Bam bam bam ch bam bam ch Bamberg

So it was off to Fassla for our first couple of beers of Bamberg - a city of just over 70,000 people with nine breweries to boast of!  How many breweries have you got Mandurah?

After that we headed to the world's most renowned smoked beer brewery - Schlenkerla.  Bamberg is known as the home of smoked beer.

After a smoked weizen that looked like a yeasty whirlpool we thought we'd move to another table without settling our bill.  Bad move.  Things operate a bit differently here and moving between areas within the same bar and not settling your bill spells trouble - as Nix found out, stranded with no cash, as I went to pee. Apparently she got berated - maybe she's exaggerating though...

We quickly got out of there and moved two doors down to Ambräusianum dinner.  When the highlight of your meal is between a German tasting platter, a schnitzel, their house beer and a beer by another brewery, and the beer brewed by the other brewery comes out on top, it's a bit of a worry.  At least we left full and boozed.

The second day in Bamberg we headed off on a biggish walk up to Brauerie Greifenklau, our first beer garden of Germany - beer garden virgins.  The view to the castle and shining sun made for a very enjoyable first experience.  After a couple of their lagerbiers paired with the kalbsrahmbraten (veal with potato dumplings and creamed savoy cabbage) we headed off in search of our next beer garden.

This proved to be a fruitless search though.  We went to Spezial Keller and Wilde Rose but no luck.  And Störenkeller on the way down the hill to town but that was closed too.  We finally got lucky at Klosterbrau and were able to sit outside in the alley, in the sun, and down multiple braunbiers and schwarzlas - not a bad compromise.

After that we headed to Spezial (Bamberg's other famous smoked beer brewery) and worked our way through their beer list.  We also shared a blaue zipfel - sausages cooked in vinegar, nice!

By this stage we were feeling pretty good and thought it was time to break away from Bamberg tradition and go for a bit more of the German craft beer angle.  Off to Café Abseits we went...

This is a pretty random place.  The wrong side of the train tracks, in a building that doesn't look like much at all from the outside and just filled with locals who probably wouldn't look sideways at something that isn't their go to beer.

It was good fun though.  We shared some mex tex pizza thing much to Nix's disgust but unfortunately it was the most appetising sounding thing on the menu.  However, we did follow it up with quite a few awesome beers.  Most notable were the three from BraufactuM, in particular their Honey Chilli Porter which we were almost forced into having because other bottles couldn't be found.  An amazing beer, genuine chilli heat and some nice honey notes all backed up by a very impressive porter.

Needless to say we stumbled home that night but a late night kebap certainly helped!

On our third day we thought we should try doing something non beer related so climbed Bamberg's highest mountain (maybe it was just a hill).  At the top we enjoyed a pretty good lunch that included rauchbier brot (bread baked with smoked beer!).

Following that we were a bit parched so headed to Brauerei Keesmann for a few pils (apparently the best in Bamberg) ordered from a little hole in the wall as you walk in.  We then headed inside to have something to eat.  We initially tried to sit at the Stammtisch (the regulars' table) though and got told "nein nein nein" as the old men laughed us away.  The tasty bratwurst and sauerkraut paired with their hefeweizen soon made up for that.

Fassla was looking good for dinner where we tucked into more bratwurst with sauerkraut and something beef with something paired with dark lagers.  An awesome way to end a few very beery days.

Bamberg would be an awesome place for a husband to take his wife as she could occupy herself with the city while he was off beering.  Evidently I don't have to worry about that!

OFFICIAL PUG DROUGHT

Bamberg Breweries - 7/9

The Beers

Fassla Pilsener, Lagerbier, Zwergla
Schlenkerla Weizen, Marzen
Greifenklau Lagerbier
Klosterbrau Braunbier, Schwarzla
Huppendorfer Weizenbeer, Vollbier
BraumanfactuM IPA, Honey Chilli Porter, Imperial Stout
Spezial Lager, Weissbier, Marzen
Keesmann Herren Pils, Hefeweizen

Leipzig Gose Off

Leipzig was all about the Gose - a wheat beer brewed with salt and coriander, which is a big divergence from Germanic tradition where beer is normally brewed using only water, hops, grain and yeast. 

The Bayerischer Bahnhof was our first stop which is in a very nondescript building inside an old train station.  The place is quite new, as is its interpretation of Gose which is a good introduction to the style.  It's quite a salty brew and the coriander is very distinguishable.  It's a very nice beer served in a very appropriate setting.

The bonus of our trip to BB was getting to have a couple of bottles of their interpretation of Berliner Weisse, which easily beats out the two we had in Berlin. 

