate very nicely what makes Germany such a great country to drink in. Most breweries are small, traditional, family-owned enterprises that serve up very good beer for the local population, and are happy to just do what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years without desperately needing to expand to foreign markets or employ fancy marketing tricks to appeal to new customer groups. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for innovation and new ideas when it comes to beer, but to balance this out it’s also great to have these old breweries where the only change happens every 30 years or so when the next generation takes over.

Anyway, I just heard someone say “oh bummer” on the radio, so perhaps this erection is finally over. Someone mentioned that it’s been the longest and most expensive one in history, so I hope it was worth it. Speaking for myself, the beers I had were certainly worth their malt and my time, and I look forward to yet another four more beers very soon. In the meantime, drink smart and have fun!

Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!

In my last blog post, I had a little go at the lack of German beer culture and the fact that whilst most people may regard the Oktoberfest in Munich as a beer festival, this is exactly what it emphatically is not. It is a festival of fun and drunkenness fuelled by beer, as I experienced myself last week together with three of my best friends from Norway. Since I survided to tell the tale, even if I can't remember all of it, I will try to give you an impression of what it was like to drink part in the mayhem.

Although the Oktoberfest in Munich has spawned countless copycat events around the world, the original remains by far the biggest, the maddest and the most frustrating/fun party in the world. The festival area, known locally as the “Wies’n”, is massive and so are the 15 or so festival “tents”, each of which can keep several thousand drinkers dry, warm and lubricated. Arriving on the Saturday when the event opened, we were immediately struck by two things: rain, and the overwhelming number of people trying to get into one of these tents. There where queues everywhere, though none of them seemed to lead anywhere, at least not somewhere dry, warm and beery. In the end, all four of us tried to find some shelter under a disintegrating umbrella and a piece of wood, and before anyone could say “brrrr” a waiter came over and offered us a litre glass of ice-cold beer each, as long as we were prepared to fork out almost 10 euros for each of them – ridiculously expensive by German standards, but still a bargain seen with our blue-ish Norwegian eyes. Any sensible person would have left the area and headed for an uncrowded and cozy bar somewhere else, but the Oktoberfest is not the place for such clever thoughts so we gratefully accepted and started drinking.

The entrance to the Wies'n

This was hardly an auspicious start to the fun, so things could only improve. Unfortunately, they didn’t. We had another litre, got lost, lost each other, discovered that mobile phones don't necessarily work all the time, accidentally found each other again, drank too many wheat beers whilst still being rained on and, finally, gave up and left. At no point did we even get a sniff of being inside one of these hallowed tents. Rejected and wet, we cursed in several languages and headed for the suburbs where we successfully located both our hotel and a nice brewery.

We hadn’t travelled for hundreds and thousands of kilometres to give up so easily, though, so the next day we turned up bright and early at 10am, expecting to yet again be rejected at the door. However, to our immense surprise we found that not only were we allowed in, we also found a table without any problems. With such startling early success, we decided to simply settle down for the day – and finally, the spirit of the Oktoberfest descended upon us. One litre was magically replaced by another as soon as it had mysteriously disappeared, we were joined by one jolly crowd of people after another, we made several sets of lifelong friends that were immediately forgotten when they left, and in the end we got thrown out for tipping the waitress too much. Well, that’s the only thing we could remember doing wrong, anyway.

Opening parade - with one of the "tents" in the background

The tent we were in was the amusingly fish-themed tent known as “Fischer Vroni”, and the beer we enjoyed was from the only remaining independent, privately owned brewery in Munich, namely Augustiner. The beer was good, both in terms of taste and in terms of generating Gemütlichkeit – a German word that encapsulates nicely the feeling of immense happiness combined with an urge to sing jolly songs in German and dance on the benches together with a few thousand newly found friends of all ages. Generally, Oktoberfest beer is quite strong – just shy of 6% is the norm –and quite malty. Naturally, the breweries put emphasis on drinkability, so the taste isn’t exactly memorable, but it certainly isn’t bland either.

Now having been to the Oktoberfest twice, I consider myself somewhat of a veteran. I will therefore issue the following survival tips. First and foremost, do not bother turning up on the opening day of the festival unless you have tremendous amounts of luck or a very cunning plan indeed. Instead, aim for a weekday or at least a Sunday, and get there early – unless you prefer rollercoasters to beer, it is best to be inside one of the tents. Once at a table, have a beer or five, sing along even if you don’t know the songs and make some friends. You won’t regret it, at least not until you try to leave and find that your muscles for some strange reason don’t work the way they usually do anymore. In fact, it is not a bad idea to leave a bit before closing time anyway, since the crowds tend to thin out a bit towards the end, leaving only those who are too drunk to realize that they should have left long ago.

In conclusion – unless you hate beer or people or both, you should probably try the Oktoberfest at least once. I realize it’s not everyone’s pint of beer, but one of the lasting impressions is just how many different nationalities and age groups find their way to this event. It is not unusual to see young people drinking beer with their grandparents, or Japanese tourists dancing on the benches with Australians whilst singing German drinking songs. So head for Munich, it’s still a few days left of this year’s festival and just over 50 weeks until the next one. Have a great time!