Drinking in Germany

As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I visit Germany on a fairly regular basis. In fact I have holidayed there for seven out of the past nine years, and have travelled there on business on three further occasions. The holidays have all been taken in Bavaria, the most southerly and also the largest state in the Federal Republic, whilst the business trips have been to Cologne (Köln), capital of the Rhineland area. Germany, of course, is one of the world’s great beer drinking nations, and a desire to become more familiar with the many and varied beers of this country has been the prime motivator for my visits here. Germany also offers much else besides beer, and lovers of history, architecture, art and spectacular scenery will find much to interest them and keep them occupied throughout their visit. 

For first time visitors though, particularly those like me who are primarily interested in beer, German customs and drinking practices can at times seem a little strange, especially as they tend to vary not just from region to region, but also within the various regions themselves. With this in mind I have written this guide to point people in the right direction, and to help them avoid some of the basic mistakes I made on my first visits to the country. For example, there is nothing more frustrating than sitting at an empty table in a beer garden, waiting to be served, and then finding you are in the “self-service” area! Equally, it is often confusing knowing which beers are on sale in a particular bar or pub. You may have a rough idea, particularly if you’ve a guide book with you, but knowing exactly what is on offer, and attempting to find out, can at times be a little taxing..

One of the oddities about drinking in Germany, compared to the UK, is the almost complete absence of point of sale material. The only things of this nature that I have seen are “pub umbrellas”, signs outside pubs and bars and, of course, beer mats. There are normally plenty of the latter, especially as the waitresses will often use them to mark how many beers have been ordered by a particular table, and thus how many need to be paid for at the end of the session. “Table service” is very much the norm in most pubs and bars, i.e. you sit at a table and wait for the waiter or waitress to bring your drinks over to you. There is none of the standing at the bar, waiting to be served, that applies in the UK, so perhaps there is little or no need for items such as pump clips or garishly illuminated founts informing punters which beers are on sale.

The lack of point of sale material can often be a confusing situation for the beer enthusiast, but fortunately the Speisekarte or menu will normally list what variety and type of beer is on sale. Then, even if your German is rudimentary, or even non-existent, you can at least point to the beer of your choice. Most German bars will normally offer a variety of different types of beer even if, as is usually the case, they are all produced by the same brewery.  The menu will usually distinguish which are draught (vom Fass) and which are bottled (Flasche), but there will normally be a greater variety of the latter available compared to the draught beers.

  

The selection will normally include a pale (Helles) lager-style beer, and nearly always a dark, malty (Dunkles) beer as well. This is particularly the case in Bavaria. Pilsner-style beers are almost universal in the north of Germany, but not so common (certainly not on draught), in the south of the country. Depending on the time of year, there will often be a seasonal beer on sale. Varieties include:

  

Märzen - a rich, full-bodied, reddish-brown, bottom-fermented beer, with an abv of around 5.5%. The name comes from the German word for March., which was when, in pre- refrigeration days, the last batches of beer were brewed before the heat of summer made brewing impossible. 

Bock - a strong bottom-fermented malty beer, with an abv of between 6 and 8 percent. Sometimes dark amber in colour, but it can also be quite pale, as with the Maibocks, which are available in springtime (April-May).  

Doppelbock - stronger than a Bock, with an abv of anything from 6.5 to 10 percent, or even stronger. In Munich and the surrounding area Doppelbocks are traditionally served during March – the so-called Starkbierzeit (literally,strong beer time).

Weissbier or Weizenbier – top-fermented wheat beers, brewed from a grist of 50% wheat and 50% barely malts. Copper-coloured, and characteristically fruity, wheat beers come as either filtered (Kristall) or cloudy and unfiltered (mit Hefe - "with yeast"). The latter version is by far the most popular. Unfiltered Zwicklbier is also quite common these days, sometimes known as Urtyp. Whilst many of these seasonal beers are available on draught at the appropriate time of year, they may still be found at other times in bottled form.   

In addition there are regional specialities such as Kellerbier, and sometimes Rauchbier in Franconia; top-fermented beers such as Kölsch in Cologne, and Alt in Düsseldorf. One thing’s for sure; you won’t run out of different varieties of beer to try.

One point worth bearing in mind though is that many bottled beers are exactly the same brew as their draught counterparts; the only difference being the container which they are stored in and dispensed from. We witnessed this on our recent trip to Franconia where, in a local pub in Forchheim, the cask on the counter ran out towards the end of the evening, so rather than broach a fresh one so close to “time” the barman informed us it would be bottled beer only for the remainder of the session. A sensible approach I think, especially when one considers the logistics of both keeping the beer cool as well as fresh.

Speaking of waitress/waiter service, this is THE one aspect I find most frustrating about drinking in Germany. Even more frustrating than waiting to be served, especially if one has a king-sized thirst on, is that of waiting to pay at the end of a session. This can be a nightmare if one has a train or bus to catch, and then finding the waitress has inexplicably disappeared. I have learnt from experience to always offer to pay the bill once the final drinks are brought over, rather than wait until I am ready to leave, The phrases “Gleich zahlen, bitte”, or “Sofort zahlen, bitte.”, (Please may I pay now?), have come in handy on several occasions, and saved us missing travel connections, hanging around with empty glasses and wanting to leave, etc.

Of course, none of these practices are exclusive to Germany, but apply in equal measure in many other European countries. I have come across similar practices in France, Belgium, Austria and the Czech Republic. Does this make us Brits unique in paying, and often drinking at the bar? Well of course not, the USA and Canada are both similar to the UK, but I don’t know about other former colonies, or places settled by us Anglo Saxons. (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India etc). I also remember paying at the bar at an Irish-themed pub in Kyoto, Japan recently. (No, I wasn’t drinking Guinness, but opted instead for some of the rather good Japanese craft beers that were on sale there.)

