Today we did a short pub crawl in Bamberg. We headed into town about 11am and our first stop was the visitors center. Last time we were here we purchased a self-guided brewery tour that included a free beer in up to 4 breweries. We enjoyed it last time so we decided to do the same thing again. Ton called today Good Beer Hunting.
Bamberg is famous for Rauschbier which is a beer with a strong smoky flavor produced when the malt is dried using a wood fire. Apparently almost all beers were produced this way until the middle of the 1800’s. In the mid-1800’s breweries were able to eliminate the wood smoke from the taste of beer by using other methods to dry the malt. This non-smoky beer gained popularity and wood smoke flavors in beer fell out of favor. Two breweries in Bamberg continued on with using wood smoke and they are now considered to be the two original breweries to produce Rauschbier. Today we visited them both, as well as two other breweries that produce modern versions of Rauschbier.
Ton loves Rauschbier so she was in heaven. I like it, but by the end of the day I was beginning to go towards more traditional German beers. We enjoy the German tradition of having communal tables to eat and drink at. Today we were paired with a German couple in one brewery, and a German/Macedonian couple at another. We enjoyed chatting with them and were able to overcome language barriers to have a good time.
Bamberg is a nice sized town that is easy to walk in, and has an interesting river front. The town hall (Rathouse in German), is built in the river, because the merchants of the town would not donate land for it. The mayor not to be denied a prominent spot in the center of the town, built it in the river.
Well, we enjoyed our pub crawl, but we are not as young as we used to be, we visited 4 breweries, but could not make it to a fifth despite our original intentions. We just don’t have the stamina that we used to have.
If we could do it again we would by one free brewery tour and only one entree at the restaurant. 2 beers and one giant piece of pork is more than enough for the two of us these days.
