Brauhaus Faust-Miltenberger

My wife and I accompanied our host family to this brewery to take a tour of their operations. The brewery is located in the old section of town just off the main street that follows the River Main. It's a very quaint area with the old buildings, narrow cobblestone streets, etc. The tour started with a beer from the taps and pretzels in their pub along with a slide show. Then our guide led us throughout the brewing operations (packaging is done at another facility across the river), including onto the roof deck to see the tops of the fermenters/lager tanks and a nice view of the old city and the river. There is a small barrel-aging program, so we walked into the cellar too. After the tour we were again treated to another round of beer, but from the bottle this time. There is a retail shop at street level of the building where beer and swag are available. It was very good tour and the beers were very good.

 

Really inviting biergarden, wonderfully and conveniently located fronting the Main River and pretty close from the Marktplaza in Miltenberg. Faust Bauhaus makes great beer and that alone gave us a good reason to this little town.
Service was courteous, quick and precise. The variety of beer and the quality was outstanding!
On a very narrow street behind the biergarden, you'll find the brewery itself, where a very fun and friendly staff provides guided tours (you must reserve a spot first) in both english and german, and also the official store where you can buy Faust beer and collectibles.
Overall, it was a very pleasant visit.

 

 

Last weekend, I was fortunate to get for my b-day a present that made me soooooo happy: a brewery tour of Brauerei Faust, in Miltenberg.

First, Miltenberg is in Oberfranken on the Main river, upstream from Bamberg, in Bayern/Bavaria. It's a beautiful medieval town on the banks of the river about 40 minutes drive from downtown Frankfurt by Autobahn, or a 90 minute trip by train. The altstadt/old city is basically 1 or 2 mile-long streets along the riverside, almost all Fachwerkhäuse (half-timbered), nestled smack up against a steep sandstone hillside. The town itself is worth a trip.

Nonetheless, I went there for the brewery tour. I'm posting pics of the town and the brewery. I'm interested to hear from you what other breweries offer on their tours. I was impressed with being allowed in the Fermentation Room, mostly 12 foot deep open squares/tanks. Our guide said most other breweries don't allow people in that room for obvious hygienic reasons, but this room was so CO2 rich, I doubt any other bacteria could stand a chance. They said the air was as thin as being at 10,000 ft. I loved the fact that they had metal pipes sucking up the CO2. Other highlights were the Lagerkellers, chambers cut deep into the mountainside that were used 100s of years ago and only a doorway's distance from the fermentation room.

A third thing that impressed me was the corporate orientation, which was based on tradition but simultaneously very forward-looking. In their promo videos they stated they believed in getting only hops/grains from the region and selling only in their local area. Their reasons were environmental to lessen the companies CO2 impact. (The irony was not lost on me... selling a product that basically IS a CO2 production!) But they focused on quality ingredients and it shows in the quality of the beer, which is typical for Oberfranken: Pils, Export, Dunkel and Kristalweizen. What got me really interested is that, despite the same family owning the brewery for 100+ years, they are really into beer. 1st, I was really impressed that they're not afraid of experimenting, for one of the beers on tap at the brewery and at the restaurant zum Reisen was their Auswanderer (expat/émigré) beer, which was basically a DIPA. I had made an Three Floyds Alpha King clone that tasted almost identical. Though I can't find it on the company's website, that beer and a cask aged Doppelbock from used whiskey barrels from Wild Turkey, showed me they weren't afraid to take risks. Part of the tour took us into an room in the old mountain cellar that was sealed, climate and humidity controlled, where they kept these casks for aging as well as multiple bottles of other worldwide beers that were lagering there. They allowed us a small glass of their 2008 Oak-aged Doppelbock and it reminded me so much of something I had had in the USA.

Basically, the tour costs only 6€/person, and I believe I drank at least 5 xs the value in beer during the tour. The tour started at 3:30pm, yet we arrived 30 minutes early, which was great because we got to sit in their drinking keller, sample as much/many beers as we wanted... and really got our drink on. I think I consumed 2 or 3 0.5L glasses before the actual tour started. They also give you beer during other parts of the tour, and of course potty breaks, so the tour lasted about 3 hours.

Finally, if you do this tour, make sure you stop by for dinner at Hotel zum Riesen, which not only has great German food at cheap prices (not only compared to other tourist towns, but in general in Germany), but it's the "oldest Gastwertschaft/inn in Germany," since 1158. To top it off, they are affiliated with Brauerei Faust and served the Auswanderer DIPA directly on tap.

One caveat- the tour is in German only, so if your German isn't so hot, bring your own translator. I had 3 or 4 of the tour participants offering to translate for me. My German is good enough that it wasn't needed, but I can imagine other tours not having participants whose English isn't so good.