However, not all establishments in Germany are table service. Most beer gardens (Kellers in Franconia), will offer a self-service option (Selbstbenienung). This is true of the large Munich beer gardens as well as some of the smaller, more rural, “tucked-away” Kellers one finds in Franconia. There are normally two separate serving hatches in these establishments; the Ausschank, where you queue up for your beer, and the Küche, or kitchen where a range of both hot and cold food is served. You enter first through a turnstile then, assuming you are eating, as well as drinking, you grab a tray, get your beer first, and then load up you tray with whichever food takes your fancy. In Bavaria, food choices will normally include a roast pork dish of some description, sausages (naturally!), roast chicken, meat loaf (in the form of Leberkaas), or a selection of salads. The larger beer gardens will normally charge a refundable deposit or Pfand, on your glass, but this practice is less common in the smaller, rural Kellers. Once you have selected your comestibles and your beer, you pay for your purchases at a separate turnstile, as you pass out of the serving areas.

The other really good thing about beer gardens is that many allow customers to bring their own food along, so long as they purchase their drinks from the Ausschank. This is an excellent idea, and one often sees whole families, especially at weekends, turn up with a picnic basket of pre-prepared cold food. Some even bring their own tablecloths along!

Finally, a word about drinking vessels and the various measures you may encounter. Half litre (500ml) glass mugs (with a handle), are probably the most common vessels, but even these can vary considerably from tall thin, cylindrical mugs, to short, squat ones. In Franconia, (the northern part of Bavaria), stoneware, ceramic mugs take the place of glass vessels. These have the advantage of keeping the beer cool for longer, but to me they detract from the visual pleasure of drinking as well as not being able to see the colour of the beer, nor indeed how much one has drunk! In Munich, and the southern part of Bavaria, the litre glass or Maß is common, and although these large vessels can be great fun to drink out of, they are both heavy and a little unwieldy. Contrast the Maß with the small, tall, cylindrical, straight-sided glasses, common in the Rhineland (both in Cologne and Dusseldorf), which contain either just 20 or 30cl of beer and you'll get some idea of just what a diverse country Germany is when it comes to beer drinking.

Armed with these facts you won’t go thirsty or hungry when you visit Germany, and like us you will hopefully find the whole drinking experience far more enjoyable when you know a bit more as to what is going on.

A "Quiet" Drink at Dartford Working Men's Club

This post was supposed to be about last weekend’s visit to Dartford Working Men’s Club (DWMC), and to a large extent it is, but before detailing the excellent range of beers on sale there, I want to pick up on a fairly recent post by Curmudgeon, titled “Pint Size”. The post was about poorly behaved children in pubs, but many readers seemed to take it as being “anti-child”, rather than “anti-badly behaved child”. It attracted a large number of comments and also a fair amount of criticism, from a coalition of “yummy mummies”, and so-called “progressive thinkers” (trendy liberal types), with people accusing the writer of living in the past and being a miserable old git. Now, having witnessed at first hand the disruption these badly-behaved little treasures/little horrors and their parents can cause, I fully sympathise with Curmudgeon’s view that children have their places, but a pub isn’t one of them.

For pub, also read club, as our visit to DWMC last Saturday was certainly marred, although not completely spoiled by a group of uncaring parents/carers letting one of their “little darlings/out of control brats” run riot, seemingly not bothered by the effect their off-spring was having on the rest of the drinkers in the club. Before going any further, I’m not exactly sure where the law stands with regard to children in clubs. Clubs are after all, private establishments with entry restricted to members and their guests, so the restrictions which apply to children in pubs may not be appropriate for clubs. 

From the beer lover’s point of view, DWMC is well worth a visit as it is a former CAMRA Club of the Year Winner. Beer-wise it is easy to see why the club won this award. I’m not quite certain how many different ales were on tap when we called in, but those I noticed, which were the ones we tried, were in tip-top form. The bar staff were knowledgeable and friendly and offered tastings to those of us who were unfamiliar with a particular brew. I enjoyed both the 3.9% Art Nouveau from Art Brew, plus Magic Rock’s Rapture, a 4.6% Red Hop Ale. A couple of my companions also enjoyed Shepherd Neame’s retro-style India Pale Ale, which I wrote about here, but I wasn’t aware the brewery had made it available on draught.

No complaints with the beer then, but before we go any further I have a confession to make. I don’t like clubs; never have and from what I am still seeing, I never will. To me they are a quintessential Northern thing, full of ex-miners and brass band members totally out of place down here in the “soft south”. Like glorified airport departure lounges, superficially comfortable but completely lacking atmosphere, character and soul! Give me a pub any day!

To return to the main point of the post,  last weekend’s visit was marred by an obnoxious brat charging up and down between the tables, screeching at the top of his voice, whilst his chav-like parents/ carers (not much caring going on there!), carried on with their socialising/swigging lager and alco-pops out of bottles. Ironically, just behind where we were sitting, there was prominent notice displayed on the wall asking parents to keep their children under control. The notice went on to warn that failure to comply with this request would result in the said offenders being asked to leave the club, and may even lead to their being barred.

Well we saw precious evidence of this perfectly reasonable ruling being enforced. In fact we saw none at all! My friends and I were guests in the club and as such felt it inappropriate to complain about what was going on. Instead we were hoping that other members present might say something, but so far as we noticed, not a word was said. When I say “guests” I mean it in the loosest sense of the word, as upon our arrival, and subsequent ringing of the doorbell, we were let straight in without being asked to sign the guest book, show our CAMRA membership cards or any other from of identification/qualification that should, if rules were to be followed correctly, permit us entry. We are obviously unfamiliar with the way DWMC operates, but if it allows unrestricted admission to complete strangers like us, presumably they are not unduly strict with any other Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to wander in off the streets for a cut-price pint! I would therefore question as to whether the group causing all the hassle were even members or not?

Before going any further I would like to say that it is not the child’s fault for behaving in this way. Children need to let off steam, especially if they are hyped up on a diet of junk food and fizzy drinks. Letting this “little darling” run round the local park would have been a more sensible, and productive way, to spend a Saturday afternoon. It would also have allowed those of us present in the club to enjoy our drinks in peace. However, when dealing with selfish and basically ignorant people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, and who seem totally oblivious to the effect their behaviour might have on others, what does one expect?

