Bamberg/Nurnberg/Munich trip report

So, I know I like reading other people’s trip reports so I thought I’d do a bit of a “what I did on my holidays” post, someone might find it interesting, you never know, Im just back from a short trip to Bavaria and Franconia where much beer was sampled and enjoyed, so here goes


Day one

Flew out to Munich from Manchester, im pretty sure the terminal we landed at was brand new, it smelled very new anyway and it didn’t look like that last time I came into Munich and there was a little train type thing to take us to the other terminal where the s bahn is. We had about an hour to kill in Munich before our train so hopped on the tram from hauptbahnhof up to the Augustiner keller for a couple of edelstoff, lovely stuff after a flight and train journey, served straight from the wood




After that we grabbed a couple of beers at the station for the train journey to Nuremberg then on to Bamberg, passed some lovely countryside on the way including acres and acres of hop farms.





Checked into the hotel in Bamberg (hotel Andres, I can recommend it, very nice and reasonable prices and they have bottles of faessla in a fridge on reception for 1.40) and went out to explore. It was my first time in Bamberg so I was looking forward to working my way round the breweries. First stop was just round the corner at Spezial, we were going to sit out in the courtyard as the weather was lovely but there was only room at one table and when I asked the old boy sat there if we could sit down he looked very unimpressed and told me it was the stammtisch and basically told us to bugger off, the mardy git. So inside we went and had a Lagerbier and an Ungespundets, the lager was one of the beer highlights of the trip, a bit more subtle than schlenkerlas rauchbier, the U was very refreshing, a bit lemony, but to be honest, probably overshadowed a bit by the smoked beer I’d had before.



Had a walk through town after that and called at schlenkerla, had a couple of beers stood outside in the lovely sun, a great beery moment, I know it’s a cliché but you can definitely tell the difference between having the beer straight from the wood and out of the bottle, a lovely pint.




We needed some food at that point so after another brief walk round seeing the sights we headed back up to faessla, I had their lager which was very nice and a plate of roast pork and dumplings which was ace



We decided to finish the night off over at wunderburg so called a taxi (it’s a long walk after beer, pork and potatoes) and headed into mahrs, the U was another highlight and went down a treat, I also tried the ETA hoffman dunkel which I rated as very good. After that it was a quick walk over the road to keesman where I finally got the chance to try the much talked about herren pils, it was lovely, fresh and herb, what a great beer, I tried a pint of their lager aswell, sternla, a bit darker than faessla’s, I think it was good, but I was also quite, erm, fatigued at this point, another herren pils followed before heading home for a well deserved sleep.

 

Day two

Day two started with a not so hearty breakfast of cereals, cold meats and boiled eggs (breakfast is maybe the one thing that England does better than Germany) followed by a big touristy sightseeing walk, Bamberg really is a beautiful town, its also very apparent that throughout the years the people of Bamberg have been big fans of jesus, loads of his paraphernalia on many buildings around the old town and millions of churches dotted around the place. We decided to have dinner (or lunch if you’re not from northern England) at klosterbrau, we got a lovely spot in the courtyard round the back overlooking the river, had a great schnitzel mit pommes, a pint of braunbier and a pint of pils, the braunbier won it for me.



We headed up to the spezial keller after that and had a couple of relaxing lagers looking down over the town, I’d recommend it to anyone who’s not been up there. It’s a great view and a really nice garden






After some more touristy stuff and a good freshen up back at the hotel we headed out for the evening, we sort of stumbled upon weinstube ruckel by chance while walking around, we could see they had some football on so thought we’d stop in for one, they had huppendorfer vollbier so I had one of those and it was great, a bit dunkely but not a dunkel, nice and hoppy too. We walked back up into town after that and called for a beer and a bit of food in a pub next to the ZOB called tambosi, it was a really nice place and the service was great, it looks a bit 70’s inside to me, they had Schmitt brau helles from schesslitz on tap so one of those was had, decent.



We decided we wanted to watch the England match against Russia (yeah, I don’t know why either) so we headed to a sports bar (evergreen I think its called) near our hotel, we received a warm welcome in here from the 5 blokes who looked like they’d been on the beer all day, they had reckendorfer beers on tap so I tried a lagerbier (or maybe it was helles) and a pils, then after we got chatting to the barmaid I had a bottle of huppendorfer vollbier and a weiherer rauchbier. After that I discovered the one thing I think Bamberg needs to improve on, the availability of kebabs after 11 at night, we walked all the way up to the hauptbahnhof but every kebab house was closed, very poor.

