Liters of Fun
It’s not often you get to have a special beer experience at either end of the thermometer within the same week. For over one hour during a brewery visit and tasting in Munich, Germany, 18 Brew Your Own readers including Publisher Brad Ring watched as a frozen-solid Eisbock slowly melted dripping into a decanter leaving a 25% ABV complex and malty treat to enjoy. The mercury climbed quite a bit a few days later as the group had red-hot pokers dipped into their glasses of weizenbock at Brauerei Schneider in Kelheim, Germany instantly caramelizing the sugars and creating a toffee-like drink barely resembling the original beer.
With visits to 20 breweries, a hop farm, and a malt house, the group was lucky to experience the incredible beer culture of Bavaria first-hand during BYO’s Bike, Hike, and Brewery Adventure in late September. We visited an amazingly broad spectrum of breweries from the two-employee, husband-and-wife team of Munich’s Hopfenhacker who served us a homemade dinner and homemade beers in their small, urban brewhouse started up a few years ago to the hilltop, historic brewing school campus and wheat beer benchmark Weihenstephan founded just a bit earlier in 1040. Along the way we had the chance to meet with local brewers and ask plenty of questions while enjoying their beers.
Each day we either biked or hiked to different breweries starting in the Munich area and working our way north to the Franconian city of Bamberg. Along the way we visited several monastery breweries and small, local breweries where the only place you could enjoy their beer was onsite at their biergarten. We even spent the evening sleeping only a few floors above two different breweries during the trip.
The group also got up close and personal with brewing ingredients during the week-long trip. We waded into the forest of climbing hops in the famed Hallertau region midway through harvest and also had an in-depth tour of Weyermann Specialty Malts in Bamberg watching the germination beds and drum roasters produce the backbone of future beer in front of our eyes.
From Bamberg’s famous rauchbiers to the wonderful unfiltered kellerbiers of the countryside to crystal-clear Märzen in Munich, it was a special chance to enjoy so many classics at the source. All that beer had lots of great food paired alongside, giving plenty of fuel for biking and hiking to the next stop. It was a treat to walk underground to a 150-year-old lagering cellar while sipping the small brewery’s kellerbier, sit under the ancient vaulted ceiling of Rauchbierbrauerei Schlenkerla in Bamberg with their house-smoked beer in hand, and even try to skip rounded stones across the Danube River standing on the shore in front of the Kloster Weltenburg after enjoying their tasty dunkel. It was a week made all the more special by sharing it with fellow homebrewers passionate about beer and exploring the incredible cities, countryside, and beer culture of Bavaria and Franconia.
BYO plans to visit other great world brewing regions during upcoming annual trips and we hope that you can join us on a future adventure.
