BavarianBeer

First, please realize Bavaria has a LOT of breweries. We couldn't get to them all. Possibly not in a year, much less a month. Didn't stop us from trying though. A 10-year old book I have says there are 750 breweries in Bavaria. Oh, it turns out there is no current atlas of the breweries of Germany. Sounds like a good job for somebody. Hmmmm.

These are listed by city, alphabetically, for simplicity. They all are in the 60-mile area between Salzburg and Munich. There are lots more here but we only have so many belt-notches to give to this web site.

This is Weiss area with some breweries making only this style. Helles, Dunkels, and Keller beers are also popular. Munich beers, halls, and gartens are on another page.

Au am Inn - Kloister Au Braustuberl. Possibly 200 people live in this hard-to-get-to village built inside a still-active monastery that dates back to 784AD. The monks started brewing in 1635 but in the early 1800s the kloister was scaled way back and they sold the brewery to the Gassner family who still run it in the 6th generation.

The family bar is a 1-room affair in the one city building and it dates in this room to 1849 - which may be when it was last redecorated except for replacing chairs. The big redheaded Valkyrie waitress/manager dates to the 1960s.

Enter under the sign below then go to the right through a closed, unmarked door. The WC is through another unmarked door in the back of the room and down a hall past a couple of apartments. The vaulted ceiling is smoke browned and the dark walnut wainscoting, a few weak lights, and one window at each end of the bar keep it cozy to say the least.

While we were there, the stammtisch (local's table) was busy with a dozen people telling jokes, we think. We thought better of taking pictures inside. Think of the opening scenes from An American Werewolf in London. Don't go out on the moor. It wasn't unfriendly, they just don't seem to cater to tourists - and don't need to. Being in their living room was enough, we didn't need to be in their face.

Dorfin, Poor city. Had three breweries on the town square. Now they are a furniture store and two warehouses. Sigh.

Erding - Erdinger. One of Germany's giant breweries has a big square production facility on the edge of town. The downtown tap house is on the square at the main corner next to the church; a prime spot. There's a gift shop next door the other way.

Big traditional gastubbe with vaulted ceilings above everybody who's anybody in town eating lunch. Rooms range from hallways to fancy dining rooms for business lunches by the city fathers. Horns, hunting, smoke, conversation, wrought iron coat hooks and umbrella bins, and lots of trays of beer.

Erdinger has bought many area breweries lately
including the Stiftungsbrau just down the street.

Frauenkirchen - Flieger Brau. This 13-year old pub in a "dormitory town" suburb of Munich has become our local since we've been staying just 3 miles away. The 5.90€ lunch buffet has become a regular stop when we're starting off late to downtown Munich. The 10pm paper airplane fights are a hoot.

It's owned by the Hofbrauhaus of Traunstein (below) but independently run with completely different beers. The old airplane theme and name comes from the Flieger airport, now closed, a few miles west. We thought about seeing if they'd like to "sister city" with Warbird.

Fine 12 hectaliter copper-clad kettles and open fermentation tanks are on the main floor. Secondary fermentation takes place downstairs before transfer to lagering/serving tanks. They only make top-fermented beer since the fermentation vessels are temperature controlled only by an air conditioner. Normally 2 brews are produced each week.

This summer there are two beers on the menu. Christmas bier, and a lent Starkbier are made seasonally.

Two assistants are at Flieger for a month as part of their training
at the Weihenstephan brewing school.
Here they are cleaning the fermenters.

Freising - Weihenstephaner - Since 1040. Alteste Brauerei Der Welt. Yep. The oldest brewery in the world. In 35 years it will be 1000 years old. Hope to be around for the celebration. Monks were brewing beer on this site while England was still run by the Saxons. In North America, people were building mounds, making arrowheads, and trading mica. They might have been fermenting grain but they didn't pass down the tradition to following brewers like they did in Freising.

Sure there have been changes. They didn't use hops in 1040. They didn't know what yeast was. They might have soaked bread rather than mashing barley. All the buildings have been completely rebuilt. It's now owned by the Bavarian government rather than the Catholic church. But you have to respect the institution and the continuity.

A couple of hundred yards away is the Technologie Der Brauerei of the Weihenstephaner University, one of Europes leading brewing schools.