Finally, I am surprised as to how the club manages to shift all this cask ale and keep in tip top condition. I say this because apart from ourselves, I didn’t really notice anyone else drinking the real ales. In fact, whilst at the bar, a group of three blokes, probably ten or so years older than me, were ordering pints of Foster’s Top! I really do despair at times at the taste (or lack of it) of the great British public!

Festival Fatigue

As someone who is known for enjoying a pint, I often find work colleagues and acquaintances informing me of forthcoming beer festivals. This is especially true at this time of year where, with the Bank Holiday weekend fast approaching, the world and his wife appear to be running a  festival.

I always thank these people politely for their information but when, as is nearly always the case, I give a negative response to the question “I expect you will be going?” the look of disappointed astonishment on their faces never ceases to amaze me. These well-meaning people believe that because I am a beer lover I will automatically attended every local pub, club or village fete beer festival in existence! I try to tell them there are so many going on these days and, that even if I wanted to go to them all, I have neither the time or the finances to do so, but it’s almost as if they think it’s my duty to go along and try every beer on sale, especially where it’s a pub or organisation close to their hearts.

Well, I’m afraid it isn’t, and I think many local CAMRA members are starting to feel the same. I call this “festival fatigue” and whilst I know beer lovers should be welcoming this explosion of interest in decent ale, beer festivals are now becoming so common place there’s a danger they will start to lose their “novelty value” and people will lose interest in them anyway. 

As for me, I’m definitely “festivaled out” if there is such a word. So far this year I have attended beer festivals at Dover (Winter Ales), Angel Fest at Tonbridge Angels Football Ground, Orpington Liberal Club, Tonbridge Juddians twice, (their own festival in February and the massive SIBA South East event in July), Annafest in Forchheim, Germany and most recently the Great British Beer Festival at London Olympia. I’ve also been heavily involved in the preparation for the forthcoming festival our local West Kent CAMRA branch is holding in October, in conjunction with the Spa Valley Railway – a heritage rail line running between Tunbridge Wells and Eridge in Sussex. 

I felt this “festival fatigue” at GBBF last week, and whilst there remains a possibility I might go along to the festival at the Half Way House, Brenchley at some stage over the Bank Holiday, this will be more to be sociable and meet up with friends than a desire to “tick off” a few more beers!  As hinted in my recent post about GBBF, I find the socialising aspect of beer festivals to have a far greater appeal than trying yet another half dozen or so golden ales, all of which tend to taste pretty much the same after one has had a few. This was why Annafest was so good; it wasn’t about sampling as many different beers as possible, but instead just chilling out in the open air, soaking up the atmosphere, wandering around seeing what was going on and just generally having a good time. Sure, there were around a dozen breweries supplying beer, and over the three separate days that we visited Annafest, we managed to sample eight of them, but that wasn’t the main object of the festival.

So what, if anything, is the way forward? Well nothing really at the moment so far as CAMRA is concerned. GBBF now operates to a tried and trusted formula, and apart from a bit of tweaking here and there (more seating would be an improvement!), the campaign’s flagship festival can probably continue along similar lines as present. One worst of caution though, the average age of the volunteers who give up their spare time to run CAMRA festivals is not getting any younger, and  unless more younger members step up to the plate, there will come a time when there just won’t be the manpower available to run events like GBBF.

Pub beer festivals too should be encouraged, and there’s probably not a lot that needs changing here. Not only do these events bring extra trade to the pub, but hopefully they might encourage some of the pub’s regulars to try something different from Fosters or Carling and introduce them to the delights of proper beer!  Again, a note of caution, I would like to see a bit more communication between pubs in order to avoid beer festivals clashing. For example, there are at least four such events that I know of taking place locally over the coming Bank Holiday weekend. I appreciate this is a popular time to pick, but with so many going on there’s a danger attendances will be diluted across the board, and the individual impact each one might have had will be lessened. 

As for me, I’ve already made my views on the subject clear, and I’m sure I’m not alone suffering from “festival fatigue” . Perhaps the way forward is that adopted by the recent London Craft Beer Festival – staged last weekend.  The format was slightly different to a CAMRA festival, and of course not all the beers would have been CAMRA approved so far as storage and dispense is concerned. That doesn’t matter to me, as what these beers actually taste like is far more important than side issues such as dispense. The event took place from 16^th to 18^th August at Oval Space in London’s Bethnal Green. According to the website, there were around 20 breweries taking part, not all of them from London, and even including legendary overseas brewers such as Mikkeller and To Øl, both from Copenhagen and Brouweij De Molen from the Netherlands. Home-grown talent included Dark Star, Kernel, Camden Town, Magic Rock and Redemption, and I’m sure that amongst this line up there would have been some real stunners.

According to the organisers, the £35.00 ticket price included:

• ENTRY TO THE EVENT - all the breweries, the food market and the terraces for the session
• LOTS OF GREAT BEER – a beer from every stand (You’ll get a token for a third of a pint (189ml) from every brewer stand – that’s over 5 pints of great beer!)
• LOVE / KNOWLEDGE / EXPERIENCE - Access to the brewers, brewery teams, beers from around the world, different types of beer
• FREE GLASS - A London Craft Beer Festival branded glass
• AWESOME FESTIVAL PROGRAMME - with tasting notes and information on each brewery
• HOURS OF FUN - 5 hours of enjoying great beer, great music and our lovely terraces
• *Food is not included in ticket price, be sure to bring a bit of cash for our amazing food market (cards also accepted
• *If you power through the five pints more beer will be available to buy
• THE BOTTLE BANK – There will be a selection of the Breweries best bottled beers to purchase from Oval Space to take away. 

I am kicking myself a bit for not having noticed this event. If I’d known further in advance then I would definitely have gone and may even have given GBBF a miss!  I haven’t seen anything on the blogosphere about the London Craft Beer Festival, so if anyone did manage to get along I would like to hear what were their impressions  of the event.