Later that night we headed a bit further out of the city to Gosenschenke Ohne Bedenken which also serves Bayerischer Bahnhof Gose, but we were there for Dollnitzer Rittergutts Gose.  This place is at least 100 years old and serves Gose from a brewery that is almost 200 years old!  The Gose tasted like lemon sherbet when it smacked our lips and was sensationally well balanced.  This is how the style is meant to taste. 

Ohne Bedenken was a highlight of our trip so far.   After four Goses each we left very contented, particularly so as the barman on a couple of occasions asked if we positive that we wanted another one and if we wanted any syrup in them (from a range that includes banana, raspberry and cherry - mmm).

Our final taste of Leipzig was on the train to Bamberg, we shared a Leipziger Lerche which is pastry filled with marzipan, and apricot and cherry jams.  For two people that don't like marzipan, this was pretty good.

No new pug sightings (!) 

The Beers 

Bayerischer Bahnhof  Gose, Berliner Style Weisse

Dollnitzer Rittergutts Gose 

Dresden = Old Stuff + Chicken

+

=

Dresden

No new pug sightings

The Beers

Watzke Altpieschner Spezial, Monatsbier

Berlin's Shawarma Currency

From the following moment...

Nicola equated everything we considered buying back to how many chicken shawarmas (= €2.5) she could've eaten instead.  I.e. Entry to a museum for €10 = four shawarmas, that's a deal breaker.

The shawarmas come from a Moroccan restaurant called Rissani and are loaded with chicken, fried potato wedges (!) , a big blob of grated carrot, cabbage and beetroot, tomato, cucumber, yoghurt, chilli and tabouli. The quantity of these that we consumed is testament to how bloody amazing they are!

The Street Food but not really Street Food Trail 

We headed off one morning to hunt down some of Berlin's renowned cheap eats and started off with a shawarma, of course.

After that it was off to Angry Chicken for some Korean style street food.  We had a bowl of the So So Angry Chicken that was a bit too sweet, not crunchy enough and not hot enough for us.

We then made our way to Curry 36 to try Berlin's famed currywurst.  After so much hype, I think this is up there with one of the big food disappointments of our lives.  A low point of our marriage even.

Too much sauce and not enough curry-ness.  We just don't get it.

Those two meals above could've been two more shawarmas.

But!! We finished with a bang (after waiting in a queue for twenty minutes).  A döner from what may be considered a Berlin institution, Mustafa's, rounded the trail off nicely.

Butcher Dinner 

This meal was, hmm, interesting.

It was from an old school Butcher in Friedrichshain that we were very excited about eating at.  After receiving a hot tip, I think we just managed to order the wrong things.  Which tends to  happen when you just point and hope.

Nix had the first schnitzel of the trip and was disappointed by it however the red cabbage that came with it was good .  The mashed potatoes that tasted like Deb were a nice touch too.

Rather foolishly I let Nicola ordered for me and ended up with pasta drowned in the same tomato sauce used on currywurst with chopped up sausage through it.  Not good!

The Bocks were decent though.

Perth > Berlin 

Two burritos each in Berlin that came without cheese and were pretty bland were disappointments.  Based on two burritos I think we can safely say that Perth makes a better burrito than Berlin.  Fact.

Late Night Snacks 

Any city where you can get a great kebab at 3am on a Monday night is a favourite in our eyes!

Food overall in Berlin was bloody cheap and bloody good.  Some nights we considered making dinner back at the hostel but when you can eat well for just over €5 it didn't seem worth it.

The satisfaction felt from the final meal of our trip is summed up pretty well in this photo.

Rissani Shawarma Count - 7

Pug Sightings - 7

Barely Finding Banksy in Berlin

This post pretty much speaks for itself.  All that I'll say is that we discovered most of it on one afternoon whilst searching out some of Banksy's work, which you see below was quite fruitless.

Cool shiz

Some massive wall pieces

Stuff by an  Israeli group 

All from some hipster area in Friedrichshain

Note the Ned Kelly stencil 

Animals? 

And this was the favourite...

The Beers of Berlin

Whilst Berlin doesn't have a massive beer scene, we still managed to get our hands on a few beers from up and coming craft brewers, a few quaffers from traditional ones and most importantly, some Berliner Weisse. 

Berliner Weisse

We sat down one night and had three Berliner Kindl Weisse side by side by side.  The unsweetened was OK, probably not enough sour for our liking, but the two syruped versions, raspberry and woodruff, were way too sweet.  This is Nana beer at its worst!  And at the supermarket you can buy your unsweetened stubbies and a packet of syrup pods that come in all sorts of naff flavours to DIY. 

