On the Bierkeller, not in it

Löwenbräu Buttenheim 

Normally, you know where you are with a Bierkeller – in a large basement hall, full of tables, benches and yes, beer. It means ‘beer cellar’, right? Yet there we were, actually drinking on a wooded hillside in Franconia. So why do the locals call what anyone else would say is a Biergarten, a Bierkeller?

The answer is that there will indeed be a real Keller, or cellar, under here somewhere. Back in the days before artificial refrigeration was invented, breweries needed somewhere cool to lager their beer for months on end, especially during the warm summers when they couldn’t brew.

If there weren’t natural caves around to use, they went into the hills around the town and dug their own – cellars that stayed at a constant 8 degrees C all year round, thanks to their earth insulation. And if there weren’t already shady trees on top, they planted some – typically broad-leaved horse chestnuts, Kastanie in German, which is why so many Bierkellers (and Biergartens) have names such as Kastaniengarten.

So now you have a cellar in the woods, full of beer. What’s more natural than to put a few tables and benches out the front, and drink some of that beer? And the name stuck, but you go “auf den Bierkeller” – on the cellar, not in it.

As luck would have it – well, in truth luck had very little to do with it – our recent trip to Buttenheim put us within walking distance of two popular Bierkellers. In need of dinner on our arrival, we were told Löwenbräu Buttenheim had the better food offering, even if it wasn’t the more scenic of the two.

The food was indeed good, and so was the location – OK, so its view of the town was dominated by the tower of local rival St. GeorgenBräu Buttenheim, but the bierkeller itself rises up the hillside in tree-shaded terraces. At the top is a covered area, like a hall with no walls, and beyond that are the woods – and in the woods, a play area complete with zipwire which delighted the kids. As with most Bierkellers, it’s all self-service – you order food and beer at serveries, the beer to take back to your table with you and the food to pick up when your number is called. You clear your own table and return the empties to the appropriate hatch, too.

It's a simple menu at Roppelt's

A couple of days later we again needed a place to eat and for the kids to run about, so I grabbed the opportunity for a return visit to somewhere I fondly remembered from seven years ago: Roppelt’s Keller, not far away in Stierlimbach. It was already busy by late afternoon on a weekday, but thankfully we were just early enough to get both a parking space and a table – of course by the time we left, still in daylight, it was even busier.

 There’s obviously been changes in the time since our last visit – the playground, which was large even back then, had been seriously upgraded and I think moved, the woods had grown (surprise!) and I reckon there’s more tables now. But as long as you ignore the wasps, it’s lovely – great beer, nature, stuff to amuse the kids, and a good range of the local equivalent of pub-grub, so sausages, sandwiches, chops and so on. Bang on trend, they even have an alcohol-free version of their Kellerbier, and pretty decent it is too.

Buttenheim at sunset

Talking of beer, at most Kellers you’ll only find one or two draught offerings. First and foremost is the Kellerbier, then there might also be a Weizen or a seasonal, such as a Märzen. There’s usually a few bottles on offer, often the Weizen will be bottled too.

It wasn’t until late on our last evening in town when I finally made it to the St. GeorgenBräu Keller. I’ve had a few of their beers before – the brewery is fairly substantial and its bottled beers are fairly widely distributed. They even can their Kellerbier now! It feels more planned and organised than most other Bierkellers I've been to, and perhaps just a little less characterful – there’s a proper bar, and the terraces are even and straight. But whatever – there’s excellent Kellerbier and Helles on tap, plenty of room, and the sunset view across the town is gorgeous.

Back to Bamberg

After a day in the Franconian countryside, it was time to head for the Big City – or at least one of the biggest in the world of beer: Bamberg. The local beer scene has changed a fair bit since I was there seven years ago, so I was really looking forward to exploring some of the new places. The challenge, since the plan was a bit of touristing and shopping in the morning with the kids, before I got the afternoon to myself, was to find somewhere the kids would enjoy. Luckily, while it wasn’t easy to spot on its dusty suburban street, Hopfengarten Bamberg proved an excellent and friendly choice. 

At first, it looks like the entrance to a yard, then there's greenery hinting at a hidden garden, then a passage between dusty greenhouses, and finally it opens up into a huge area behind the houses. Hopfengarten is just a part of it, but there is indeed a hop garden with long tables under arches of hops, there’s a sandpit and a pond (=happy kids!), fruit trees, a herb garden and more. Gardeners were at work fixing things up – I think that, like many places, it had not long been open again after the long Coronavirus shutdown.