Caveman Brewery

 

Last Saturday, along with a handful of other West Kent CAMRA members, I had cause to visit north Kent. Now this is not a part of the county which I’d normally entertain going to, but we were on a mission to present a certificate for “Beer of the Festival” to the Caveman Brewery of Swanscombe. The festival in question was last year’s Spa Valley Rail and Ale Festival, and the beer concerned was Caveman’s first brew, Citra.

Caveman Brewery is housed in the cellar of the George and Dragon, a Victorian town pub, which is just a stone’s throw from Swanscombe station. Swanscombe itself is a small town on the Thames Estuary, a few miles to the east of Dartford. Until recent times it was a centre of the cement industry, but this has gradually declined and the whole area now seems somewhat down at heel. This is despite the presence nearby of the Bluewater Shopping Centre, one of the largest in Europe.

Still it was beer and not shops that we were after, and where better than the George and Dragon as it has just been voted Pub of the Year for the West Kent area. This is quite an achievement for a pub which, until recently, had seen better times, but 18 months ago it was acquired by licensees Bob and Bron Veal, who set about transforming the place to create a bright and airy drinking environment. They still have plenty of work to do, especially to the pub’s exterior, but according to Bron the main priority was to get the inside of the pub up to a suitable standard, so they could start trading. Apparently the George and Dragon had a bad reputation under its previous owners (Admiral Taverns), and suffered from druggies and other undesirables. Bron told us many of them were dissuaded from renewing their custom by the pub’s policy of concentrating on micro-breweries beers, including the pub’s own, with Chapel Down’s Curious Brew from Tenterden, to cater for lager drinkers instead of multi-national global brands such as Fosters, Stella et al.(Sounds like a good idea to me!)

The policy has obviously worked as today the George and Dragon is a friendly and welcoming community pub, offering a wide selection of quality cask ales alongside Kernel Centennial and Whitstable Oyster Stout on keg, some excellent genuinely home-cooked food – which we partook of ourselves, and hosting all sorts of events, including live music and fund-raising activities. As mentioned earlier, the pub is also home to the Caveman Brewery, and we were fortunate to have been given a guided tour by James Hayward, brewer and one of the two partners behind the operation, (Nick Byram is the other one).

We descended the slightly tricky and steep stairs down into the extensive cellar, or “cave”, beneath the pub. Here the partners have managed to shoe-horn in a full-mash brewing plant, together with four fermenters, plus have fitted out a separate cold room for storage of both their beer, plus casks ready stillaged for serving in the pub upstairs. It is quite an achievement, especially as draining, extraction and a hoist all had to be installed as well. It is even more of an achievement when one learns that both partners have full-time jobs in addition to running the brewery!

So what of our visit? Well the pub had enjoyed a  busy Friday night prior to our visit, and the barman, whose name I forget now, was busy pulling through a couple more beers when we arrived. I started off with Moor Top Pale Ale from Buxton Brewery, a very pale and well-hopped 3.8% beer which was just the thing after a lengthy train journey. I followed it with a couple of Caveman brews – Palaeolithic Pale Ale, another 3.8% beer flavoured with Cascade hops, before moving onto the much stronger 5.9% Megalithic. I preferred this to the Palaeolithic, and found it the perfect accompaniment to my steak and ale pie, served up in a gargantuan portion with new potatoes and seasonal vegetables. Just the thing for a hungry imbiber!

We left the George and Dragon around 3pm, to make the short train journey to Dartford, where we planned to visit the town’s Working Men’s Club. The club itself  is worthy of a separate post, so I won’t say anymore here apart from that a visit to both these establishments makes the journey to this very run down and neglected part of the Garden of England well worthwhile.

Thursday at GBBF 2013

I must admit I didn’t enjoy this year’s Great British Beer Festival as much as I thought I would. I attended the festival on the Thursday, instead of my normal Friday, along with a number of friends from my local CAMRA Branch. I was determined not to go making unfavourable comparisons between GBBF and the brilliant Annafest which I’d visited three weeks previously, as the two festivals are completely different events. However, despite my best intentions, my mind kept harking back to sitting out in the cool, shady woodland setting of the Kellerwald and contrasting it with the packed, noisy hall at Olympia. 

To be fair, I don’t think the location where we chose to base ourselves on Thursday helped. I appreciate my friends’ over-riding concern to grab a table, as it gets very uncomfortable being on one’s feet all day at Olympia, but right at the rear of the hall, facing back towards the stage was not a good idea, as events were to prove as the day wore on. Lacking the natural lighting of the main part of the hall was one thing, but not being able to hold a proper conversation due to the reverberation from the sound system was quite another. The music acts weren’t too bad, but the interminable CAMRA auctions, which took place during every interlude, really did grate, as the acoustics, or lack of them, in that part of the hall meant we were bombarded by a wall of distorted noise, rather than a proper indication of what was actually taking place on stage.

Later in the afternoon I wandered upstairs to look for Fred Waltman, an American beer enthusiast who runs and maintains the Online Beer Guide to Bamberg & Franconia. Fred had emailed to say he was visiting GBBF and would be upstairs, but I must admit I left it a little later than originally planned to go and look for him. Despite carefully perusing table after table of drinkers on the upstairs gallery, I failed to spot anyone with a Franconian Beer Guide hat. Equally I failed to make out any American accents amongst the myriad of drinkers, so gave up on my quest. What I did notice though was that although the rear mezzanine section, where we based ourselves last year, had been blocked off, there was still plenty of space up on the gallery and, had we gone upstairs when we first arrived, we would almost certainly have found ourselves a table! It was light and airy up on the gallery, and a nice temperature too, with the ducting for the air-conditioning blowing out refreshingly cool air just above people’s heads. Contrast this to the artificially lit section we were sitting in downstairs and you can perhaps understand my frustration.

