Carlsberg in Copenhagen

Let's be clear right from the start. This was a freebie trip paid for by Carlsberg. They paid for my flight and hotel. Plus other food and drink. It must have come to at least 1,000 euros.

I did consider the ethics of accepting. For about 10 seconds. I love Copenhagen. And Carlsberg's project was right down my street. Plus I got a chance to hang around with some beer writer chums.

The head of Carlsberg Laboratory

What was the project? I hear you ask. An historic beer recreation. I told you it was down my street. More down my street, through my front door and into my living room. During rebuilding work at the brewery they found some old bottles of beer, dating to the early 1880's. They were able to isolate and culture yeast from one of the bottles and decided to try to recreate the beer, Lagerol, from which the yeast came.

pilot brewery

And not by halves. I've had a little experience in the area of recreations and they went about as far as anyone has to be 100% authentic. They got hold of a heritage barley, had it floor malted at a Danish whisky distillery then hand roasted some to create Munich and caramel malt. They brewed it in the 2hl pilot brewery in the laboratory, using a triple decoction mash. It was then aged in a stainless steel tank before being transferred to a wooden cask a week or so before the event. Full marks for effort.

Carlsberg's barley breeding programme

I'll admit to a soft spot for Carlsberg. Whatever you might think of their products today, the brewery played a really important role in brewing history, mostly through its laboratory. Where Hansen perfected pure yeast propagation and Claussen identified Brettanomyces. I got a real thrill standing in the same laboratory as those two great brewing chemists. And getting to talk to their modern successors.

They let me root around in the brewing records last year, too. I'm always grateful to brewers who let me do that.

We got a couple of hours being guided around the lab, then a buffet lunch. All leading up to the main event, the tapping and sampling of the beer.

The brewer got to tap the cask. He looked dead nervous, which I suppose was understandable. He had trouble pouring the beer as it only came out in a trickle. I could see why. Rather than a normal cask tap they were using what looked like a sampling tap with a much narrower outlet.

If I'm honest, the beer was a bit of a let-down. It wasn't conditioned enough and a bit cloudy. It tasted OK, but a bit more fizz would have helped. Ironically, if they'd been less authentic and kegged the beer it probably would have turned out better. But I'm reluctant to criticise them for being too authentic. Maybe they should have got someone from the Tetley side of the business who understands cask conditioning to give them a hand.

When it got to the stage when everyone was hanging around wondering what to do next Jeff said to me: "Do you fancy sloping off down the pub?" He didn't need to ask twice. The afternoon programme was a tour of the brewery then a waterways tour of Copenhagen. I got a private tour of the brewery a year ago. And I know what the centre of Copenhagen looks like. Nothing to detain me until the evening dinner. With the Danish crown prince in attendance.

Jacobsen kettles

We kicked off in Jacobsen, the brewpub inside the old Carlsberg brewery. There was the lovely sweet smell of mashing inside, which set the mood perfectly. Jeff bought a round with his card. He hadn't bothered getting any Danish cash. He had an unfiltered beer while I went for the IPA. It wasn't very IPA-like. Jeff wasn't too impressed with his beer, either. "Tastes like a beer that was meant to be filtered."

A good job they paid travel expenses. I was blankety blank cash-wise. The kids are getting expensive. The week before payday is a time of stress and worry. I still spent over 200 euros. Shows what a pisshead I am because I bought fuck all food. And just one bag of sweets each for the kids. A small jar of anchovies for Dolores. Who says I'm not romantic?

Copenhagen isn't cheap. Unlike me. Though Café Grotten, where I bought the only round of my stay - for me and Jeff - was just 70 kr. for two half litres. (About the same as one 40cl beer in WarPigs) Of draught Tuborg we could just about force down. The barman's "You want draught, not bottled?" should have warned us. And the fact everyone else was drinking bottles. I'd like to have seen Jeff try paying by card here.

It's Tuborg, really

Nostalgia time, it was. Me, Jeff, fag smoke and nutters. Like being back in Hebenedanz on that first beer tour with Andy. Me and Jeff share a love of pubs with character and characters. U Rotundy in Prague epitomises that common love. The cast here: a bloke with no teeth playing a slottie, a crazy old Chinese man who randomly grabbed the barman's crotch, a grumpy barman (understandable with the crotch-grabbing), a middle-aged chain smoking woman and - bizarrely - a gorgeous young woman.

It may sound crazy, but I rate the experience higher than seeing the crown prince at the other side of the room. And above most beer pub experiences - Fermentoren is an exception. Meeting the scientists and the brewer and getting to ask my usual questions about lagering times, gravity and ABV satisfied my obsessive side the way bacon fulfils my breakfast lusts.

Fermentoren pretending to be open

Grotten wasn't our first choice. How Jeff peered through the windows on our way past should have tipped me off. Being honest, I was tempted to suggest dropping in, too. We should be more open with each other, I thought. Stop pretending we don't love slumming it. But Fermentoren wasn't open for another half hour.

Not that Fermentoren was in any way crap. Totally different, which is what you want when on a pub crawl, however short. Totally different clientele. But a barman who knew his shit and a friendly local. Then some other beer writers turned up.

I can't help showing off with Jeff. He expects it. Don't want him doubting the hollowness of my legs. That's why I had the 2 pints of Imperial Stout and a double Laphroaig (I asked the price first) in Fermentoren. He'd think me a lesser man if I didn't.