It was still early in the day, we were the only visitors and although the bar was advertising their special edition herbal and fruit beers, nothing was pouring. Thankfully, after we’d said hello and poked around the garden a bit, we were asked if we’d like samples – Kellerpils and Rotbier, straight from the fermenters of “the smallest brewery in town” (it looked to be a 100 or 200-litre brewkit). And very nice they were too, while we sat amongst the greenery.  

As we walked into the centre for the shops and some lunch, I spotted another new place to check out – Zum Sternla. Well, it’s not exactly new, in fact they claim the site dates back to 1380, although it’s only been a pub for 250 years or so. What is new though is that last year they put a brewhouse into an extension built onto the rear of the pub.

The biergarten in the courtyard here showed how seriously some venues here are taking social distancing. Large panels between the tables turned each one into almost an alcove, table staff everywhere wear masks or face-shields, and even outdoors in a biergarten you have to cover your face while moving around – the mask can only come off when you are seated. (In contrast, it felt really weird going into a pub in Chiswick this week where no one, not even the staff, had a mask on.) 

Zum Sternla Roggenbier, nur ein schnitt!

The beers were fairly typical for the area and for a German brewpub – a golden lager (Vollbier Export), a Pils and a Zwickel, which I believe is the Vollbier but unfiltered. Luckily, my visit also coincided with the first tapping of their new seasonal Roggenbier, which proved to be a nice example of the style – it’s a top-fermented beer similar to a Hefeweizen, but made with rye not wheat.

Of course it’s not all traditional local beer styles in Bamberg, but it can be hard to find anything else! So while I wanted to catch up with a couple of ‘new wave’ Bamberg brewers we’d met while we were all visiting Hamburg earlier this year, I knew it wasn’t going to be too easy. For a start, both Blech.Brut and Atelier der Braukunst are what’s known in Germany as ‘cuckoo brewers’, sharing or renting brewing capacity from others, so a brewery visit was out of the question. And most of the beer shops just focus on the wealth of traditional local brewing. 

Fortunately I’d been recommended to one that didn’t, namely the local branch of Die Bierothek, a group of craft beer shops. Again it was somewhere new to me – or at least I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there seven years ago, as I’d have walked past it on my evening perambulations between our rented apartment and Brauerei Spezial.

What's in the hand sanitiser?!

I find myself in two minds about craft beer shops. On the one hand, everything costs more – there’s classic Franconian beers in this one at €2 or €3 a bottle, but which I’d picked up the day before for €1 to €1.50 at a supermarket on the Memmelsdorf road. On the other, they have beers that I doubt you’d find anywhere else in the area – even some of the rural Franconian stuff probably doesn’t normally travel into the city. So I picked up a few cans – and once you’re into the €6/can area the additional margin is minimal anyhow – and made way for other shoppers. 

Of course something was bound to go wrong, and it did. I’d carefully avoided making my trip on the Monday, as that’s often the day-off for places that open over the weekend (“Montag Ruhetag”), but what I’d missed was that quite a few venues now close Mon-Weds or even Sun-Weds inclusive – and one of them was my next target, another newcomer called Landwinkl Bräu. Ah well, a restorative mug of Rauchbier in the Brauerei Spezial courtyard was only a few hundred yards away...  

Just two more targets left on my list. The first was Aecht Schlenkerla, not for a drink as time was running a bit short, but to pick up bottles of their three new low-alcohol beers: the unsmoked Bamberger Heinzlein Hell & Dunkel, and Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Hansla. They’re reputedly based on historical examples – the local equivalent of ‘small beer’, I assume. 

The last was a bit more of a struggle, but worth it – the long haul up Kaulberg to Brauerei Griefenklau. It’s another favourite venue, and I was just early enough to get half a table at the end of the biergarten, overlooking the gardens below and with this green and leafy view across to Die Altenburg on the hill opposite. A lovely place to sit and sip a Zwicklbier as dusk began to creep in. 

Around Bamberg #9: Bierkellers and beer terroir

"Another Bierkeller? I don't mind if I do..." OK, this is absolutely the final post from our trip to Oberfranken, and while it unfortunately won't be quite as long as Boak & Bailey wanted for their "Go long" day, I hope it will at least be a thoughtful one.

It's Saturday morning and we're in the car on the way to Forchheim for the Annafest. On the way we pass several signs pointing to various country beer-gardens, or Bierkellers as they are known hereabouts for reasons previously mentioned. It's a blazing sunny day and beer is definitely in order but we ignore the signs because we already have a destination for lunch: Roppelt's Keller.