That’s probably more than enough moaning, especially as where we chose to sit was our own decision and nothing to do with the festival organisers. So how was the festival? Good, I would say, but not, in my book, as good as last year’s. Again, this is nothing to do with the festival organisers, or all the hard-working volunteers who give up their spare time to run this well-respected and long established event. Instead this assessment on my part is entirely due what I can only describe as “festival fatigue” on my part. I intend to write about this, at greater length, in a future post but for now let’s just say I was bored!

Anyway, what about the beer, which after all is the raison d’etre of the Great British Beer Festival?  Well there were getting on for 800 of them, so there was something for everyone. The only problem was deciding which ones to go for out of such a lengthy list. I initially picked a provisional short-list of 65 beers which took my fancy, and then highlighted 15 that were definite “must try” beers. The list was flexible though and was designed so that there were many “second choices” I could opt for, should I find a particular bar too crowded or if I happened to find myself at a bar where one of my “must try” beers wasn’t available.

The other part of my plan was to start off with a few light and refreshing Golden Ales, before moving onto some higher strength IPA’s. Eventually I would finish up with a few Porters, Stouts, plus the odd esoteric, or rare beer.

Of course it didn’t quite all go to plan, and I ended up trying a few porters and stouts somewhat earlier in the proceedings than I intended, although I did switch back to IPA’s towards the end. I made a conscious decision not to go for any foreign beers as not only were there just too many to choose from, but also the majority were far too strong, with a number of the American offerings weighing in at 10% plus! Most, if not all, of the foreign beers were sold at a premium price, which is entirely understandable given the time and effort involved in sourcing and importing them.  For me though, part of their appeal is drinking and enjoying them in their home country of origin. I am pleased to day I have achieved this aim for most of the German beers that were on sale, as well as quite a few of the Belgian ones. The next stop has to be the United States, and I am working on a visit to that country, for sometime next year.

So, did any of the beers I tried really stand out? Happily several of them did, with Dissolution IPA, from Kirkstall Brewery, my beer of the festival. This really was an excellent example of a “new wave” IPA. Not too strong at 5.0%, but a beer which really delivered in terms of both taste and appeal. My runner up was Triple Chocoholic from Saltaire; a completely different beer, but one which really managed to deliver the chocolate without being too cloyingly sweet. Also worthy of a mention were Art Brew – Monkey IPA, Ascot – Anastasia’s Exile Stout, Moor - Revival and Purple Moose Glaslyn Ale.

We left the festival shortly after 9pm. It had been a long day; I hadn’t drunk too much, but I was still feeling very dehydrated by the time we departed, (this was despite drinking water wherever possible in between beers). I didn’t manage to meet up with Fred, but I did manage to bump into Peter Alexander, aka Tandleman, and that, more than anything, helped reinforce my belief that the social aspect of GBBF is every bit as important and enjoyable as the appreciation of the beer!

GBBF 2013

CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), kicked off at midday today with the Trade Session. The festival then opened its doors to the general public at 5pm. I stopped going to the Trade Session a few years ago, not just because tickets had become a lot harder to obtain, but also because the session itself had turned into a glorified “publican’s outing”. Ok, I know it’s all about involving the trade, both on the brewing as well as the pub side, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea (no offence to friends in the brewery and pub trades!). Also, like I said, the tickets became much more difficult to get hold of, primarily because CAMRA tightened up on who could obtain them, effectively restricting their availability to those genuinely involved in the brewing and licensed trades. Even so, I know several people not connected with the trade who will have been there this afternoon! They will have been passed tickets from friendly landlords who for whatever reason are unable to attend so, despite all their efforts, CAMRA have not put an end to this practice completely.

 I used to fall into the trade category,  having run my own off-licence business for the best part of six years, but even then I normally gave my tickets away to friends or customers, and  instead  would pitch up as a normal punter on the Friday lunchtime/afternoon session. Like I said, the trade session in many cases had degenerated into little more than a pub outing-cum-piss-up. CAMRA of course, will disagree with this assessment, but I stand by it and besides, when one goes along as an ordinary member of the public, there are usually far more pretty girls brightening up the place. (A much more attractive sight than a load of red-faced publicans!)

This year I shall be going along on Thursday, rather than my usual Friday; the reason being is our CAMRA  branch has a  presentation this coming Saturday to the Caveman Brewery, as their Citra was voted “Beer of the Festival” at last year’s Spa Valley Railway Rail and Ale event. The brewery is currently housed in the cellar of the George & Dragon pub, at Swanscombe, near Dartford, and as the presentation could turn out to be quite a boozy affair, I want to have a day off from the beer in between this event and GBBF.

So far as GBBF is concerned, I’m a lot more enthusiastic, and even a little excited, about the event than I was a couple of weeks ago, when I’d just returned from Annafest. Back then the prospect of sitting in a hall full of people, surrounded by nearly 800 beers, compared to being out in the open air, under the shade of leafy beech woods, enjoying a Maβ or two of tasty Franconian Kellerbier, just didn’t compare. But now, having browsed through the vast selection of beers on offer and made a few selections, I’m much more receptive to the idea.

There’ll be a handful of  West Kent CAMRA members travelling up to Olympia on Thursday. My plan of action is to start with a few golden ales, to wet my whistle, before moving on to some stronger, and hopefully hoppier, IPA’s. I will then finish with a few stouts and porters, including amongst these one or two of the more esoteric ales. I will leave foreign beers alone, apart from seeing if I can buy a few bottles of Westvleteren beers to take away. The abbey of Sint Sixtus, at Westvleteren, is the smallest and most traditional of the Trappist breweries and its beers, considered by many as world classics, are extremely hard to come by. Hopefully there will still be a few bottles left, and a visit to Bieres sans Frontieres will also give me a chance to catch up with fellow beer blogger, Peter Alexander aka, Tandleman.

Finally, I plan to visit the CAMRA shop, to treat myself to a copy of the recently published “Britain’s Best Heritage Pubs”, by Geoff Brandwood. All in all it promises to be a good day.