Dinner was a grand affair, held in the villa of Carlsberg's founder. He was a bit of an art collector on the side. Mostly statues of naked ladies, it would appear. The nosh was dead posh, prepared by the former head chef of Noma. Very nice it was. All five mouthfuls. Approximately one mouthful per course. Just as well I wasn't that hungry.

Sitting next to Carlsberg's historian, Bjarke Bundgaard, was pretty cool. We had lots to chat about. And plenty of chance for me to pitch some crazy ideas.

In case you missed it earlier: Carlsberg paid for my trip. For which I duly presented them with my left bollock on arrival.




Husbryggeriet Jacobsen  
Gamle Carlsberg Vej 11,
2500 Valby.


Café Grotten
Sønder Blvd. 37,
1720 København V.


Fermentoren
Halmtorvet 29C,
1700 København v.
Tel: 23 90 86 77

back from London

That was an interesting 2 days. It's great to have two consecutive days at the archives. I'll be boring not just the pants, but shirt, socks, shoes and undertrollies off you for weeks. If not years.

Highlight was finding brewing records from three more breweries. Courage, St Stephens Brewer of Norwich and an unnamed one. The courage logs are the most detailed I've yet seen. They alone should keep me in material for weeks.

And a boyhood dream came true. I got to sleep in an empty pub. Though not by hiding in the bogs until everyone had left, as I had expected. I did get to pull a couple of pints for myself, which was pretty groovy. My ambitions are very modest. Many thanks to Stonch for letting me achive one of them. He deserves an award.

May as well get into name-dropping mode. Meeting Podge and Siobhan is always great fun. Getting to spend a whole evening in their company is a great treat. If you can't get to meet them in person, reading one of their books is a good substitute ("Around Bruges in 80 Beers" and "Around London in 80 Beers") Only got to have a very brief chat with my favourite beer historian Zythophile, but it was still very educative.

While I was away my books came. No, not more dusty old brewing manuals, but my book. The one Andrew got printed for me. A hardcopy of my Amsterdam Pub Guide. It's a very limited edition. Just 10 copies. One's for me, the others are presents.

Light relief

You're doubtless longing for some light relief amongst this relentless technical detail. Don't despair. It may be in sight.

This weekend one of my favourite beer festivals takes place: Hasselt. Me and Mike usually go, despite it being a bit of a trek to go there and back in a day. Especially if you miss the connection in Antwerp. The service from Antwerp to Hasselt only runs once an hour.

Now they've found a more central location for the festival, Mike's been assuring me that squeezing in a visit to the jenever museum will be no problem. Except, maybe, for my liver. I don't think I'll mention that part of the plan to Dolores. She'll only worry.

Fortunately she doesn't often read this blog. Only at gunpoint. That's why I was so surprised to catch her reading Stonch's blog the other day. "I thought you weren't interested in beer." "I'm not. But his blog is funny." At least she didn't tag "Not like yours." on the end. She didn't need to. I could see that's what she was thinking. Traitor.

Pork pie, cider and curry

The highlight Stonch's pub was the display of the Sun's page 3 above the urinals. That's a lie. Really it was the impromptu tour of the cellar. I love getting a glimpse behind the scenes. I took a half of cider back up for Dolores. She loves a proper cider. What a wonderful woman she is. I'm a very lucky man.

I couldn't complain about the beer, either. Both the Landlord and Brakspears Bitter were pretty spot on. I was starting to get into slurping down large volumes of weak beer. Just like Friday nights in Leeds, when we'd down ten or eleven pints of Tetley's Mild.

I'd promised the kids a taste of Stonch's pork pie. Bribed them, more like. They weren't disappointed.

We got talking to the bloke on the bloke on the next table. I don't remember London being so friendly. I'm always striking up conversations now. Perhaps fat, old blokes like me aren't threatening. Who knows. Maybe I just beamed out negativity when I lived in London. I was shocked to discover that the bloke on the next table had read my blog. I thought my readership was limited to a few hardcore homebrewers, other bloggers and trolls. I was amazed a normal member of the public might look at it.

"Can I have your musket?" Lexie asked Stonch, pointing at one of the old guns on display. Like I said before, he has a disturbingly good vocabulary when it comes to small arms. "No." "Why not?" "Because it's not mine." It's a sign of Lexie's developing maturity that he left it at that.

Dolores was on the look out for a big WH Smith. She wanted to get a couple of their special offers for Christmas presents (just as well the kids don't read my blog). Stonch suggested the one on Hatton Garden, just a couple of minutes away. Dolores decided that I'd had enough beer ("But they're only 4% alcohol.") and dragged me off.

I didn't really mind. I quite wanted to visit a big Smiths myself. I was after a copy of the 2009 Good Beer Guide. The one in King's Cross still had the 2008 edition on display. To my delight, the Smiths on Hatton Garden had the 2009 edition. Two beer books in one day. I'll remember this day for years to come.

How to get back to our hotel? Then Dolores spotted a bus heading to King's Cross. We'd been planning on getting a bus at some point. This was the perfect opportunity. Andrew wasn't keen on negotiating the the stairs, so he and Dolores stayed on the bottom deck. Me and Lexie got the panorama seats - front row, top deck. It really is the best way to see London. If you're not in a hurry, which we weren't.

A curry was also in our plans. No point taking the kids along. So we left them with pop, a bag of crisps, petrol and matches. I've done that joke already, haven't I? Never mind. We had a choice of two curry houses just over the road. We chose one at random.