It's already pretty busy when we finally wind our way down the dusty track and argue over which side of the car park might actually get some shade soon (answer - the one that's already fully occupied...) but there are still some tables free at the back towards the playground. A climbing frame: that's one small boy happy, anyhow.

Once we get our bearings it doesn't take long to en-happy the rest of us too, thanks to half-litre ceramic krugs of Kellerbier for about €2 each - no wonder paying €7.40 a litre at Annafest came as a shock later. The seating area is substantial, partly shaded by trees and partly by roll-out shades, then there are assorted buildings around. One houses the bar counter plus a second counter for cakes and stuff, and another houses the kitchen and hot food counter. There's also a large drinking room around the back, presumably for use in bad weather. It's all self-service as usual with Franconian Kellers.

Franconian Weisse: mostly Meh...

Kellerbier and large chunks of braised pork, sat in the shade on a sunny day and with the option of a post-prandial stroll in the woods - what more could you want? OK, I had to try the Weissbier too and that was only so-so, but still it was a wrench to have to leave as check-in time for our hotel approached.

Then on Sunday, Annafest was lovely to start with, but with the noise and bustle - and the requirement to drink everything in litres - it began to pall. There were still several hours of light left though so again we got into the car and drove into the countryside, headed this time for the Witzgall Keller.

It's not so easy to see - there's a sign by the side of a fairly quiet country road, then a field with a few cars parked in it. From here we could make out a house of some sort in the woods and hear voices, so we walked into the woods and there it was - a low building surrounded on three sides by tables and trees. It’s green and leafy, and although there was occasional traffic on the road, it wasn't intrusive.

This time there's only the one beer on offer - a lovely hoppy, lightly earthy and bitter Landbier - and the bar is inside, where the living room would be if this was a house. The food counter is outside, fronting the small terrace. For the kids there’s a sandpit and some old stones to climb on, plus of course the woods to ramble in.

Again, we find ourselves in no particular hurry to move on, and it's only dusk and the boy's impending bedtime that levers us away from our krugs. On the way back to the car, we spot what appears to be the cellar door at one end of the building - by the look of it, it's built directly over the entrance to the actual Keller.

Just recently I found myself thinking back to these two Bierkellers and the others we'd visited a few days earlier, and I realised it wasn't the first time I'd had Franconian Kellerbier. In the past though it hadn't really grabbed me, where as on this trip it had been great. The difference of course was that the previous examples had been bottled, and sampled some considerable distance from their source.

So it struck me: was it simply the drinking environment? For surely any beer will taste better in sunshine and in lovely verdant surroundings. Or was it the terroir, the "sense of place" and the unique qualities that agricultural products derive from the sum of the effects that their local environment - the geography, geology, climate, even the local human culture - has on their production? Could these beers ever be as good elsewhere, even in an equally sunny and green beer-garden somewhere else? I'm not sure that they could, to be honest.

You can take the bier out of the keller, but can you take the keller out of the bier?

As a postscript, raising this topic on Twitter and Facebook produced some interesting feedback, and it looks to me as if there are at least three factors at work here. As well as the terroir, there is what Germans call the "Freibad fritten" effect - the fact that quite ordinary stuff tastes better in the right environment and circumstances (chips after a refreshing swim at an open-air pool, in the case of Freibad fritten).

But there's a third factor too, which is that these beers - like the Lithuanian ones that Lars Garshol writes about on his blog - are typically unfiltered and unpasteurised, and often ungespundet too (this approximately translates to having an unpressurised secondary fermentation in cask, a bit like British real ales). That means they'll have a shorter shelf life, they won't travel as well, and yes, they really are going to be freshest and best at the source.

Have I missed anything?

Around Bamberg #8: a sunny Sunday in the Bierwald

A Hebendanzly view...

A bit delayed, I know, but we're finally coming towards the end of the week... Annafest on Sunday afternoon was both more organised and more civilised. We started earlier – after lunch – and the place was generally less crowded. The combination of beer with warm sunshine and green shady trees was sublime.

We had the boy with us this time, so we explored the fairground on the way and were also delighted to find that, as well as Bierkellers and lots of food and snack stalls, the woods hold a number of children's playgrounds. We even found a wine-tasting bar, set up to raise money for the local volunteer fire brigade.

The event felt different today – less frenetic than Saturday night, unsurprisingly, and there was the sense of people settling into favourite places for a long and enjoyable afternoon's boozing. Apparently this is indeed what happens – most people find their preferred Keller and just stay there for hours, with none of this awkward moving around to find different beers...