The place is hard to find. It's surrounded by the brewery which is surrounded by the university which is surrounded by a park on the south side of town. You need a map and a good nose to find it. The aroma of brewery pervades the hillside as you walk up.

Inside there's a plain room and a formal room on the ground floor and a big function room downstairs.

The shady beer garten seats about 300. Servers walk around only to help the oldsters and clear tables. You walk to a window to pay for your beer and pick it up. Food, likewise is cafeteria style at another set of windows.

Hefeweissebier Dunkel - Dark orange. Filled with tiny bubbles. Creamy white head that cries for a cherry. A very little skunk in the aroma that goes away soon. The taste is malty wheat with sweet citric of something like orange.
Korbinian - Doppelbock on tap. Only the second we've seen in Germany this late in the year. Dark red/brown with a thin head and little carbonation. An un-strong dark wood aroma with raisin. The taste is bitter and sweet malt separated to the far ends of the spectrum - fighting each other somewhat.
Original
Pilsner
Hefeweissbeir and Leicht
Kristalweissebier
Tradition Dunkel

Hagg - Unertl. Since 1991. This new brewery has obviously found a following from the size of their shipping dock. The house tap is in an old gasthaus 100 yards from the new concrete block brewery.

They've completely refixtured the ground floor of the bar but the outside garden, basement WCs and presumably the upstairs guest rooms are as before. Interesting to see bench seating around all the walls as found in British pubs.

Landshut - Helm. We were told the Gasthaus zur Freischutz on Neustadt is the brewery tap but we doubt it, but it's distinctive enough to show you anyway.

It's one of those really ancient places where glass panes were once fixed by re-leading, now they remain cracked. The wagon wheel chandelier in the front room was really once a wagon wheel. Enter through a doorway leading to a side alley and then use the unmarked but grand arched door to enter the bar.

We walked into the middle of a retirees club evidently and had to sit at the stammtisch, the locals table, but were welcomed better than we deserved.

We were in Landshut on a festival day by chance and a special beer commemorating a 1475 wedding was on tap.

Landshut - Wittmann. Their tap, the Kochwirt, is at one end of the Altestadt in downtown Landshut. It's imposing from the outside but inside is an inauspicious, friendly local that doesn't even use signature glasses. Lots of pine-paneled nooks that give it an almost British feel.

Markt Schwabing - Schweiger Brau Haus. Could be a regulation US brick and walnut brewpub except for the massive, industrial-sized, coppers and the two semi-trucks of beer that left while we were there.

Food is not available in the afternoon but regulars gather for cards. Does anyone know what game is played by 4 people where they get 8 cards each, take tricks rapidly, deal rapidly, and pay off with small change at the end of each hand? We don't. Evening food is a limited menu but very good and quite cheap.

Perlach - Forschungs Brauerei. A suburb on Munich's south side. Started in 1936 by the Jakob Junior, the current owner/brewer's, grandfather. Closed from 1942 until 1948. That had to be like starting a brewery just before prohibition. Jakob, by the way, worked for the Weeping Radish in the Carolinas about 10 years ago.

Traunstein - Hofbrauhaus. On the main town square and the brewery is a block south. They make a hell, dunkel, weisse, a leichteweisse (low alcohol), a leichtes helles, and alcohol free versions. The two we had were not terribly memorable. The soup, though was - a brotsuppe (bread soup) of a salty broth, crispy croutons, bacon, and onion.

Traunstein - Schnitzlbaumer. Since 1575 but the name still sounds made up. The brewery is down the hill and the new pub is hidden away off the main platz. It was empty except for a party out back. Metered dispense (haven't seen that elsewhere in Germany).

Traunstein - Wochinger Brau - Since 1587 with the gasthaus adjacent added in 1993. Our favorite in this 3-brewery town. The pub is decorated with old brewery equipment and hop vines. They serve a hot buffet lunch and sell small-for-the-area 2-liter growlers. There was a 7-girl drinking party at the next table when we were there about noon - charming.

Wiesmuhl. Wieser Brau. Since 1864. A little town on a little road with a good sized brewery and a kid-friendly tap haus / hotel across the street.

This is an adjustable airlock. Turn the screw to adjust the pressure on the fermenter. It's how Sebastian Ungerer of Flieger Brau makes effervescent beer.