I'd forgotten how hot curries can be in Britain. Even my two star one had me sweating all over my nan. It was nice, though. Small, but perfectly formed. Except for a few too many onions. I'd started with an onion bhajee. It's a tradition. I always have an onion bhajee. Ever since my first encounters with curry in Leeds. That's why I usually have a nan or chapitis instead of rice. No-one ate rice in Chakwal or Nafees.

The kids were lying in a bloody heap when we got back to the room. That's why I'm writing this in a prison cell. I blame Dolores. I always do.

Tesco Drinks Challenge

Second day in London, I was judging for the Tesco Drinks Challenge. I did it last year, too. It's becoming a regular gig.

The judging takes at the Workx, in a room that looks like an operating theatre. Everything is white. The day kicked off with tea and coffee and a short talk on how we were meant to judge. "Just give your own opinion." No problem for me. I always give my personal opinion.

My group had 21 beers to judge. It should have been 22, but one wasn't there for some reason. It did sound interesting, the missing beer. Or rather, quite odd. It was a Stout with mangoes and other weird stuff amongst the ingredients. That was a change from last year. The tasting form included a list of ingredients. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. At least we weren't left wondering what the weird taste was in the beer with sherry.

Most of the beers were fairly well straight down the middle. Only one was really duff, tasting like celery. But nothing was really great, either. A couple were fairly decent. I would have had several glasses of a tasty strong Stout, but someone else had already polished it all off. There was plenty of the crap one left, though.

The social aspects are one of the reasons I travel to the UK for the tasting. At lunch I sat next to Martyn Cornell, a bloke from the Durden Park Beer Circle, whose name escapes me, and Dale. I'm so used to that glazed eye look when I start talking about old brewing manuals that it's a shock not only to get a response, but an interesting and informed one. I picked up a few good tips about books to look out for. Best not mention it to Dolores. They're likely to be pricey. I hadn't realised that Loftus had authored more than just "The Brewer". There was much praise for Roberts and it seems his is the earliest detailed description of IPA brewing. You lucky devils. I gave you an abridged version a couple of posts back.

Did I mention that the tasting took place in Parsons Green? All of 200 metres from the White Horse. No prizes for guessing where we headed after lunch. I get so little chance to have hardcore beer history discussions with real live people. I certainly wasn't going to pass one up. Once again, the gaps in my own knowledge were highlighted. I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: the more I learn about beer and brewing, the more I realise how little I know.

Most of my fellow judges had to rush off for other appointments. At least that's what they told me. It could be that I have personal hygiene issues. Robbed of fellow obsessives to obsess with, it was time for the second activity of the day. I set off for Clerkenwell.

I've come to know the area around Stonch's pub well, what with the London Metropolitan Archives being just a few hundred yards away. And the site of Reid's Griffin brewery is just at the top of the street. Exactly the sort of places I lurk around. But I'd never even noticed the pub before, tucked away off a side street of Clerkenwell Road.

Stonch wasn't there when I arrived. So I ordered a Landlord and got ready to wait. But first I needed a wedge. When I returned from the bog, Tim Hampson was in the bar. He'd been in the White Horse when I left. What a coincidence. It turned out there was a British Guild of Beer Writers committee meeting planned. Small world.

This may be coming across as an exercise in name-dropping. I guess it is. Funny thing is, during the four years I lived in London, I never bumped into anyone I knew. All drinking sessions with friends had to be meticulously planned several months in advance. Now I was falling over people I knew left right and centre.

Stonch looked surprised when he entered the bar. He'd forgotten about the committee meeting. I'd hoped to have chance for a decent chat after the committee disappeared upstairs to their meeting. I would have, if customers hadn't kept annoyingly insisting on asking to be served drinks. Where did they think they were? In a public bar? Oh shit, they were. Stonch as landlord takes some getting used to. Though he did look the part, leaning on the handpumps and bantering with the punters.

It's time to drop another name. James. James Whitbread. Yes, one of those Whitbreads. Standing next to a descendant of the family that had originally brewed my Porter and SSS was pretty weird. Seems he's a regular there. Soon the Old Puke was flowing and the conversation rambling. I suggested he started a brewery. Funnily enough, that thought had crossed his mind more than once.

Now I could start throwing around several more names. But I've juggled enough already in this post. So I'll leave it there. I doubt you would recognise many or care if you did. I left early, around 8 o'clock. There was a hard day's archiving ahead of me. I wanted to be up early and at my best. I know. I find it hard to believe, too.

To every season

Consistency isn't my strong suit. (Armour, that's my strongest suit.) My point of view depends on where I'm sitting. (If that's not stating the bleeding obvious. Have patience. It will get better.)

Stonch posted yesterday again about session beer. He spoke a good deal of sense. I agreed with him, so what he wrote must have been pretty shit-hot. But that's the me sitting here in Amsterdam, where session beer with taste is as rare as England semi-final victories. "Oh for something weaker than this 7% Trappist!" I say. (I've stopped wishing for England to win a semi. Never going to happen again in my lifetime, is it?)

Sometimes (quite often, in fact, this year: 6 or 7 times in London and a couple in Newark) I get back to Britain. When you have three or four hours to kill, nothing's better than a few pints of Mild and a copy of The Guardian. You can slake your thirst and still understand the articles. For hours on end. Or an evening with mates, where you barely notice the passing of each round. That giddy carousel of social bonding.