Grief Festbier

So when we did move around, it wasn't that hard to find a free table. After starting in the Greif Keller, we moved across the way to Hebendanz which goes up into the woods in a series of terraces and had plenty of room on the upper decks. After a few excursions for food, ice cream and so on, we wandered back down the hill to the Kupfer Keller, which this year it had a special beer on. This was Brauwastl Festbier, created by three hobby-brewer friends from the town who then had their recipe commercially brewed by Neder.

So how were the beers? A bit samey, I thought. With the exception of the Brauwastl, all were malty quaffing lagers with a varying degrees of sweetness and not a lot of bitterness. Some had light spicy notes and a faint roastiness. I think I'm going to call them Kellermärzens, which is a term I just made up but which I reckon is a good fit.

They were also rather expensive – the standard price was €7.40 a litre, plus normally €5 deposit on your Maßkrug. This is in an area where a regular countryside Bierkeller might charge €3.50 or €4 a litre for its Kellerbier, albeit that will not be quite as strong (maybe 4.9% to 5.3% for a typical Kellerbier, versus 5% to 6% for the Festbiers). But these are festival prices, so I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised at them.

(By the by, I should quickly point out that it's not all Festbiers. Most Kellers also have a couple of bottled beers on offer, typically a Weisse and maybe a Dunkel. These you can buy in halves as well as litres – the latter just means they pour two bottles into one Maßkrug for you.)

The best of the five regular Festbiers was the Grief: fuller bodied than the others and with touches of toasted orange and a little more bitterness. Overall though, it was the Brauwastl. Perhaps it was the fact that it wasn't an easy-quaffing Kellermärzen that made it taste notably better, or perhaps it was that it was significantly darker than the others, verging towards a Schwarzbock or a stronger version of Neder's Schwarze Anna, and that I like dark beers.

Would I go again? Of course – though I'd probably try for midweek if feasible. I reckon Ron Pattinson's idea of going there on Monday was pretty good. And as well as a friend or two, I'd take a couple of smaller glasses to decant into, so litres could be shared....

A week around Bamberg #7: Annafest

The town of Forchheim, about 25km south of Bamberg, is best known for Annafest, a week-long beer festival which attracts up to half a million visitors each year – and one of the reasons for choosing the dates we did for our Franconian trip was so we could tag a weekend at Annafest on the end.

Early on the first evening of Annafest

While nowhere near as well known outside Germany as Munich's Oktoberfest, it is pretty famous within the country. It takes place in the Kellerwald, or Cellar Woods, above Forchheim.

What's a Kellerwald? In the days before mechanical refrigeration, brewers used caves or cellars to keep their beer cool while it matured – this is of course the lagering process. In some places they dug these cellars in the woods and hillsides, and then at some point some bright spark must have thought, "Hey, we've got all this beer on hand and a really nice location, why don't we build a bar next to the lagering cellar?" And so the Bierkeller was born – well, more or less!

What with medieval towns often having a dozen or more brewers, in Forchheim's Kellerwald there are not two, not four, but 23 scattered among the woods in two main clusters, the obere and untere (higher and lower) Bierkellers. Some are open all year, but others open only around the time of the Annafest, for which each of the local breweries – there are still four in the town plus several others in the surrounding countryside – brews a special Festbier.

If I understand correctly, the Festbiers were originally only available at the festival, though today that's no longer true – some are also bottled, while at least one turned up on tap in London, on the foreign bar at this year's Great British Beer Festival.

We knew the festival opened on the Saturday, and the easiest thing would have been to travel down for the day. However, we also had to leave our Bamberg lodgings on Saturday, as it was already booked for the following week and Saturday is changeover day. So given that we had to move lodgings we figured we may as well head down to a Forchheim hotel for the weekend.

There's a lot of beer in there...

In hindsight, going to perhaps the second-biggest beer festival in Bavaria on the opening evening wasn't the best plan ever. It was rammed, totally rammed. Queues for everything, the staff so overloaded that people were waiting up to an hour for food, and noise everywhere, from bands, from the adjacent fairground, and simply from thousands of people yelling at each other.

And yet, what an experience... One of the first discoveries was that the draught Festbiers are only offered for sale in litre mugs, called Maßkrugs. I discovered later that some servers might take pity and sell you a half-litre if you claim to be a poor, weak-bellied foreigner. Hm, maybe next year! For this year though it was a case of abandoning any thoughts of sampling all 10 or 11 Festbiers (most breweries now sell through multiple Kellers) and focusing instead on simply finding a place to sit.

