Franconia day four

Anafest day is here at last. We head for the train station, leaving plenty of time. Time enough to do something I've been meaning to for ages: have a beer in the pub next to Ebermannstadt station.

Well, not in the the pub itself. In it's garden, which has some impressively towering trees.

"Any idea what type of tree they are, Andrew?"

"No."

I guess it will remain a mystery. I can tell you this: they were neither willow, nor oak, nor horse chestnut nor, nor elm, nor plane. I can recognise those ones. Some other type of tree.

Every time we've walked past, three or four blokes have been sat at the one table. Must be the Stammtisch. Not sure if they've always been the same chavs, but I'm pretty sure the one with the beard has been there every time.

I ask for a beer. When it arrives I realise that I should have been more specific. This is a St. Georgen house and the regulars are all drinking from Steins. I get this:

Looks like Helles. It's OK, but I've have preferred a Kellerbier. I can't argue about the garden. Lovely trees, bags of shade, a minute from the platform.

Being lazy types, we get the Annafest shuttle bus from Forchheim station. It's one of the first of the day. There are only half a dozen or so people on it. Perfect. The reason I've chosen Monday early afternoon to visit the Fest is simple: I hate people. Or at least crowds of them.

We've arranged to meet Michael and Tom in Greif Keller at 13:00. As we get off the bus I hear:

"Ron, Ron."

It's Michael and Tom, who have come up the hill the old-fashioned way. I doubt I'd have the breath to shout, had I walked up the hill. I live in Holland for a reason.

We head to Greif anyway because, er, not had any Greif beer yet this trip. And their Annfestbier is usually pretty good. This is it:

Not that you can see it, of course, through the Stein. Very nice, it was. We all order food. But mine doesn't turn up. Andrew, who has the appetite of a bird, has only half finished his Schnitzel.

"Can I finish that off?"

"Help yourself, dad."

"I was going to, anyway."

We only stay for the one. Have to pace yourself when on litres. Not that we move far. I'm not making the mistake of climbing all the way to the top of the Kellerwald again. Not without sherpas and oxygen.

Next we head for Hebendanz Keller. Because it's close and I've not had any Hebendanz beer this trip yet. And their Annafest beer is another good one. I'm a man of simple motivation. And pretty lazy. This is the beer:

Don't expect any beer descriptions. Remember, I've abandonned notes this trip. Not that they were much cop, for the most part. You can only come up with so many permutations of "full of beery goodness".

Being early afternoon, there's no music yet. I've been looking forward to hearing "Country Roads" sung in a German accent. It remeinds me of the summer and happy times.

Andrew's none too impressed with the climb to Hebendanz Keller's bogs. Nor their level of cleanliness.

"Just think what they'd look like if they were easier to get to, dad."

About half way through the fourth litre things start getting hazy. By which time we're in Winterbauer Keller drinking St. Georgen. Tom has wimped out with a half litre of Weissbier. Glad he's not my son*. I'm pretty sure we've also been in the Rappen Keller for some Löwenbräu. It feels like it's been quite a trek, but I doubt we've covered more than 50 metres (excluding the climb to Hebendanz Keller's bogs).

The best comes last. As we're on our way out, we notice the last Keller entrance has a single table but no bar or waitresses. Chatting to the people sat there, we discover it's a private Keller.

"Would you like to take a look around?" Is the pope head of a Rome-based religious organisation?

One step inside and the temperature drops 20 degrees. It's lovely. The cold, I mean. The Keller, too, fascinates. It stretches back quite a way and branches several times. Must have been fun digging that little lot out by hand. By the entrance there's a barrel. Serving beer the way god ("Daaad, not that god rubbish again) . . . . The kind owner of the Keller lets us try some. It's the perfect temperature and wonderfully drinkable.

I walk back down the hill with Andrew. Not quite quickly enough, as we miss our train and have to wait almost 2 hours for the next. The drunks at the station, debrid from Annafest amuse and horrify Andrew in equal measure.

"He'd best hope an ICE doesn't come past." He says, pointing to a youth dangling his legs over the edge of the platform.

"Thank you for putting that image in my head, Andrew."

"Or one of those big goods trains."

"I've got the idea. Legs smashed to strawberry jam."

That's Annafest over for another year. I never do get to hear "Country Roads".






* Andrew drank Apfelschorle after round number one.

Franconia day three (part two)

I almost manage to get us lost on our way back to Forchheim station.

"You're like a pigeon, dad."

"Because of of my unerring sense of direction?"

"No, because you can't walk without waggling you head around." Cheeky bastard.

Michael and Tom and waiting for us - most importantly with their car - at Buttenheim station. Thankfully. It's 2.3 km from the station to the St Georgenbräu Keller according to Google Maps. Not that much of a walk, until you consider the heat and the fact that it's all uphill. We'll get our exercise for the day walking back down it. For some reason I think I won't care as much then.

The view from the St Georgenbräu Keller is as stunning as I remember it. Considering which, the occupancy rate is shockingly low. We have our choice of tables. While Michael and Tom dispose of the car, I get in four Kellerbiers.