But there are other times. More hurried. A snatched hour just before closing time. (Did I tell you of my recurring dream? Fifteen minutes before the pubs shut and I'm trying to get a drink. All the pubs are either selling crap beer, or the crowd around the bar is six deep, or my money has suddenly turned into old newspaper, or I've forgotten how to talk, or become blind and can't find the entrance. Standard stuff, really. Odd thing is, even though I haven't lived in Britain for decades, I stopped having the dream after they changed the licensing laws.) A cold December evening. Just before your mother's funeral. When your hyperactive son has jumped on your grillocks. There are times when you need something with more kick. "Oh for something stronger than this 4.2% Bitter!"

People have moods. The year has its seasons. Every hour has its own distinctive shade. One beer can never match them all. Nor should it. I want beers for every season, beers for every mood, beers for every shade. Is that too much to ask?

Stublang

Stublang is another jaw-droppingly beautiful Franconian village. There's not a lot to it: a couple of dozen houses, a miniature church, pig farm and two breweries. It hasn't even got a shop. Just two breweries. No wonder everyone looks so happy.

Through the village runs a narrow stream. Above it swallows swoop like fighters on strafing runs, hoovering up mosquitos. A group of children playing in the street are called back for tea by their mother. How more idyllic can it get?

Andy had arranged for us to stay in Brauerei Dinkel. Good choice, Andy.




Löwenbräu Hennemann
Am Dorfbrunnen 13,
96231 Stublang.
Tel: 09573 - 961 00
Fax: 09573 - 961 055

After checking in we had a couple of hours free. I decided to go for a walk. To admire the lovely village with its half-timbered houses and crucifixes. (Near lifesize crucifixes are all over this part of Franconia. In front gardens, at road junctions, even on the walls of pubs.) If I just happened to walk by the other brewery that maybe I'd drop in, purely for research purposes, of course.

What a surprise - I stumbled upon the pub. Admittedly after scouring the whole village, a task that took all of 3 minutes. Inside you can experience full-on Bavarian rustic. There's more pine than IKEA. Bits of dead animals and photos of dead relatives hang on the walls. Not forgetting the religious statues, too.

I ordered their single beer and settled down for a few moments of quiet reflection (and frantic note-taking). Just as I'm wondering why they're playing a Thuringian radio station Andy turns up. After a day's driving, he has quite a thirst on him. He's soon followed by Steve, who always has a thirst - he started the tour with a litre in Spitalgarten. So much for peaceful contemplation.

Löwenbräu Vollbier isn't one of my favourites. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, I've just been spoiled by a series of outstanding beers. That's why I limited myself to just two.




Brauerei Dinkel
Frauendorfer Str. 18,
96231 Stublang.
Phone: 09573 - 6424
http://www.dinkel-stublang.de/

Chunky pine furniture always reminds me of Prague pubs that had been kitted out in the 1970's. By the time I got there, a decade of wear had comfied it up a treat. Dinkel reminds me of them very much. Much more sparse than Löwenbräu, I preferred it. Like Franconian beer, it's uncomplicated, straightforward and comforting.

The rigours of the tour were starting to take their toll. I couldn't be arsed to write anything more and handed my notebook to Stonch. Having spent the afternoon in bed rather than the other pub, he didn't mind doing the honours on Dinkel Dunkles. This is what he had to say: "Pepper, dark fruit, caramel, spice cinnamon, hop". That's how I interpret his writing. He could have written "Ron is a fat, fascist bastard and I refuse to submit to his anal beer apraisals." It didn't look like that, but I couldn't, hand on heart, claim to understand every word he wrote. His handwriting is, to be honest, more legible than mine. I often have to guess what I've written. An explanation for my erratic prose style: I misread much.

The tour really was beginning to have an impact on all of us. Everyone was in their room by 20:30. Perhaps partly in aticipation of the next day, when we had Bamberg and its 10 breweries to contend with. I'll tell you how we got on tomorrow.

Tuesday at last

Bayreuth

I'd been delighted to find plenty of paper towels in the toilets of Kachelofen. A chambermaid's oversight had left my hotel bathroom with just four sheets of bog paper. After a day on the beer, that's never going to be enough. It had been praying on my mind. Would I have to sacrifice my reading material (Die Entwicklung des bayerischen Braugewerbes im neunzehnten Jahrhundert by Emil Stuve, Leipzig, 1893.) for the sake of personal hygiene? Kachelofen's green paper towels saved me from an agonising decision.

But enough about my bodily functions. We'd been around several breweries by this time. Mostly impromptu. Tuesday morning we had two tours of a different type booked: the Bayreuth catacombs and the Maisel brewery museum.

A charming, if slightly shy, young law student took us around both. Not having been told the tour would be in English, her notes were in German. She was often left grasping for an English word. As Andy's German wife Evi (who speaks perfect English) was with us, this wasn't a great problem.

(It's early in the morning and the first coffee of the day hasn't yet kicked in. That's my excuse for the pedestrian prose so far. Should improve as we go on.)



Bayreuther Bierbrauerei and Catacombs
Hindenburgstraße 9,
95445 Bayreuth/
Tel.: 0921 - 401 111
Fax: 0921 - 401 206
http://www.bayreuther-bierbrauerei.de/

The rock underneath Bayreuth is riddled with a interconnected network of cellars. Dug during the Thirty Years War (1618 and 1648), the catacombs are quite creepy. More recently, they were used to shelter from allied bombs during WW II.