 

Day Three

After a bit of a lay in and some cold meat we decided to head out of Bamberg for a bit, took the s bahn to Buttenheim, as anyone who’s been will know, the train station isn’t really in Buttenheim, it’s a 20 minute walk away, now, this would be fine if the weather was good but 5 minutes into the walk the rain started, then got worse, then got even worse, we arrived at st georgen brau soaked, but luckily they had a nice table for us and it was warm and within minutes we had fresh kellerbier in front of us, I also ordered a schnitzel which when it came was bigger than my head, I also tried the helles vollbier just because id never seen it anywhere before, it was full of hellesy goodness. While we were eating the rain stopped and the sun came out so we finished up in st georgen brau and headed the 20 steps down the road to Lowenbrau, the weather had changed that much that we were able to sit outside and aenjoy a couple of kellerbiers, very nice, a bit of a spicy touch to it, not sure which of the buttenheim kellerbiers I like best, I’d take either, I’d love to live in buttenheim.





When we got back into Bamberg it started raining again so we went for a look round the cathedral, very nice in a jesusy sort of way, a dead pope and a bloke on a horse, very impressive, straight outside the cathedral was a tourist bus type thing that went up to Altenburg so we hopped on that, it was a nice way to kill an hour and the guide was pretty funny.

We decided that was enough touristy stuff and more beer was required so we sat down at the nearest place to the dom, kachelofen, they had st georgen kellerbier on tap so I had one of those to reminisce about our trip there a few hours earlier, we also called for a quick one in ambrausianum, I wasn’t a massive fan of it in here and found the helles a bit bland. We couldn’t walk past schlenkerla without popping in for a quick one in the schwemme and then we then headed over to spezial for a couple of beers, we were once again shoed away from sitting at a stammtisch, I don’t think they’re keen on strangers in here, fair enough, we found a seat with an old couple in the back room.





I think after here we tried to go to weinstube pizzini, but it was closed, we called in another pub nearby which I cannot remember the name of for the life of me, they had sonne helles on tap (from bischberg?) which was great. As we walked back through town there was a fanzone set up in the square off the gruner markt for the Germany v Ukraine game so we stood and watched a bit of that whilst drinking leikeim pils from the beer tent. At half time we headed up the hill to torschuster, what a great little bar this is, Thomas who owns it is a great guy and by the end of the night we were all singing along to his Pink Floyd records cranked up full blast, his beers good too, huppendorfer vollbier and herren pils on tap.

 

Day Four

Day four meant a bit of travelling back to munich, we stopped off at Nuremberg for a couple of hours, just enough time to have a quick look round and some of their little sausages, we went to the brewpub, barfusser, a massive place in the cellar of a building with the biggest tiled roof ive ever seen, I had their schwarzbier which was ok, nothing special.

We arrived back in munich late afternoon and after checking in and freshening up we were out for the rest of the day, ive been to Munich a few times so with only one night here this time we stuck to places we knew and that were all within walking distance, from memory we visited, ayinger, hofbrauhaus, tegernsee, andechser am dom, augustiner am dom, der pschorr, augustiner grossgastatte and finished up at the obligatory schiller sports bar.




So, all in all a fantastic trip, Bamberg was all that I hoped it would be, an absolutely stunning place with amazing beer, 31 different beers were sampled during the trip I reckon, not a bad one amongst them, stars of the show were spezial lagerbier, mahrs u, st georgen brau kellerbier, keesman herren pils, huppendorfer vollbier, schlenkerla marzen, just all of them really! I’d definitely like to go back and travel out to some of the outlying villages next time.

 

you know what, I couldn't tell you exactly where I'd heard about it, maybe from ron pattinsons guide or maybe from some posts on here over the years, I'd just had the name in my head for a while and knew I wanted to check it out, yeah there's all sorts of stuff to look at in there and as I said, Thomas is a great guy, I'd recommend a visit there to anyone who's in the area

 

ahhh, any idea who by? I did see the marmaris place yeah, when I was hungry we were up by the hauptbahnhof where we saw plenty of doener places but all were closed, I did think about gambling on walking back down to the marmaris but didn't want to risk that being closed too. Good to know for future trips!

 

I did actually have a slice from there one afternoon!

 

yeah Andres was great, we had the "apartment" room up in the attic which was huge, bit of a struggle up all the stairs after a night out though. Ive had many many german breakfasts, some better than others, but I'd still take an English fry up over any of them, haha

 

absolutely agree, one of the highlights for me