The Keller is in a beautiful setting, St. Georgen is a cracking beer and the atmosphere oozes the required tranquility. But there's one thing that grates a little: fake barrels. I can live without Bayerischer Anstich. I prefer it, but don't require it. But there's something about fake barrels that really rankles. Why not just be honest about the method of dispense?

We're soon gabbing away about war and peace, love and money, beer and pubs, and things that go bang very loudly. I'm glad Lexie isn't around to hear about all the dangerous-sounding legal explosives.

I don't know if it's really the effect of the trees, but it again seems cooler in the Keller. Could be psychological. Or in my head. Or I could just be imagining it. The beer, that could be it, too.

Michael and Tom cycled to Kreuzberg yesterday. I was there two years ago for Himmelfahrt. Wacky, wacky, day. Not sure I'd want to cycle there, having done the journey by bus. As Michael says, the clue to the difficulty of the ride is in the "berg" part of the name.

"Would you fancy cycling around here, Andrew?"

"No. I only cycle where it's flat, like at home."

"That's not very adventurous."

"I don't see you cycling up any hills." That's a low blow. I'm very sensitive of my inability to ride a bike. I'd never live it down if my colleagues found out.

After a couple, we stroll the few metres down the hill to the Löwenbräu Keller. Not far, but enough to get my thirst going.

"Look Andrew, beer straight from the barrel just . . . "

". . . as god intended. I know, dad. You've aleady said that half a dozen times." I'm pretty sure this is only the third time, but I let it go.

Being at the bottom rather of the hill, there's not much a view from the Löwenbräu Keller. Mostly you can see trees stretching up the hill above you and tables stretching out around the trees beside you. It's still a serene spot, where families languidly snack and sip. I could get used to this pace.

Being in a round with a couple of other committed drinkers has certainly helped me pick up the drinking pace. The beer is slurping down almost as swiftly as the Wiesent cruises through Ebermannstadt.

We leave Michael and Tom in the Keller in the early evening, heading down the hill when the sun's sting has been drawn. It's still hot.

"Don't you wish we'd walked up the hill as well?"

"You know you don't mean that, dad."

Back in Ebermannstadt, I'm feeling a little peckish, so we drop by Resengörg. It's a challening 10 metre walk from our hotel. We just make it, after pausing for oxygen twice, en route. I get a few sausages, sauerkraut and a Dunkles*. Though, as you can see, it's not all that Dunkles a Dunkles:

Andrew has an Apfelschorle.

"Aren't you getting tired of those apple things?"

"Do you get tired of those beer things?"

Good point.








* Hetzelsdorfer Dunkles Vollbier








St. Georgenbräu Keller
Strasse zum Georgenbräukeller,
96155 Buttenheim


Löwenbräu Keller
Eremitage 3
96155 Buttenheim
Tel. 09545 / 50 93 46


Hotel-Gasthof Resengörg
Hauptstraße 36
91320 Ebermannstadt
Tel. 09194 / 73930
Fax 09194 / 739373
http://www.resengoerg.de/

Making summer beer drinking safe

This seems very appropriate as I'm in Germany drinking in beer gardens right now.

I'd often wondered why many German steins and glasses had those little tin hats. All about stimulating local industry:

"MAKING SUMMER BEER-DRINKING SAFE.
A novel health edict has recently been issued in Germany. The Bavarian Ministry of Public Health has announced that open beer tankards (steins) are not hygienic for use during the summer in open air, dust-swept beer-gardens, and that they should be exchanged for containers with solid tin-covers. This appeal, which has been made to stimulate the long-established tin-manufacturing industry in Bavaria, is meeting with a ready response."
Brewers' Journal 1934, page 340.

I assumed the lids were there to stop wasps of shit falling off trees getting into your beer. Seems I was wrong.

Trees

I hate sunlight. My pale, white skin has no resistance, blistering and bubbling at its slightest touch. So I always sit in the shade. But there's shade and there's shade.

On a wooded hill, far from roads and cars, noise and fumes, sitting behind a beer. Life has few greater pleasures. The canopy sucking the heat from the sun's rays, long before they clatter to earth. Odd spots of ochre paint splashing the ground. A bird chattering wall of trees,weaving webs of green, shifting in every breath of breeze.

A forest is so much better cover than some poxy umbrella. It's not just cooler. It's cooler in the other sense, too. So much more right. More natural. More human.

I've lived in cities since I was 18. I enjoy the shops and trams and pubs and buses, the to and fro and hub and bub. Rarely do I trouble the countryside. Rendering the effect all the greater, the odd time I crawl back into its tender, comforting womb.

There's nothing like a real Franconian Bierkeller. Spread under spreading trees, tables reaching like fingers, tenderly touching the trunks. Rough furniture, still half forest, beckoning in drinkers: "Come and sit with me a while."

Of course, there's beer. Long, cool draughts, clad in grey clay pots. Upright, honest country beer. Beer that looks back without flinching, a faithful friend for life. 

I love the city. But my most memorable moments were amongst trees.

Munich to Buttenheim

I'm just back from a week in Bavaria. North Bavaria, mostly. Some magical times, some more prosaic ones. For the next week or two I'll be forcing you to relive it with me. hope it isn't too much torture.