Berlin's saving (beer) grace though was the Potsdamer Weisse by Braumanufactur.  With just enough sour to it and a really dry finish, you could easily drink an s load of this on a 40 degree day.  We found two bottles in an organic supermarket on the outskirts of Berlin and carried them around with us for a full day only to have some bastard at our hostel decide to pinch one of the bottles! 

Unfortunately though, and unlike Cologne and Düsseldorf, the production of Berlin's regional beer speciality seems to be a dying art and it is hard to see it being rekindled.  These Berliner Weisse don't hold a candle to Feral's Watermelon Warhead. 

Craft Beer Journey

We devoted one day and about 15 kilometres of walking to searching out a few of Berlin's apparent beer hotspots. 

First of all we hit up Das Meisterstück for Maisel & Friends' Chocolate Bock and Jeff's Bavarian Ale, and red cheese sausage with potato salad.  While the beers, sausage, concept and place itself were all great, that's where the good news stopped.  The waitress pretty much didn't want to know us,  leaving us waiting for at least 15 minutes before there was any sort of recognition, and then as we were leaving gave us a token "I hope you enjoyed it here, have a great day" in a last ditch attempt for a tip (which in protest we didn't give - that will show them!).  And then to cap it all off, the bar owner cracked the shits when we didn't want to pay 10 Euros for one takeaway, sorry buddy, that's a nights accommodation in SE Asia. 

So we left there and whinged all the way to the Berlin Bier Shop where we were met with an equally cold reception.  We picked up a couple of beers (one of which smelled like lanolin/dags/sheep's p*ss - yum!) but may have left with a couple more if the owner had showed just a slight bit more enthusiasm for his country's craft beer scene. 

After that we headed through what seemed to be the Centrelink section of this city (too un-PC?) to the most random restaurant come brewery tap,  Zunftwirtschaft, to try beer by Brewcraft.  We felt like we were sitting in one of our Nanas' living rooms drinking beer.   It was quite surreal really - roses on tables with faded yellow tablecloths, a chef out the back in his full chef's whites, quite innovative beer on tap in a pretty random section of Berlin with nothing else similar near it at all in what seemed like an old house.  The Brewbaker IPA was very interesting though and had almost a Saison like character to it -  v enjoyable. 

On the way home we dropped into Hops & Barley for a few to finish the day.  We had the Wiezen, Dunkel, Amber and their Cider whilst all around us seats near the television became very hot property as the bar filled up and everyone settled in for "a very famous German show" which was to begin at 8.15.  It turned out to be a German cop drama that people can't seem to get enough of.  We had to whisper to pay as we quickly shuffled out to give up our seat for someone else who clearly wanted it much more than us. 

In terms of the beers, they do what it says on the label but it would be nice to see them push the boundaries a bit more. 

So our craft beer experience around Berlin gave us a bit of a mix bag. 

Honourable Mention

Quickly running around the corner to pick up four more Erdinger Weisse for less than 5 Euros is absolutely brilliant and so convenient.  Oh, I'm out of beer, be back in a few minutes as I just head to the corner store to pick up a few more, get 8 cents back for each previously emptied bottle and then open one at the counter to drink on the way back as two minutes is too long to wait. Brilliant! 

Dishonourable Mention

The Weihenstephan Bar in central Berlin is a tourist trap abomination. 

The Beers

Erdinger Wiessbier, Dunkel

Weihenstephan Hefeweissbier , Vitus

Hops & Barley Amber, Wiezen, Dunkel, (Cider) 

Gessner Dunkler Bock

BrauKunstKeller Pale Ale

Hopfenstopfer Incredible Pale Ale

Rathaus Pils

Kindl Unsweetened, Raspberry, Woodruff

Andechs Wiessbier

Braumanufactur Potsdamer Weisse, Stanger

Maisel & Friends Chocolate Bock, Jeff's Bavarian Ale

Brewbaker IPA

Lausitzer Kirsch Porter

Inside the Hamburger

This post won't be a very long one but you know what they say...

We arrived in Hamburg to overcast skies but there's one thing that will brighten up any afternoon, tasty tasty craft beer.   We headed straight to a new(ish) beer bar called Altes Mädchen and walked out rather merry after quite a few brews, one of which was a freebie from the manager that's a collaboration between a Danish brewer and one of the guys that works at the bar.  Beer that is served at the temperature that it should be and an iced strip along the bar to maintain that temperature get massive ticks from us. 

