Category: Germany

The first order of business on Monday was to head back to Bamberg. The problem was that Monday was a holiday – and a religious holiday at that. Unlike the States where everything is open, a holiday in Germany means everything is closed (except for restaurants we later discovered). By the way, I think the holiday is Pfingstmontag.

So, it was with a bit of worry that we approached Maisel Brau and much to our relief we saw a sandwich board out front – they were open.

But where were all the people? It was another beautiful, sunny day – a holiday and the biergarten was practically empty. Perplexed, we had a beer, Merideth a Pils and myself a Kellerbier, and decided to head into the Aldtstadt and to Bamberger Biertage.

We really weren’t sure what “Bamberg Beer Days” was about, but we figured that there would be beer and maybe that was where all the people were. What we remember about Bamberg from last June was that it was wall to wall people. But when we started walking from the parking garage to Maximillian Platz, where the beer days was being held, it was like walking through a ghost town. Still no people.

We found the plaza and it was completely empty. There were scores of empty tables and each Bamberg brewery had an empty booth. We finally saw a sign and the fun didn’t start until 4pm – four hours away.

But all was not lost. There was a booth selling bottles of beer and we were able to procure four bottles for our beer tasting after assuring the woman we were not going to be drinking them there. And on an interesting note, the beer we purchased was the one we lost last year in the broken bottle disaster at LAX.

Undaunted, we decided to do the only thing one should do on a religious holiday – visit a monastery. Of course, this one had a brewery, Altes Klosterbrauerei. Why else would we be there? Funny thing is that I’m not even sure of the name of the monastery.

After an unexpected long-ish walk up a hill, we found all the people we had been expecting in Bamberg. Granted not everyone was there to drink beer, rather they were there to view the ornate monastery buildings and maybe even buy something at one of the cheesy shops selling every manner of religious object.

But a number of people, like us, found the pleasant beer garden above the cathedral. The brewery only had two beers, a Pils and a Dunkel, but you really didn’t need much more choice than that.

We ordered a couple beers and grabbed a seat overlooking the cathedral. It is hard to describe the peaceful feeling of relaxing in a beer garden; basking in the sun, enjoying the tranquility and a beer. To me, this sums up beer travel in Germany.

In my recent Top 10 blog, I mentioned that I liked the Bergkirchweih Beer Festival better than Oktoberfest. And, after going to the Berg for the second time, I still hold to that.

In fact, Chris says that I can officially state that thebeergeek.com prefers the Berg to Oktoberfest. There are many reasons that I like it better. First of all, it is a German’s beer fest. While the time changes slightly each year, for the most part, the Berg happens before the start of tourist season, so there are not many foreigners present. I think the only English we heard was from our own mouths and the mouths of those brave enough to try to talk with us.

Next, is that the Berg is smaller and much less overwhelming. That’s not to say that there are not a lot of people. Saturday night was packed with very young, very rambunctious people (read: drunk). I think I waited in line for the toilet for 45 minutes! You learn fast to better plan for bathroom stops. Sunday, Mother’s Day, was much more manageable and I think I only waited about 15 minutes for the toilet.

Mother’s Day brings me to another reason I like the Berg; it’s family oriented. This can be good or bad. It’s good in the sense that you can bring in your own picnic, water, etc. People even bring table cloths to put down as they pull out their picnic spread. The bad part is that the kid factor can be a bit much for non-breeders like us.

Yesterday we were playing scrabble when our table became overrun with a mutli-kid, multi-adult group. At one point, one of the men said “Your peace is over, with kids and Latins at the table”. (They were all speaking Spanish). He was right, but I wasn’t too worried until one especially active youngster, Christian, was practically sitting on my lap. I lost the scrabble game, by the way.

Overall, we had a great time at the Berg. The beer was plentiful, the people were friendly, and the weather was exceptional. All and all a recipe for a great beer festival.

Today we are trying again to get in a Bamberg brewery and a few others on the way to Rödental, our final stop for tonight. We learned yesterday that today is a religious holiday, Whit Monday, so we’re hoping that places will be open. I was assured last night that even religious holidays can’t keep the Germans away from their beer. Apparently Mother’s Day doesn’t either.

It is good to be back in Germany. This is our seventh visit to Germany and we have never been disappointed in our travels through this country. While we have only added two new breweries to our list so far, it hasn’t been for a lack of trying.

We arrived Friday late morning after two uneventful flights. Our plan was to go to a brewery in Ochsenfurt, have some lunch and then head on to our final destination of the day. We found the brewery just fine but they didn’t have any attached restaurant like I thought they did. Undaunted, we walked into town and had lunch at a small restaurant and did get to enjoy the brewery’s beers. Unfortunately, the brewery doesn’t make the list.

We spent the first night in a small town called Neuhaus at Hotel Zum Löwenbräu which is a brewery hotel. The brewery hotel is one of mankind’s greatest inventions and we have found the ones in Germany to be the nicest and least expensive places to stay. Plus, you’re guaranteed good German food and beer just a few paces from your room.

While we were enjoying dinner at the hotel on Friday night, we were wondering where all the people were. Neuhaus was a small town and the place we were staying was the only restaurant in town. On our walk the next morning, we discovered the Löwenbräu Felsenkeller, their beer garden in the the forest. It looked really cool and we figured that was where everyone was the previous evening. So, if you are ever in Neuhaus, check out the Felsenkeller.

After our walk on Saturday morning, we decided to head into Bamberg to get two of the breweries that we had missed last year. Admittedly, I could have done a bit more research, but I assumed that if we get there at noon, everything would be fine. Wrong. One didn’t open until 2pm and the other 5pm. And what we thought was funny was that on Sunday, both opened at 11am.

Denied beers in Bamberg, we headed down to Erlangen to get settled before the Bergkirchweih on Saturday night. Up the street from our hotel is the Kitzmann brewery and unlike every other place we had been to that day, it opens at 10am. So at 3pm, we enjoyed the first beers of the day and the requisite German food consisting mainly of pork.

Then it was on to the Bergkirchweih Beer Festival. The woman at the hotel desk gave us a good luck warning when we told her we were in Erlangen for the festival. Last year, we went on the last weekend. Yesterday it was the first weekend. And as you can probably guess, it was a different experience. On the last weekend, the Berg is pretty mellow; the locals are probably beer-ed out, granted a concept hard to attach to Germans.

However, the locals were going all out yesterday. And it helped that the weather was perfect; between 75 and 80 degrees.

We arrived around 5pm and easily found a table and got our first liter; we were sharing at first since it was going to be a long evening.

After talking with a German family from Bayreuth who had joined us at our table, we walked around and reminisced about the places we were just 11 months ago. We sat here… that’s the tent where the mean waitress gave us the over-salted radish… there is the oxen roasting place… It’s odd to be nostalgic about such recent events but it was on our trip last June that we embarked on our beergeek.TV adventure. So, it was interesting to be back, remembering how green we were less than a year ago.

While the festival was manageable during daylight, once it got dark, the throngs arrived and the Berg became this one big mass of drunken people.

Merideth did engage in that German tradition of drinking liters of beer and going on fast, whirling carnival rides. Someone did puke on Merideth’s ride, but it wasn’t her.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so I assume the Berg is going to be mellow… at least until the sun sets.