Bamberg: Heavens, what a beer!

"Himmel, welch ein Bier!" 
Jean Paul

NINE! No, that's not a misspelling of Nein. It's the number of independent breweries that dot the rolling landscape of Bamberg. Couple that with the 60 breweries in the surrounding area, and you have a beer enthusiast's mecca, all of this for a city of about 70,000 people.

Beer is done right in Bamberg and if you look to the history in this medieval Bavarian town, it's easy to understand why it is treated with such reverence. In 1039 (yeah that's not a typo either!) Bamberg's Cathedral Canon Ouldaricus's dying wish was to serve free beer to all of the town's inhabitants on the day of his death. Many beer drinkers are familiar with Reinheitsgebot, or the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, which limits the permissible ingredients of beer to only hops, malt and barley (later adding yeast when it was "discovered") but Bamberg trumps that. The town had its own purity law 27 years prior, the Bamberg Purity Law of 1489. Bamberg is still a part of current brewing history as it is home of Weyerman Malthouse, which was founded in 1879 and still is the world's leading producer of specialty malts.

Smoked beer, or Rauchbier in German, is what most beer drinkers identify with from Bamberg and rightly so. If you've ever tipped back one of these strong, smoke smelling beers, you will not soon forget it. This past summer, I was drinking with some friends and one handed another his Rauchbier to try, to which he proclaimed after taking a healthy gulp, "Hmm...That tastes exactly like smoked ham." It's not a beer for everybody but it pairs nicely with hearty food and especially well with smoked meats and cheese. Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier from Brauerei Heller-Trum is the best known and easily available brand of Rauchbier from Bamberg. Rauchbier mostly derives its smoked flavor and aroma from the malt used in the brewing process: a green malt is dried over an open beech-wood fire as opposed to the typical hot air method employed by most maltsters. But thankfully for those who aren't into Rauchbier there's many more Bamberg offerings to sample.

The city of Bamberg makes it easy for a beer drinker like myself to really experience the nearly 1000 years of history of beer in Bamberg. The BierSchmecker Tour, or beer taster tour,  is a self-guided walking tour offered by the city to tourists looking to imbibe Bamberg's finest liquids. For 22 Euros you receive: "A handy Bamberg Rucksack", Five beer vouchers for a half liter of beer at eight of the town's breweries or beer halls, A Bamberg Stein, Coasters from the participating breweries, and a great packet of information including maps, a good rundown of the breweries and the whole history of beer in Bamberg. Also, as stated several times on both their website, in the packet of information and at the tourist office: the tour is for a maximum of 6 people.

Here's some highlights of the places I hit up on my BierSchmecker tour and the beer that I had at each:

Greifenklau Brewery, a beer with a view. We walked up the winding hills of the city to start the tour at the Brauerei Greifenklau, which was about 20 min walk from the city center but well worth the trek for not only the Greifenklau Lagerbier but also the amazing beer garden behind the brewery that sits atop a valley of orchards and small homesteads. The beer is a traditionally brewed Helles Lager with a hint of herbal hop and a nice, round, sweet malt finish. At 4.8% abv it was a good start of the tour.

Beer Garden at Brauerei Greifenklau

Next we headed back into the center of the city to Fässla Brewery for their Dunkel Lager called Zwergla. At this brewery, all beer is served from a Schwemme, which is a large gateway in the brewery with a serving hatch, at the center of the brewery that eliminates the need for waiters and waitresses while also creating quite a stir of foot traffic. The Zwergla at 6.0% abv is a Mahogany-colored beer with a yellowish head, a sweet malt and nut aroma that has has some real body to it but finishes smoothly.

Walking into Brauereigasthof Spezial

Then we headed across the street to Brauereigasthof Spezial which touts itself as "Bamberg's oldest smoked beer brewery" where it generates its own solar energy and fuels its malt kiln with wood. Here I had their Spezial Märzen Rauchbier which is about as typical of a smoked beer as one can get. It had a huge salty, smoke aroma with a thick, oily mouthfeel that paired perfectly with the sausage, kraut and mustard I ate with it. This inn, with its wood ceiling, tiled stove and animal busts on the wall really typified what in German is called gemütlichkeit, or that cozy feeling. We were supplanted from our original table by a regular who came up to us and told us we were sitting his "Standard plätze." We stood up a bit confused but almost instantly were able to find a very friendly Bamberger by the name of "Uncle Klaus" who dusted off the bench near him for us to sit down and join his monitoring of card game a group of old men were playing when he assured us, "he was there to make sure they didn't cheat." Uncle Klaus was incredibly friendly (if not a bit drunk) while he humored my wife and I with our elementary German, instructing us of what to eat, how to order it and even laughed at some of our attempted jokes in German.   

The last of the stops on our BierSchmecker was the Keesman Brewery which describes itself as "the Home of Pilsner." If a beer drinker is looking for a beer that defines the German Pilsner style, you must head to Keesman and grab a few of their Keesman Herren Pils. At 4.8% abv, this clear, straw-colored pils with a tight, white head and huge noble hop aroma (think minty and grassy at the same time), a bitterness that bounced around on the tongue and then quickly finished in a thirst quenching dryness was the perfect finish to my tour. So perfect was this beer, that I needed to have a second one to just make sure the it wasn't a fluke, it wasn't. This was my favorite beer of the Schmecker Tour, quite easy to see why beer fans from all around line up to get a fresh glass of Herren Pils at the annual tapping of the barrel ceremony at Brauerei Keesman.