After that we stumbled across to the conveniently attached beer shop and picked up a few more things that tickled our fanny.  They went down very nicely the following arvo back at our hostel.

The next morning we got up early-ish and walked around the harbour which was epic, checked out the botanic garden (woo!) and then walked for an hour out into a suburb north of Hamburg for what was a great feast, lard smeared on bread (as appetising as that sounds) followed by roast pork shoulder covered in dark lager sauce a potato dumpling.  These were paired with an amazing malty lager from Brauerei Krug. 

For now that's it, expect a bunch of posts for Berlin though.

The Beers

CREW India Pale Ale

Fanø/Kehrwieder SHIPAS Simcoe
Ratsherrn Brauerei Tasting Paddle
Ratsherrn Brauerei India Pale Ale
Hopf Helle Weiss
Brewers and Union Beast of the Deep
Ridenburger Michaeli Dunkel

BrauKunstKeller Amarsi
Celebrator Doppelbock

Pug Sightings - 3

Good Alt Düsseldorf

Cologne to Düsseldorf (henceforth known as D'dorf) is just a twenty minute train ride, so you could almost say that Düsseldorf is Cologne's Rockingham, or maybe not. 

First stop in D'dorf was a wander down the poshest street in all of Germany, Könnigsallee,  pretty like King Street on steroids.  It turns out that flannelette shirts and the look of a scruffy backpacker aren't the in at the moment, I'm sure they will be soon though. 

After exerting ourselves we thought it was time to fill our bellies at the local market, smack bang in the middle of D'dorf - amazeballs!  First on the menu was two bread rolls filled with fish fillets and onion - Aal Brötchen (salted eel) and Matjes Brötchen (raw herring) - specialities of the market.  Both were extremely tasty.  

We followed them up with Reibekuchen (deep fried potato fritters) with apple sauce on the side.  You could eat these everyday for the rest of your life and never get sick of them. 

After all that salt we were a bit parched so it was beer time.  Hausbrauerei Zum Schlüssel was the first stop of our Alt journey.  Which is brewed and served similar to Kölsch but with a few tweaks, i.e. it isn't as hoppy and is more malt driven and is served in stumpier 250ml glasses.  

After Schlüssel we moved on to Zum Uerige, which is an early contender for bar of our trip.  From the must that invades your nostrils upon entry to our Köbe who looked as though he'd been serving Alt for the last hundred years, this place this is a very old beer house. 

We made sure that we absorbed as much of the experience as we could over a v enjoyable couple of hours.

After Uerige we battled our way through the rain to Brauerie zum Fuchschen for the last Alt of our trip, with a quick stopover at a lolly shop come concoction seller, as you do. 

Fuchshen had a bit of a medieval feel to it, very tasty Alt and poorly marked unisex toilets (that may have actually been female toilets). 

D'dorf's other notable achievement was giving us our first opportunity to wear sunglasses.  It was short lived though and five minutes later they were back in our bag. 

The Beers

Schlüssel Alt
Uerige Alt
Füchsen Alt

Pug Sightings - 2

We Invade KLN

After an amazingly fast and efficient train ride from Frankfurt Airport we arrived at a sunny Cologne and after dumping our bags, headed straight to Brauerei zur Malzmühle for our first taste of the local beer, Kölsch .  Our expectations were certainly met and after navigating the menu were presented with the schweinshaxe of our dreams.

Awake bright and early the next day (thanks body clock), we went to lock ourselves into Cologne's history.

As you can see, some people went to significantly more effort than us

Next up was Cologne's most famous landmark, the intimidating but spectacular Kölner Dom .  The excruciating detail on every element of the cathedral was truly a sight to behold.

After a light lunch of multiple Päffgen Kölsch , half a block of cheese with mustard (halver hahn) and so much blood sausage ("Kölsch caviar") that not much of the swine it was made from would've remained, we finished off our time in Cologne with a  few Kölsch from Früh , for good measure.

For those that don't know (and care)  Kölsch is the regional Cologne speciality and is served in little 200ml test tube shaped glasses.  The fresh, happy, dry brew is like the gift that keeps on giving - until you place a coaster on top of your beer the Köbes will continue to replenish your empty glass, with the numbers of glasses you've consumed marked on your coaster.  "Possibly the best system ever" -  Nix

The Beers

Mühlen Kölsch
Päffgen Kölsch 
Früh Kölsch 


Pug Sightings - 1

Adventure Time

Take this stuff

Chuck it in these bags

Add in this wonderful lady

And that equals the first of many, many beers

These noms

And the beginning of the best adventure that anyone could ever ask for

by Clint Brimson