There's a maze of tunnels and small rooms, many of which are closed off to the public. It was unclear what exactly they were trying to portray. There were loads of rusty (the metal bits) or mouldy (wooden bits) brewing equipment that would never have been used underground. Directly under a brewery, I'm sure some must have been used for lagering beer. But they wouldn't have been doing anything else down there. All the brewing gear has must have been brought in.

The emergency military hospital looks genuine, as do some of the other rooms occupied by families. But it isn't made clear which is real and what is just window dressing.

The best part of the tour was the visit to the (overground) bar at the end. There we enjoyed the best pale beer of the trip, Bayreuther Bierbrauerei Aktien Zwick'l Kellerbier. Great stuff - pepper, cloves, honey and grass I thought I could detect. You've probably got a better palate than me. I can't do justice to its mouth-filling bitterness. Not some horrible coarse unsubtle flavour. Like fresh basil crossed with northern lights. Hallertauer probably. I don't say that because I can recognise the taste. I'm crap at spotting hop varieties. It's just that every brewer I asked said they used Hallertauer. Educated guess.

The bar is quite minimalist but cheerful enough. After the first couple of sips I couldn't have given a toss if demons were bursting through the ceiling and a lavapit opening between me and the gents. I was in beer heaven. Or maybe "state of beer nirvana" describes it better. Having a bloody good time, in any case. It did also happen to be the first beer of the day. Always a sacred moment.



Maisel's Brauerei- & Büttnerei-Museum
Brauerei Gebr. Maisel
Hindenburgstraße 9,
95445 Bayreuth.
Tel: 0921 - 4010
Fax: 0921 - 401 206
http://www.maisel.com/museum

The same young lady then showed us around the Maisel museum. Their old brewery, a solid red-brick Gruenderzeit edifice, was in use until the 1970's, when pruduction was transferred to a group of severe industrial sheds lower down the hill. The contrast is stark. Comparing the brutal functionalism of the new plant with the exuberance of the old makes you question modern priorites.

All the equipment has been left in situ (unlike the catacombs). Perfect for nostalgics like me. I'd never seen the inside of a large lager brewery before and was interested in how it compared to an ale plant. Much is very similar: mash tuns, coppers, coolships, bottling machines. Some items - like the fermenters with thick insulating walls - are subtly different. You wouldn't expect to find Lagerkeller in an ale brewery. But wait a minute. Didn't they say that originally they only produced wheat beer? In that case the Lagerkeller must be a later addition.

The wort coolers have been converted into galleries where a bewildering variety of enamel brewery signs, mostly from long-defunct breweries, are displayed. I only recognised a couple that are still active.

Dolores moans about the size of my glass collection. Consequently, on the trip, I limited my puchases to one tiny (but beautiful) Schlenkerla Bierschnaps glass. To show her what happens when the hobby really gets out of hand, I took a few snaps of Herr Maisel's collection. I suspect one of the main reasons the museum was established was to give him somewhere to put it. Shelves, with glasses lined up three deep like Napeoleonic infantry, fill several rooms. It was quite humbling.

It's a shame that Maisel's brewery pub isn't open to the public. An amazing place. Hang on, maybe it's better that they don't let the rabble in. They'd just break everything. A selection of their wheat beers were available. I predictably went for the dark one. Weizen isn't one of my favourite German types. Maisel's is good example, mind, with lots of clove and banana. Very tasty, in fact. Maybe its high level of carbonation that puts me off.

After some cajoling by Andy, we were let into the VIP room. As well as a bar, it's also where they distill their Bierschnaps. Our guide poured us all shots on a counter retrieved from a London chemists. Some Amsterdam jenever bars remind me of an apothecary and this was very similar. Wasn't my imagination (or wishful thinking), then. Nearly forgot, there's one further thing in The VIP room: Herr Maisel's colection of hats.

You get nothing if you don't ask. "Can I have another Bierschnaps please, Miss?" Look, we'd been there for two hours at this point and drunk only two half litres of beer. What would you expect me to do?

Pottenstein

Goldene Krone
Marktplatz 2,
91278 Pottenstein.
Tel: 09243 - 92430
Fax: 09243 - 924310
http://www.goldene-krone-pottenstein.de/



We stayed in a converted watermill (Reussenmühle) attached to the back of Goldene Krone. A very comfortable hotel, but for one small point. I'll return to that later.

I'm wasting my time with expressions like "attractive half-timbered building" and "in the centre of town". You can see the former for yourself in the photo and the latter can be deduced from the Markplatz (Market Place) address.

What can I tell you? That they sell Maisel Pils, Kellerbier and Hefeweizen on draught. That's the Bayreuth Maisel, not the Bamberg one. Being Mr Natural (though beardless), I plumped for the Kellerbier. Yeast, pepper, tobacco and spice I could pick out. But it had been a long day. Some other flavours may have been lurking in the shadows. "A good, solid, hoppy unfiltered beer" is how I summed it up in my notes. Who am I to argue with myself? (Though, in my more schizophrenic moments, I have come close.)

A pub/restaurant too food-oriented for my taste, it was comfortable enough for a pre-prandial slurp. Or two. I think Steve was already on his second when I got there. Happy days.


An Apology

That Monday was so full of beery delights, I'm glad that I took notes. That hasn't prevented me from confusing the order of the pubs/breweries we drank in. For the record, we didn't get to Schroll until after Kathi-Bräu and Aichinger was after Buttenheim. I hope that's cleared things up. I wouldn't want to rewrite history. (I would really, but that's another story.)