A Personal View of Annafest

As most followers of this blog will have gathered by now, my son and I have recently returned from a week’s holiday in Franconia (the northern part of Bavaria). We based ourselves in the picturesque town of Forchheim; a place of some 20,000 souls, situated roughly halfway between Bamberg and Nuremberg in the valley of the River Regnitz. Forchheim’s main claim to fame, apart from its four breweries, is Annafest, a ten day long beer festival which I have already written about here. This post describes our own personal experiences of the event.

We attended Annafest on three separate days (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday), with breaks in between visits to allow ourselves to recover. By recover, I don’t mean we got so drunk, or were left with king-size hangovers, that we were unable to function the following day,  but with litre (Maß) mugs the only measures the beer was served in, (unless one wanted a wheat beer that is), it was quite easy to over-indulge, albeit unintentionally! What’s more, the beer on sale was the Annafestbier, which weighs in with an abv of around 5.7%, or more! The day’s in-between did afford a break though from the festivities and allowed us to explore other parts of the area. This was as much a part of our holiday as visiting Annafest itself.

On each visit we travelled the short distance from the town centre by shuttle bus, alighting at the fairground at the bottom of the Kellerwald. Depending on the day and the time, the buses were sometimes more crowded than at others, although it was a bit disconcerting to be amongst a bus load of school kids heading up to the Kellerwald; disconcerting until one realises that 16 years is the minimum legal age for the consumption of beer in Germany! Possibly a lot of these youngsters were heading up for the funfair and associated amusements, rather than the more serious business of visiting the Kellers, but it’s nice to report that Annafest is very much a family-oriented event with something to keep all age groups amused.

On each occasion we visited three different Kellers, which meant three litres or nearly six pints each over the course of the day. We paced ourselves though and took our time, savouring the tasty, potent beer, served with one notable exception, in tall, ceramic stoneware mugs.  For the record we visited the following Kellers: Tuesday -Stäffalakeller (Wolfshöher), Schlöslakeller (Hebendanz) and Loẅenbräukeller (Loẅenbräu – Buttenheim); Thursday – Greiffkeller (Greiff), Eichhornkeller (Eichhorn) and Weiß-Tauben-Keller (Rittmayer-Hallendorf); Sunday – Hoffmannskeller (Monschof-Kulmbach), Nederkeller (Neder) and Nürnberger-Tor-Keller (Wolfshöher).

Of the beers drunk, Hebendanz and Neder (both Forchheim brewers), stood out above the rest, although the beers from the town’s other two breweries, Eichhorn and Greiff were also very palatable. The beer from Kulmbach giant, Monschof, was different from the other local beers in that instead of the darker, Kellerbier common in Franconia; it was a golden, Helles-style beer, served in a glass Maß, rather than the stoneware ones used by virtually all the other breweries.

The beer I was least impressed with was Wolfshöher, a regional concern  with expansionist designa, based in the village of the same name, near Neunkirchen. The company has an unduly large presence at the Kellarwald, due to its takeover, and closure of Forchheim’s fifth and largest brewery, Bräuhaus Forchheim. The brewery buildings, now standing empty and forlorn, were only a stone’s throw from our rented holiday apartment, but there was some sign that work was taking place on the site, to convert part of the brewery into residential accommodation.

There was plenty of food available to help soak up all of this beer. Most, if not all Kellers offered various cooked meals, ranging from sausages and potato dumplings to the usual knuckles of pork and roast chickens. There were also various food stalls grouped along the paths between the various Kellers, offering a variety of snacks, both savoury and sweet. This, interspersed with the live music at some of the Kellers, and the fairground attractions at the bottom of the hill, combined to produce a fantastic atmosphere.

On the last day we also went along to the Winterbauerkeller (St Georgen Bräu), but they had stopped serving for a while when we arrived. This was sometime around 7pm, and the wind had really started to blow up and a storm was threatened. Shortly after, sirens began to sound and we were told the festival would be closing for the evening, due to an adverse weather report received from the town authorities. Once back in Forchheim we found out the reason for the authority’s caution. Several years ago, during similar stormy conditions, a branch had blown off one of the trees and fallen on a girl, crushing her to death. They were taking no chances with something similar happening again, and with the Kelarwald on high ground, covered with acres of mature trees; one could quite understand the reasons behind their decision. It was a bit of an anti-climax and not quite how we would have wished our last evening at Annafest to end, but we managed to get a meal, plus more beer back in the town, so at least we didn’t go hungry (or thirsty!).

Actually, managing to get a drink plus an evening meal in Forchheim proved a lot harder than one would think. The trouble is most pubs and restaurants close early whilst Annafest is on, with some not bothering to open at all. Everyone in the town it seems wants a piece of the action up on the Kellerwald. The landlord of our rented holiday apartment had warned us about this on our first evening in the town, but we did manage to find a few places open. Pride of place must go to Gasthaus “Schwanne”, an impressive-looking, stone-built pub overlooking Forchheim’s Paradeplatz, and with a small beer garden at the front (beers from St Georgen Bräu and Pottensteiner), and also Gasthaus Fäßler, a cosy pub-cum-restaurant on the opposite side of the square, (Wolfshöher beer, but good food and very busy). One pub, Brauerei Neder, was also open, and we popped in there a couple of times for a nightcap, plus a chat with the friendly locals.

To sum up, Annafest is very much an event which involves the whole town, plus quite a bit of the surrounding area. On those days when we didn’t attend, we couldn’t help noticing the full trains depositing expectant drinkers at the town’s station, and the crowded buses transporting them up to the Kellerwald.  As I said earlier, the festival appeals to all ages, and it was good to see young people enjoying themselves, quaffing the beer and all without any signs of trouble.The party of English beer enthusiasts that we bumped into in Bamberg, were also very impressed with the event, saying how much better it was than Oktoberfest, and how much cheaper too. A Maß of Festbier cost €7.40; I don’t know how much the same measure of beer will be at Oktoberfest this year, but I wouldn’t mind betting it will be approaching the €10 mark. Obviously Oktoberfest is internationally renowned and attracts people from all over the world. Annafest is by nature much more a local’s festival, but it is none the worse for that. We are certainly glad we made the effort to get along to it, and I thoroughly recommend the event to followers of this blog.