Friday 11th June Munich airport 12:30


For reasons I really can't be bothered to explain, Mike and I didn't fly to Munich together. His plane is due to land at 12:30. Our train from Munich Hauptbahnhof is at 13:55. And the journey from the airport takes 40-45 minutes. "We've plenty of time" Mike reassured me, after booking the tickets. Yeah, right.

12:40 is the estimated arrival time. I keep making mental calculations. It doesn't look good. 12:40 comes. The plane hasn't landed, but the estimated arrival time is now 12:35. Must to some sort of time vortex over the airport.

Mike appears through the sliding doors at 12:55. "No rush, we've got 20 minutes." Mike had read that the S-Bahn took around 40 minutes to the Hauptbahnhof. That would be true if S-Bahn's left every minute. But they don't. Only every 10 minutes or so.

I've had the foresight to get us S-Bahn tickets. There are two waiting in the station: an S8 and an S1. The S1 is due to leave in 9 minutes and the journey time is given as 43 minutes. And it's 12:03. The S8 is due to leave in 1 minute, journey time 41 minutes.

I'm in such a rush to get on, that I forget to stamp our tickets. Which means they aren't valid.

"See, that wasn't too bad." Yeah. Two minutes later and we would have been fucked. We still could be if the S-Bahn is delayed for any reason. I start fretting about delays. Then I remember the bloke I saw get fined just yesterday for not having a valid ticket. On an S8. Should I burden Mike with this?

"I forgot to stamp the tickets." Why should I be the only one to worry. " And I saw a bloke get a 40 euro fine." But Mike isn't the worrying type.

Luckily, we're in Germany. The S-Bahn is dead on time. We've 10 minutes to get from the underground station to our ICE. It being Friday afternoon, the train is mobbed. And we have no seat reservations.

Mike finds two seats opposite each other with bags on them. At the third request the surly young adult removes his bag from Mike's seat.. "Klootzak." I say. Hope he doesn't understand Dutch as I've just noticed that he looks rather muscular.

"That was a rush, Mike."

"No it wasn't. we didn't have to run, did we?" Mike has an original view of what constitutes a rush.

"We made it by the skin of our teeth."

"No we didn't. We had 10 minutes to spare."

"Two minutes later at the S-Bahn and we couldn't have made it."

"But we didn't have to run."

It's pointless trying to push the point.


Buttenheim

I won't bore you with the lateness of the ICE, nor the pissing around in Munich station trying to find the connecting train. It's hot. Way too hot for me.



It's still hot when we arrive at Buttenheim station. It's not actually in Buttenheim. It's in a village called Altenberg Altendorf. Buttenheim is about a kilometre away. All uphill. I'm glad I've got Lexie's bag with wheels.

We get to our hotel all hot and sweaty. By the time we've checked in, we're even hotter and sweatier. My room is tucked under the roof, in full sunlight. It's boiling hot. Somehow, I've managed to get even hotter and sweatier. Sticking my head under the cold tap helps. Until I take it out again.

We walk right past the St. Georgen and Löwenbräu brewery taps. We're still sweat and hotty, but have another destination in mind. We're heading for Kellerstrasse. Now guess what's on that?


Bierkeller. In Fraconia, it doesn't mean the same as in the English-speaking world. It isn't a beer hall. It isn't even necessarily any type of permanent structure. It's a hangover from the days before artificial refrigeration. Brewers would store their beer in natural rock cellars, often just outside town. Packed with natural ice harvested from ponds, these cellars stayed cool all summer. Trees were planted to shade the entrances. Then some bright spark had the idea of selling their beer directly from the cellar. Add few picnic tables and away you go. A Bierkeller. One of man's greatest inventions.


We've two choices. St. Georgenbräukeller, up the hill; Löwenbräukeller just over the road. I'm sweatily hot and gagging for a beer. No way I'm walking up that effing hill.

They're selling Kellierbier, logically enough. Straight out of a barrel. The first one magically disappears into the pool of sweat that used to be my body.

"Do you want another, Mike?" I don't wait for a reply. There's no queue at the beer counter. And I'm counting on getting another beer quickly.

"1.80 for half a litre? The robbing bastards."

After two I've cooled enough for Mike to be able to persuade me to walk up to St. Georgenbräu. I won't try to describe the view. To do it an injustice with words like stunning or breathtaking. I breathe it in. Deep green breaths of countryside. Deep soothing breaths. And all the rush, all the sweat, all the annoyance are gone. I'm as happy as I've been in months. Calm, content and 100% on holiday.

They're dispensing their Kellierbier from fake barrels. it isn't a spot on Löwenbräu's. But I couldn't give a toss. There's more than just beer. Intangibles just as vital to the experience, the joy of life spreading through me.

And they've got Bierhaxe for just 5 euros.

Life really doesn't get better than this. Does it?


You'll find out tomorrow (or whenever I get around to writing it) in part two. When we head for Kulmbach. And a relaxing country walk.




Löwenbräu Keller
Eremitage 3
96155 Buttenheim
Tel. 09545 - 509346