While I'm busy with clarifications, there's something else I would like to point out that. In Forchheim and beyond I told you that I had to photographic evidence of Stonch's half-pint shame. Yet the picture of Schroll Landbier has Stonch drinking out of his girly glass in the background. My apologies. (I hope Stonch doesn't retaliate and publish some of his dodgier snaps of me.)


Zum Kachelofen
Hauptstr. 28,
91278 Pottenstein.
Tel: 09243 - 700116

Andy recommended Kachelofen for late-night drinking. He'd drunk in the pub a few months before. A young bloke at the bar, who introduced himself as Stefan, greeted Andy like a long lost friend. Someone he'd met on his last visit.

When someone suggests playing a drinking game, I start to sweat. A vision of a pool of vomit with me lying in it flashes before my eyes. It hasn't actually happened yet, but it's only a matter of time. Stefan wanted to introduce us to a drinking game. First he ordered a beer cocktail that trumps snakebite and blackcurrant for sheer awfulness: a litre glass of Pils, cola and two shots of kirsch schnapps. It was served in a dimpled glass. The idea was for each person to drink in turn and try to get down to exactly the bottom of the next dimple.

(This is a variation of a very old game, played in Holland in the 17th century. They had a special vessel called a "pas glas" (pass glass) - a tall cylindrical glass with horizontal lines at irregular intervals. You'll note that this is long before most writers would have you believe glasses were used for beer drinking. Like much else, the stories about the where, why and when of their introduction are mostly based on fantasy. I love tale of beers becoming pale after glass replaced pewter in 19th century England. In fact the opposite happened; when London pubs swapped to glasses it was about the time when the most popular drink, Mild, changed from pale to dark. Here's an interesting account of the reason for the switch away from pots by the manager of the Pembury Arms - now Tavern - in 1897. Sorry for diversion. I'll now return to the narrative.)

The Pils-cola-kirsch mix tasted as disgusting as it sounds, but it seemed impolite not to join in. In between having my teeth dissolved by the revolting sweet liquid, I chatted with Stefan and his mustachioed mate. Stefan, it turned out, was a policeman. The most laid-back policeman I've met. But this is Franconia. Not exactly a seething hotbed of crime. He was a mine of fascinating background information on the area, most of which I've forgotten. High unemployment, youngsters move away, the village communities aren't as tight as they once were. That's the gist. (I've concentrated two hours conversation into one sentence. How's that for being concise?)

Later, over his third or fourth beer, Stefan told me that he didn't live in Pottenstein, but a small village a few kilometres away. "How do you get home then?" I asked. He just shrugged and gave me a sly smile. Right. He must walk.

Look at me, rattling away. I've forgotten to tell you what beer was on. Kaiser Pils and Weizen on draught. I didn't fancy either and went for the bottled Echt Veldensteiner Landbier (also from Kaiser). A "sweetish, malty and chewy Munich-style Dunkles" my notes say. The second worst Dunkles I had on the trip (after the crappy Weltenburger), but still drinkable. The people at RateBeer call it a Zwickel/Keller/Landbier, I suppose based on the name. Total bollocks, as it's a filtered/force carbonated beer for a start. At 5.4% ABV and 12.5º Plato and sweet, it seems pretty obviously a Dunkles Export (Munich style). Why haven't they classified it as that? Oh, I know, because no-one in the US style Nazi community has noticed that the style exists yet. How can anyone lump this together with something like St. Georgen Kellerbier, a bitter, spicy, pale, cloudy beer?

While Paul and I were busy with Stefan, Andy was chatting to the crazy landlord, Sigi, a Saxon with a beard birds could nest in. A proper landlord of the old school: begutted and with rather too much liking for his own wares. Andy had been much taken by the Kaiser lampshades in the form of a miniature copper. He asked Sigi if he could buy one for 5 euros. "No". This wasn't the curt refusal it seemed. Sigi disappeared and returned with a screwdriver. He then unscrewed one of the lampshades from the ceiling and presented it to Andy, free of charge and with the flex still attached. Remember I mentioned Andy's new hat yesterday? This was it. I think he looked very fetching in it, even better than Stonch in his drinking hat. I told him he should wear it to the Oktoberfest.

"He won't remember what happened tomorrow." Stefan told me, before detailing Sigi's normal daily alcohol intake. "His wife will go crazy when she sees it's missing. He'll probably tell her aliens took it."

We stayed until around midnight, which was late for us. Early starts drove us to our beds before ten most evenings. Sigi's eccentricities extended to his mathematics, too. Stonch paid 6.60 for 3 beers. 2.20 a half litre is steep for Franconia, but we were in a tourist town. Somehow Sigi calculated my 3 beers and 3 pear williams as 10 euros. That means three shots cost me 3.40, or 1.13333333 each.


Happy Monday

Phew! I've finally finished telling you about Happy Monday. Just two more days to go. Who's going to give up first, do you think, me or you?

Monday isn't over yet

When will I be finished with my Franconia trip? It feels like I've been posting on the topic for several months. Must be even worse for you.

Kathi-Bräu
Nr. 1
91347 Heckenhof

You know a place is small when the address is just a house number. The Franconian beer guide says: "There are no convenient public transportation connections". Well that's why I was on the tour: to get to such inaccessible spots.

Kathi-Bräu sits on top of a hill in what you could just about call a village. The combination of remote location and a total lack of signs make it difficult to spot. I tell a lie. There is a small sign over the door, but that's facing away from the road. Should be nice and peaceful inside. Er. . . not really.

