OnTap Magazine

B amberg is a beautiful 1000-year-old city in upper Franconia, Bavaria: beer country in any language. e Altstadt is a World Heritage Site and the city, like Rome, is built on seven hills. Of course, we didn’t choose Bamberg for its landscape. We chose it simply because it has nine breweries within the city limits. is was a school reunion of the highest order. e third instalment of the Fellowship, you might say. ree old school friends on a long weekend in medieval Germany to soak up a little culture and quite a lot of beer. So intent were we on sampling beer at every turn, we even stayed in a brewery for our four nights in Bamberg. Founded in 1649, the Fässla Brewery happily has 26 comfortable rooms upstairs, meaning we never had far to travel between pillow and pint. Even rst thing in the morning, when we surfaced for breakfast, we would nd the pub at least half full: one of the many things I loved about German culture. Other than having nine breweries, Bamberg is also well known for their rauch or smoked beers, brewed with malt smoked over an open ame. Schlenkerla and Spezial are the two best- known rauchbier breweries in town. Bamberg is also home to the world famous Weyermann® malting company. Having read much about the smoked beers, I just had a feeling it would be beer I might enjoy. A Märzen base beer with anything from 20-90% smoked malt in the mash, it is often referred to as a ‘bacon beer’ because of the deceiving smoky aroma that confuses your senses. Smell it and you expect breakfast, not beer – perhaps that explains why the brewery pub was so busy at 8am. ere are very few examples of rauchbier in South Africa. Draymans produces the lightly smoked Jolly Monk and Red Sky brews a rauch too, which sadly I haven’t tried yet. I was certainly in for a treat. A CONNOISSEUR’S BREW After drinking a few pils, helles, kellerbiers and a dunkel throughout the day to warm up, we nally ended up at Schlenkerla for dinner. e baked onion stu ed with pork and draped in bacon, was the perfect accompaniment to the beer that arrived at the table: our rst encounter with the legendary rauchbier. e aroma was incredible, almost like a smoked cheese or ham. e avour was rich, very malty and lingering. e smoke hung around, enticing me to have another sip. I found it utterly delicious, rich and satisfying. Of my two friends, Wally enjoyed it, but Marco was less convinced. at might be the key with this type of beer. It will be loved by some, tolerated by others and disliked by many. Rauchbier is not likely to be a commercial success if you are chasing volume, but more of a connoisseur’s delight. e other version, brewed by Spezial which was founded in 1536, was di erent and to my taste, even better. More drinkable and somehow smoother, I really enjoyed this beer. I brie y met a group from the CAMRA investment club – de nitely serious beer people – and enjoyed a Spezial rauchbier with them. e Spezial Keller (ironically, Franconians call their outdoor beer garden a “Keller” which actually means cellar in English) sits on top of a hill above the Altstadt. It is probably the prettiest venue in which I have ever drunk a beer. e view of the town on a warm autumn afternoon was something to savour. Other beers on tap here were a smoked lager and a weisbier. e lager somehow didn’t have the body to accommodate the smokiness, but was pleasant enough. e weiss was forgettable. e view was breathtaking. CULT BEER As we continued our beery wanderings around Bamberg, we continued to nd beers worth Facebragging about, even if they weren’t smoked. e hoppy Keesman Pils was nice and bitter with a lingering hoppy nish. e Zwergla or dunkel style was Fässla’s best beer and the Hübner Bräu Vollbier was pretty tasty. e schwarzbier from Klosterbräu was fantastic. e only disappointment was perhaps the lack of a good local IPA. I did however nd a great one in Nuremberg a few days later. But one beer captured my imagination more than any other, the beer with a nickname and cult following , brewed by Mahrs Bräu. To order one you ask simply for a “U” e U stands for ungespundet , or ‘unbunged’ in English, which refers to an open maturation vessel, not under pressure, which allows for a less carbonic bite. It is also un ltered and cloudy, golden amber in colour, lightly carbonated, malty and tart. A beautiful treat and quite unlike anything I have tasted before. Visual highlights in Bamberg include the impressive cathedral or Dom, whose foundation stone was laid in the year 1004, with the building completed in the 13th century. Sandstrasse – Sand Street – is a beer drinker’s delight, with many pubs where you can drink beer, listen to live music and stand around chatting, all with a view of the Dom. Zapfhahn in particular is a must see – a beer hall with 35 regional beers available to try and Zum Sternla, a 10-minute stroll away, is the oldest pub in town, established in 1380. KEEPING IT LOCAL What was most interesting to me was how the nine breweries were mainly very old – like three or four centuries old – and generally, with the exception of Schlenkerla or Mahrs, don’t really export. Most of the beer is brewed for local consumption. Most, if not all of them had a brewery, pub and restaurant as well as o -sales. Some also o ered accommodation. Maybe that is the key to longevity. Instead of chasing the volume and low-pro t retail stores, brew and sell your own beer: a good lesson for the edgling SA craft breweries. Bamberg beer drinkers also drink local and support their town breweries. e Germans love their beer, but they have a mature relationship with it because they grow up drinking beer. ey have a deep respect for it. Even those having beers for breakfast will only have one or two and then go home. Drinking at the local pub or having a feierabendbier (knock-o time beer) outside is a way of life all year round. Perhaps the one standout impression for me was that, although most of the beers I tried while in Germany were lagers, they were avourful and varied and all beautifully balanced. Perhaps there is space in the South African beer scene for more Vienna lagers , kellerbiers and similar malt- forward beers. I certainly hope so. I fell in love with Bamberg and its beers. You might say I was “smoked ... WORLD OF BEER Beer country in any language 34 | Winter 2019 | ontapmag.co.za