Ps. some of the locals in Brauerei Neder were complaining about the beer price up on the Kellerwald.  Mind you, with the pub charging just €1.90 per half litre, (almost half what one was paying at Annafest),  they did have a point!

Getting The Beers In

I may have let it slip in previous posts that I’m acting as the beer buyer for this year’s Rail and Real Ale Festival, which takes place in October at the Spa Valley Railway in Tunbridge Wells.  As in previous years, the event is a joint venture between the Heritage Railway and West Kent CAMRA. The railway are supplying the venue and are also bank-rolling the festival, whilst us in CAMRA are supplying the knowledge and expertise to ensure there are 60 plus cask-conditioned ales, most of them locally brewed, served in tip-top condition.


This is the first time I’ve undertaken such a task; I’m not acting entirely alone in so much that I’ve had assistance and advice from a CAMRA colleague as to which breweries and which beers to go for, but I’m the person doing all the leg work in contacting the breweries, obtaining prices delivery details etc and then actually placing the orders. Thankfully, most of this work can be done by email – however did we manage in pre-Internet days? Even so I’m finding it a bit frustrating when breweries fail to respond to my requests for information; sometimes after several attempts to contact them.

 Most of the breweries approached are either from Kent or neighbouring East Sussex, with a handful from London and Surrey. With such a wealth of brewing talent and interesting beers on our doorstep, it seems foolish to cast the net further a field. To be fair, most of the companies contacted have now replied, but there remains a small handful that seem to make a point of stubbornly refusing to answer emails. This begs the question, why have email in the first place? And why be in business if you cannot be bothered to respond to sales enquiries? At the end of the day it will be their loss, as with so many breweries operating in the area there are plenty of alternatives to chose from, and in the meantime work continues with planning the rest of the festival.

If you live locally, or even in London or on the south coast, then why not come along?  The festival runs from Friday 18^th to Sunday 20^th October. The bulk of the beers will be on sale at Spa Valley’s Tunbridge Wells West Station headquarters, which is a short walk from the town’s main station. There will also be a smaller range of beers available at the two stops down the line; Groombridge and Eridge - the latter station having connections with mainline train services to London Bridge. There will also be a few beers served on the trains, so what could be better than sitting in a restored passenger coach, hauled by a vintage steam or diesel locomotive, as it chugs its way through the scenic Kent and Sussex countryside, enjoying a tasty, locally-brewed pint of ale? Further details can be found here.

Footnote: The Harvey’s Best was in fine form the other night at the Royal Oak Tunbridge Wells, where we held our monthly meeting to assess progress with the festival. The Session Pale and Cobnut, both from Kent Brewery, were also very palatable in the Bedford, when we called in before catching the last train home.

A Brief Overview of Annafest

 I’m not quite sure how to describe Annafest, apart from to say it was unlike any beer festival I have ever been to before. But then German beer festivals aren’t the same as those we have in the UK anyway. For a start they’ve been running a lot longer than home-grown events; sometimes by as much as a couple of hundred years. Take the grand-daddy of them all, Munich’s Oktoberfest, which began in 1810 and, with the odd break for wars plus a couple of cholera epidemics, has been going strong ever since!

Visitors to this world-famous orgy of beer drinking will be aware that despite the large number of “tents” (temporary halls would be a more accurate description), only the six brewers based in the city are allowed to sell their beers at Oktoberfest. Contrast this with CAMRA’s forthcoming Great British Beer Festival where there will be getting on for 800 different beers to choose from and you get an idea of just how different festivals are in Germany compared to the UK. Whilst British beers festivals are about sampling as many different beers as possible, German beer festivals are about having a good time, with some serious drinking as an essential accompaniment, of course, and this is how I would describe Annafest.

 The event takes place at the Kellerwald, a wooded hillside on the edge of Forchheim, where there are a series of natural rock cellars cut into the hillside. These cellars were originally constructed for the storage and maturation of bottom-fermenting beer, in the days before refrigeration was developed. Today there are two dozen such “Kellers”, the majority of which are just open for Annafest, although a handful remain open all year.  During the summer evenings the Kellerwald is the perfect location for a cool beer in the shady woods  The event is held over a 10 day period around the 26^th July, which is the feast of St Anna (Anne), the mother of the Virgin Mary

Although pilgrims had been journeying to a nearby chapel consecrated to St. Anna since the early 16^th Century, Annafest in its present form began in 1840, when the Forchheim shooting club moved its main shooting ground from the "shooting meadow" on the river Regnitz to the Kellerwald.  As well as plenty of beer drinking there are other attractions such as fairground rides, various stalls, plus six stages which feature a wide range of different musical acts. The local Forchheim breweries Hebendanz, Greif, Eichhorn and Neder all brew a strong Bock beer especially for this festival, the so-called Annafestbier, and a number of other local breweries also supply brews of their own as well.

With seating for about 30.000 people, the Kellerwald provides sufficient accommodation for the 450.000 - 500.000 visitors who come each year over the course of the 10-day festival period. A regular shuttle bus service is provided from the town and surrounding areas to the Kellerwald and back again, so getting to the festival is not a problem. For those of a more energetic disposition, it is not that far to walk up from the town and many people choose to do this, working up a king-sized thirst on the way!

One comment I have seen sums up the whole event quite nicely. "A great atmosphere and very cool location, in the woods above the town. It's everything the Oktoberfest isn't: cool woodland beer gardens instead of hot, smelly tents."

Mass Overload?

A litre is not a sensible measure for drinking beer. I say this after my recent visit to Annafest where the litre, or Maß (Mass) to give the unit its correct name, was the only measure beer was sold in. This, combined with the fact that most of the Kellers only stocked a strong “Festbier” with an abv of around 5.7%, meant it was necessary to pace one’s self very carefully when it came to knocking back the beer. Fortunately most of the Maß mugs were stoneware, rather than glass, so this at least helped the beer to remain cooler for longer.