It was just about midday when we arrived, yet we were lucky to find a table. We chose the smaller of the two rooms, which looked rather like a granny's front parlour. Poking my head around the door, I saw that the main bar was packed. A coach party of pensioners, it looked like. Then the bikers started turning up. They sat in their leathers, sipping lemonade. Seems like a form of torture to me, going to a brewery and not being able to drink.

As I said, it was midday when we got there. The good choice of sausage snacks made it perfect for lunch. I had Knackwurst. Not that that will be of any interest to you. I decided to tell you, anyway. I have to fill this blog with something. Have you idea how much work all that historical stuff is?

The beer? They brew just one, a Dunkles. Very tasty. "Nice, malty dark lager. Very, very drinkable. "Liquorice, roast, cream, toffee and pepper are all flavours I noted down. I could say anything I like about it, as your chances of trying it are slim. They don't bottle. Or distribute. You can buy small barrels to take away, but they were out that day.

Pottenstein

To say Pottenstein scenic is like calling the pope a bear. No, hold on, that's not it. Like calling Hitler slightly disturbed. It's gob-smackingly beautiful. Crouching in a steep alley, a couple of streets of half-timbered houses are ringed by cliffs. Perched on the top, a castle looms over the town. It reminded me of Colditz. I suppose the local lord liked keeping an eye on his subjects and leaving them in no doubt who was boss. Lovely as it now looks, it must have been as intimidating as a nuclear missile when built.

In addition to great beauty, the town also has two breweries.

Brauerei Mager
Hauptstr. 15-17,
91276 Pottenstein.
Tel: 09243 - 333
Fax: 09243 - 7586
http://mager.brauereien.bierland-oberfranken.de/

We arrived in Pottenstein early afternoon. Andy gave us a couple of hours free time, which some (I'm naming no names here Stonch) used for a quick kip. I'm made of stronger stuff.

Records are there to be broken. Mine for breweries in a day stood at a measly four. And I visited other pubs in between. Mager was brewery number six that day. Six breweries in a row. Would it live up to the others?

I call it 1960's rustic. The type of folksy pine decor that's popular in Southern Germany. Mager is a good example. A bit bland, but comfortable enough. Must have been a quiet time because there was only one other customer. A bloke with a tash reading the paper and chain smoking. Your archetypal German pub customer, really.

They serve three draught beers: Dunkles, Helles and Pils. It took so long to pour my Dunkles, that the barmaid had time to wander off to the kitchen a couple of times. Finally, a very good-looking half litre arrived in front of me. It really did look great - deep brown with red highlights and a fluffy, cream-coloured head. I'll be honest, it was all I could do to stop myself drooling down my shirt a la Homer Simpson.

The low carbonation and complicated, slow pour made me suspect air-pressure dispense. I changed my mind later. What a great beer. Bags of complex dark malt flavours overlain by a shimmering layer of hops. (Can hops shimmer? Sorry, that's just the first word that came into my head.) Just the sort of Franconian beer I love, malty but full of hops. By hops I mean aromatic spiciness, not scorched-earth bitterness.

I didn't try the Helles or Pils. I was very happy with the Dunkles. Find a good beer and stick to it, that's my motto. Plus I'd already tried multiple beers that day. Drinking for pleasure mode had kicked in. You may be a superman, but when out drinking in pubs (or at beer festivals) I can only really taste half a dozen beers, at most. There are too many distractions . And who wants to be the nerd too busy taking notes to chat and joke?

That evening, the group ate in Mager. The menu was full of Franconian specialities: Schäufele, homemade Roulade, Schweinshaxe and Pfannenschnitzel. Tempting as these were, I went for a venison stew. You don't often get game here in Holland. (Or decent sausages, for that matter.)

They must have done something to the gas pressure during the afternoon. The beer we consumed with the food was far fizzier than my afternoon pint. Maybe not air pressure after all, then.

It's all rather dull so far, isn't it? All the amusing stuff occurred much later. I'm saving that for tomorrow.


Gasthausbrauerei Hufeisen
Hauptstr. 36 - 38,
91278 Pottenstein.
Tel.: 09243 - 260
Fax: 09243 - 7429
Email: hufeisen-braeu@t-online.de
URL: www.hufeisen-braeu.de

Pottenstein's other brewery is on the same street as Mager. Well, most everything - church, bank, shops - is on the same street. It's a small town.

Hufeisen is located in another half-timbered building. Unusually for a long-established German brewpub, the brewery is in the bar. Most places like this have them in separate building at the rear. Until 1990, when the kettles were moved inside, that was the case. The old brewery has been converted into an off-licence and a bar.

There isn't much else I can tell you. There wasn't much I could make out through the window; Monday is their rest day. "A bit dodgy" was Andy's comment on their beer.

More Pottenstein tomorrow, including Andy's new hat, the drinking policeman and a crazy Saxon. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Forchheim and beyond

The Monday after the Annafest, having resisted the joys of St Georgen Kellerbier in the hotel bar, I was remarkably chipper. Persistent rain the previous evening had caused us to skip the planned tour of the town's brewery taps. Luckily Andy let us have a free hour or so in the morning before heading off to the next destination.

One of the (many) good things about Franconian pubs is that they often open ridiculously early. I was confident that even at 9:30 AM at least one would be open.

That's the time Stonch and I should have hit the town centre. But I hadn't been paying attention the day before when Andy had pointed out the shortcut into town. I thought I knew where it was. As in so many other cases, my confidence was misplaced. By the time we got into town, after many unnecessary diversions, it was closer to 10:00.