In the event we managed a litre each at three different Bierkellers – Neder, Eichhorn and Rittmayer – stretched over about three hours and accompanied by a decent plate of dinner, before giving in to exhaustion and heading back. The most amusing sight was probably three girls sharing a single Maß, via a straw. I did take surreptitious photos, but sadly lost them.

Next: a sunny Sunday at the Kellerwald

A week around Bamberg #4: Wunderful Wunderburg

While central Bamberg is justly noted for its old breweries and pub, the suburb of Wunderburg is almost as famous: it is the home of not one but two commercial breweries, each with its brewery tap and beer garden. Getting there is pretty easy – you can walk from the old town in less than half an hour, but given the heat we took the bus.

Keesmann has an old facade but appears more 1970s inside, with pale wood and sprinklings of antler – mind you, much of Germany still seems to be in love with the 1970s... The beer garden is more of a yard next to the distribution depot, but is fenced off and garlanded with boxes of geraniums.

I ignored the Herren Pils (Pils? In Bamberg?!) in favour of the excellent Sternla lager, like a bitter and faintly citrussy version of a Vienna lager. A brief experiment with the Weiss revealed it to be dull but quaffable – this turned into a recurring theme with Franconian Weissbiers.

Mahrs Bräu is just over the road. The building feels much older, though perhaps that's just the dark, dark wood and worn flagstones. The irregular garden has big chestnut trees for shade, and until mid-afternoon when table service starts, you must fetch your beer from the bar yourself – this is quite unusual for Germany, though we discovered later that it is typical for Franconian country Kellers.

Four beers were on tap, the best being the gorgeous Ungespundet Kellerbier, or "Oo". A hazy orange-brown, it is dry, bitter and a bit spicy, with earthy and floral notes. Very much how I imagine a bitter ale might taste if it were made as a lager, in fact.

After a good lunch, it was back on a bus and up the hill to Greifenklau for a dry and lightly spicy Helles in its shady and spacious beer garden, with its great view. I was interested to notice Greifenklau has just begun brewing its own Pils too – this is not a traditional local style, but is increasingly common now.

Back down the hill and walking through the old town, we were passing Bamberg's youngest brewpub Ambräusianum, so decided to take a break from the heat, although this proved challenging as there was a distinct shortage of umbrellas! It was the only one to offer a tasting flight of beers; sadly they were the typical uninspiring range I now expect from a German brewpub – a Hell, a Dunkel, a Weizen and a seasonal. The latter, a pale Dinkelbier (spelt beer) was at least refreshingly tangy and dry, and the best of a rather dull bunch.

Thankfully, we were able to end the day on a higher note, with a malty, nutty and smoky Rauchbier Märzen in the courtyard at Brauerei Spezial, back across the river and not far from our lodgings.

A week around Bamberg #2: an Oberfranken biergarten tour

What's the deal with Zoiglstube Drei Kronen Straßgiech? We finished up this afternoon's tour there, and it's a really nice village pub-restaurant with excellent beer and food, but is it really the best beer venue in Bavaria, as voted by Ratebeer users?

Just part of the garden space at Weiher

On the way there we visited first Brauerei Kundmüller, of most excellent Weiherer fame, and then the Wagner-Bräu Kemmern bier-keller. Both had great beer, with more choices on tap and better prices, cheaper food – albeit Franconian pub-grub rather than restaurant fare – and both have lovelier, greener settings, with playgrounds for the kids, more space, and so on.

(Reading through the reviews on Ratebeer though, I notice something – it's almost as if we were the only visitors not to get a personal tour of from Mr Gänstaller himself. Perhaps we missed something significant!)

Green views at Kemmern

That said, I'd recommend all three places, probably in the order we did them: Weiherer is the only one open for lunch as well as in the evening, then Wagner-Bräu Kemmern with its gorgeous view and extensive terrace for the afternoon – it opens at 3:30.

Do make sure you find the Wagner Keller though, not merely the brewery tap in town. To get to the Keller you pass the brewery, cross the river heading back into the countryside, then it's up a dirt(ish) track and look for the sign. Park at the bottom of the hill and walk up.

The Zoiglstube star

Finally, Gänstaller's Drei Kronen is a really nice place to end up for dinner. Two excellent beers on tap and a short but more than adequate menu of mostly regional specialities.

As usual in Bavaria, check opening times and dates carefully. Many places are closed ("Ruhetag") one day a week – most often Monday, but not always – and many don't open until late afternoon.