Unlike the southern half of Bavaria, especially the area around Munich, Maß measures are relatively uncommon in Franconia, with much more sensible stoneware half litre mugs, known as Steinkrug or Krug, (but never “Stein”), the norm in most pubs. Jon Connen confirms this in his “Guide to Bamberg & Franconia”, stating “Litre measures are the exception rather than the rule in Franconian beer gardens. Franconians tend to consume more beer with less fuss than the macho Bavarians of Munich.” It was therefore doubly strange to see them being used at Annafest.

 Litres, of course, are roughly the equivalent of an imperial quart. I say roughly, because a quart actually works out at 1.136 litres, so the Maß is slightly less than two pints. Leaving this small difference aside for a moment, when was the last time you saw anyone drinking out of a quart pot in an English pub? Your most likely answer is, like my own, never, but quart measures were relatively common in England, back in the times of Charles Dickens, and I’m not certain when they fell out of favour. For some reason though this heavy and cumbersome measure has continued to be used in southern Germany.

I have three main criticisms of the Maß, the first of which concerns the weight of the vessel itself plus that of the contents, ( one litre of beer will weigh approximately one kilogramme). The second is the beer slips down a bit too readily, and the mistake I always make is by the time I’m on my second Maß the first has started to kick in, and it’s then I realise that ordering a second one was not such a good idea.! The third, of course, is that I like to sample as many different beers as possible, especially when I am visiting somewhere for the first time. Volume and alcoholic strength constraints make the Maß a most impractical vessel for the beer connoisseur. I’m not saying the Bavarians  should go the whole hog and offer the equivalent of the third or half pint measures one sees at beer festivals here in the UK, or the “thimbles” used at the Great American Beer Festival, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere along the line.

Perhaps what this all boils down to is that centuries of usage have proven the English pint to be the perfect measure for social beer drinking. What do other people think?

Café Abseits - Bamberg

Café Abseits, in Bamberg, is one of those places I’d always meant to visit, but somehow never quite got round to doing so, despite having made three previous visits to the city. Billed as Bamberg’s “premier beer speciality pub”, Café Abseits is tucked away down a side street on the “wrong side of the tracks”, to the east of the station. However our recent visit to Franconia included a day spent in Bamberg, and whilst on this occasion we didn’t manage to visit the pub, we did notice a newly constructed entrance to the station on the eastern side; a facility we were to make use of on a return visit a couple of days later.

We had spent the first part of the day in Coburg, a town which is almost as far north as one can travel and still be in Bavaria. It was a blisteringly hot day; far too hot unfortunately to climb up to the impressive Veste (fortress) Coburg, which overlooks the town. Instead we found a backstreet pub, (the Bratwurstglöcke) with some nice shaded outside tables where we could sit in the relative cool and enjoy a couple of mugs of locally-brewed Coburger Brauerei beers. The plan was to stop off in Bamberg on our return journey to Forchheim, in order to pick up some bottles from the shop attached to the internationally-renowned Weyermann Maltings, which are on the east side of the station.

 

I had taken the precaution of  contacting the company by email, to confirm the opening times of the shop, but unfortunately their reply contained an error and did not state  that on Friday’s the shop closed at 3pm, an hour earlier than we were anticipating. My son was not best pleased after having walked up, through the swelteringly hot heat, to find the place closed. I wasn’t over impressed either, but put the mistake down to experience, and made a mental note to call back on a future visit. I then began to quickly search for somewhere where we could grab a beer and cool off.

Fortunately I had with me Jon Conen’s excellent “Guide to Bamberg & Franconia”, an essential travelling companion in this part of the world. The nearest pub to us was Café Abseits, less than 10 minutes walk away and, what’s more, it was described as having a beer garden attached as well.

We found the pub without too much trouble, and walked through the side entrance straight to the aforementioned garden, which was at the rear of the pub. Fortunately, given the extreme heat, the garden was nice and shady and we were soon sat at a table studying the beer menu prior to the arrival of the waiter. I opted for the Huppendorfer Vollbier, an amber coloured and well-hopped beer from the village of the same name, situated in the Fränkische Scheiz, (Franconian Switzerland) area to the east of Bamberg. Matthew’s choice was Mönchsambacher Lager, a much paler beer from Mönchsambach, a village to the west of the city, in the area known as the Steigerwald. He followed that up with another of the same, whilst I went for the Gänstaller Kellerbier; origin unknown, but very drinkable all the same.

We weren’t the only visitors from England that day. Sitting a few tables away from us we couldn’t help over-hearing a group of men speaking in our mother tongue. After a while, I went over and had a word with them. It turned out they were a group of beer enthusiasts, (I didn’t ask whether they were CAMRA members or not), from Nottingham, doing much the same as us really – spending a few days at Annafest, interspersed with visits to other towns and villages in order to track down and sample some of the local beers. They were staying in nearby Buttenheim, at the Löwenbräu Brauerei – one of two neighbouring breweries in the village. We swapped notes and shared a few recommendations, one of which we decided to follow the following day.

The beer enthusiasts left, shortly before us, but before we departed I had a closer look at Café Abseits’s beer extensive list (see photo’s). As well as the three draught beers already mentioned, the pub carries a wide range of bottles, including a number from the pilot brew-plant at Weyermann Maltings, home of our abortive visit earlier. There were also some examples of what, for Germany, can only be described as experimental styles of beer, such as pale ale and porter!

We decided to leave such beery delights for another occasion, as Café Abseits’s is definitely somewhere worthy of a much longer visit. Not only that, with the weather as hot as it was, we never got to see the inside of the pub, having spent the whole of our visit in the garden at the rear. However, at least I can now say I’ve visited Bamberg’s “premier beer speciality pub”. As for the pub's unusual name, it apparently translates as "the other place", so now you know!