Finding the taps in Forchheim isn't hard. Three of them are virtually next door to one another opposite the town hall (a rather attractive half-timbered affair). Two were open, including Hebendanz, the only one I'd never visited. Brillarific!

Hebendanz
Sattlertorstrasse 14,
91301 Forchheim.
Tel: 09191 - 60747

Being a hopeless obsessive, the first thing I noticed was the cask behind the bar. Gravity-served beer. It kept getting better and better. Only when we started looking for a seat did I realise:

1) it was pretty full
2) it was pretty full of the oddest set of characters I've seen in years

True to form I chose I seat facing the big daddy of weirdoes, a guy with the skin tone of a zombie. Though looking half-dead wasn't stopping him knocking back the booze at an alarming rate (a half litre and two schnapps in the 15 minutes we were there) or chatting away. The local-with-an-incomprehensible-accent is a character I recognise from my time in Leeds. There, it was usually someone Scottish or Irish. With Mr. White Ghost I had a better excuse - he was speaking a German dialect.

The other customers were a little more normal, but not very much. Most were keeping themselves to themselves. Or at least not talking to Mr. Ghost, which explains why he was so keen on chatting with me. Stonch was safe. He had his back to him. Why hadn't I chosen that seat?

For early Monday morning there was some serious drinking going on. My new mate wasn't the only one indulging in schnapps. A bloke in one corner had a litre of beer in front of him. There was someone not pretending about the level of his alcohol intake.

The Hebendanz Export was tasty enough and, being gravity-served, I could sup it quickly. No, not so I could escape the nutter. I wanted to check out Neder, too. Our long walk had left me only half an hour for the pair.

(Thanks to Stonch for the phots of Hebendanz's locals.)


Neder
Sattlertorstr. 10,
91301 Forchheim,
Tel: (09191) 2400

Stonch wimped out on me here. He has a one beer for breakfast rule. Me, I'm on the way to joining the Hebendanz morning club. Neder was even more crowded than Hebendanz. Though here people were sitting in groups playing cards or chatting. Everyone looked pretty normal, really. Except that they were washing down their breakfast with beer. But who was I to talk?

Neder also had Export straight from the barrel. Similar to, but a shade worse than the Hebendanz Export. Drinking it in peace more than made up for the slightly lower quality. I would have integrated with the locals and knocked back a couple of shorts, but we had many breweries ahead of us that day. I didn't want to peak too soon.





Aichinger
I've already blogged about Aichinger. One thing I forgot to mention was Andy telling the brewer that his 80 year old mother was "really fit". Freudian slip?


Buttenheim

St. Georgen Bräu
Marktstr. 12,
96155 Buttenheim.
Tel. 09545 - 4460
Fax 09545 - 44646
http://www.kellerbier.de








Löwenbräu Buttenheim
Marktstr. 8,
96155 Buttenheim.
Tel.: 09545 - 332
Fax: 09545 - 70789
http://www.loewenbraeu-buttenheim.de/

This tiny place has two fair-sized (for Franconia) breweries right next door to each other: St Georgen and Löwenbräu. A barman in Wildeman told me that there was once just one brewery but two brothers of the family that owned it fell out. A bit like John and Sam Smith.

We'd been drinking Löwenbräu at the Annafest. Someone (I can't remember who) pointed out that the male lion in their logo on printed the stein looked quite well-endowed. Sadly, that detail was absent from the giant version on the brewery wall. Shame. It would have made a great photo. Perhaps I should just add it in myself.

We only stayed long enough to take a few snaps. Both brewery taps were closed. No great disaster. Dozens more within a 10 km radius.


Nankendorf

Brauerei Schroll
Nankendorf 41,
91344 Waischenfeld-Nankendorf.
http://www.brauerei-schroll.de/

Another chance for Andy to try his granny chat up lines. The barmaid couldn't have been under 70. When we entered the bar she was in the living quarters. I imagine watching the German equivalent of Bargain Hunt in the absence of any customers.

There's an early-70's folksy look that you'll find in many Bavarian pubs. Schroll is a typical example. A bit bland. I prefer the older look myself. Schroll Landbier was good, though a little gassy. Amber in colour, hanging a precise style on it was tricky. So I didn't bother. I'll leave that to ratings websites. Bitter in the mouth (Schroll Landbier, not ratings sites), fruit and caramelly malt filled it out nicely. It finished with spicy hops while some more caramel was lurked in the background. My favourite non-Dunkles of the trip.

I always have a laugh when I see someone call Landbier a definable "style". I've seen Landbiers that were everything from very pale to nearly black. They weren't even all bottom-fermented. Ratebeer has this to say:

"Zwickel/Keller/Landbier
Three related, minor, lager styles most common in Franconia. Essentially, these are hoppier versions of a helles, served with natural carbonation and unfiltered - they are the lager world's answer to real ale. Kellerbier will on average be hoppier than zwickelbier. There is also Landbier, which is more malt-accented, may be filtered, but is similarly lacking in carbonation."

I haven't time to discuss all the inaccuracies in those three sentences. Should we meet I would be happy to shout them at you whilst waving my arms around and frothing at the mouth. But have more important tasks today. See if you can spot the mistakes. There's a bottle of KK for the first correct answer.

I was going to say nothing else of much note took place in Schroll. Then I remembered Stonch and his girl's glass. What was wrong with him? It was getting on for midday and it was only his third beer. He'll never live it down. I just wish I had photographic evidence of his shame.