Trip to the Rhine Region

Uhm, beer-whise, it can be difficult in Trier, but it's still a good city to drink in, when you are not focused only on beer.. The beer-scene is totally dominated by Bitburger, although there is a local brewpub (Kraft Bräu) which has their beers in some pubs in the center, and their Dunkles is ok. The "national drink" of the city is Viez, local hard cider, dirt cheap and traditionally served in 0,4l mugs, every visitor to the city should try one...
If you are willing to -not- only drink beer, I can highly recommend Weinstube Gehlen- they don't even serve beer, but their own good wines and Viez (the best in town if you ask me) for cheap,plus it's just a very nice,friendly, local atmosphere which you won't get in the city centre.
That being said, if you are after traditional food and drink in the centre, I'd say Zur Glocke close to the Porta Nigra is your best bet. Decent food, ok selection of wines, also good Viez, and they have Kraft Bräu draught, pale and dark.
If you are after craft-beer... well, a few studentish, young hip pubs in the centre have some, like Zapotex, which also try to get local brews from the area like Zils. Then, you will get some of the Bitburger Craft-Lineup and sometimes Köstritzer Ales at Stockingers Wirtshaus in the city centre, Kraft Bräu in Olewig also has always some of their modern styles on draught...
Plus... Jahreszeiten up on the Petrisberg has a selection of the Bitburger craft beers, as well as very tasty, very modern food(and good Viez), but the atmosphere can be a bit,well, to modern for my taste at least.

 

Oh,totally forgott a few aspects, sorry.
Petrusbräu is the city's youngest brewery, good beers for the most part, a decent pub, also sometimes make modern beer styles, very nice beer garden,maybe the best in the city.
If you want a true, oldschool, native pub experience, I recommend "Aom Ecken", very "urig",rustic, often crowded with "normal" people, to drink there is basically Elbling (local dry white wine), Viez and Bitburger. Yet it is highly individual and personal, the kind of pub I personally adore...don't know if that is your thing, though...
If you are into wine, I can give a quite a few more tips to wineries and shops in the area and the city itself.

 

What an amazing trip. When I was in the area, I focused on wines and brought my own beer (from Belgium LOL). There is some amazing scenery in that area, to include the castles so you'll have a great time, especially if you can just let the trip take you where it may. I am sure you can find a list of the castles online

St. Goar is a nice little town. We camped along the river near there. We visited Bacharach; it was neat too.

I think you'll be hard pressed to find a village without a pub or two...it's Germany after all! We discovered this area just a short few months before we moved back Stateside and I wish we'd have gone earlier because we could have spent a few weekends there exploring between trips to other parts of Europe.

Yes on Belgium, especially if you are into WWII history. I can give you some advice on that if you make that trek to Belgium on the not-to-miss museums, tours, and sites.

 

Yes to this... I am a combo bier lover/WWII buff... have been to Bastogne twice and also Malmedy.... If you're into WWII, this is a can't miss area. Some tasty bier is available, too...

Prosit!

 

In August 2015 I made a similar trip. My wife, brother-in-law and I started in Koblenz stayed a couple of nights there, then rented a car and drove along the Mosel to Trier.

We stayed two nights there and drove across Luxembourg to Bastogne.

Then we deviated and hopped on a train to go to Baden-Baden in the black forest.

I love walking around Koblenz but that may be largely due to nostalgia foreign exchange trips there when I was 14 and 16.

It was a great trip although I wish we could have been more comfortable walking around Trier. That year it was at least 90 probably close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (32-37 Centigrade). Being from Texas it wasn't to bad outside but it's still a pain to walk around in and a lack of air conditioning to keep the buildings cool is miserable.



In Koblenz we drank at the Altes Brauhaus and the Konigsbacher Biergarten near the Deutsches Eck. We enjoyed going up to the Ehrenbreitstein fortress overlooking town.

Along the Mosel we toured Burg Eltz and stopped at a few towns for lunch and drinks.

In Trier we eventually walked to Kraft Brau but as I said it was hot and we really didn't want to drink much by then and definitely did not stay for the wine festival that evening.

We primarily were looking at the historical part of town and I don't think that I'd really recommend any other of the beer or food things we did there although dinner at the Berghotel Kockelsberg was delicious with a beautiful view looking out over town... Although we were also swarmed by hornets.

The museums in Bastogne were great. Walking around trying to find the foxholes was awe-inspiring. But the actual town was very disappointing. I struggled to find any belgian food (well we got chocolate and salami) because it appeared that every restaurant was italian food instead... And extremely overpriced.
I had a good beer at Le Nuts though but wouldn't eat the food (Their "american" section of the menu had a basic hamburger at 16 euros). We waited till we got back to Luxembourg City and had a great dinner at less than half the price of anything we saw in Bastogne.
I'm not going to go back to Wallonia unless it's to go to Orval.


But in general I love the Rhine and Mosel regions of Germany. They have great wine to intersperse between drinking beers as well.

 

We were back in Wiesbaden at the end of August, it was hot and it hit 38C one day, of course the hotel was not air conditioned. Better than the bedroom we had in our flat back in 98-99, which was under the black slate roof!

We were in Bastogne late 98 IIRC, touring with the wife father, who was in the 17th airborne. That was a memorable trip. It sounds like it is more touristy and expensive than I remember. Most things are these days!

The town of Houffalize about 18 km north is quite nice, and an outdoor recreation center. When the FIL was there with us, he said when he saw it in Jan of 1945 it was rubble and on fire. The Allies were trying to close the pincer on the Germans, and they were withdrawing through there. There is a Panzer V Panter tank on one of the squares. The people at the hotel we stayed at showed us a picture of that tank upside down in the river after being blown off the bridge.

The town of Achouffe is not far to the NW. You can guess why we went there.

 

I was very hopeful for Bastogne. My wife and I love history but when we got there it seemed to be nothing but high end shoppers at boutiques. Then we walked up and down the main road looking for where to get lunch...
We tried the restaurant that was in the train car because it was the only one we could find that didn't look like it was an Italian restaurant... We were mistaken. I ate the cheapest item on the menu €13 carpaccio. My wife and brother in law ordered he second cheapest item. Spaghetti Bolognese for €18. Everything else was €20+ and I wasn't willing to pay that for nonlocal food.

The pricing was similar at Le Nuts but even then nothing looked special. The pub we really wanted to go to was closed because it was a Tuesday.

This was so disappointing after loving my time in Bruges in 2008. Unique Belgian food as they brag with French finesse and German portions.

Also almost everyone we met in Bastogne were very inhospitable.

Then we ate at a German restaurant in Luxembourg City and were able to get a meal big enough for 3 meals for less than the options in Bastogne.

I really want to go to Ghent, Antwerp, and Brussels but at the moment I'm staying away from Wallonia.


The Sherman tank in the town square was really cool. The museum's were some of the best I've ever been to.
The forest is very humbling.
Belgian beer in Belgium is delicious.
The chocolate and salami is heavenly.
But I was very disappointed in the town itself.

Edit: Although I may try to make it to Achouffe. I do like the gnomes.

 

The dreaded Ruhetag strikes again. Sorry to hear about your experience in Bastogne.

 

Not exactly the hotbed of german Beer-brewing.
Privatbrauerei Sander is in that Region.They make some good stuff

 

There are some very good new craft breweries in the Rhine region if you want to escape a little from the traditional german beers. in Koblenz you can find Wild Animal, on Bonn Ale-Mania and in Cologne Monarchy/Freigeist. There are some new craft beer bars showing up in the area as well, the one I know and go often is the Craftbeer Corner Coeln in Cologne Altstadt. Also Mühlen Kölsch have a craft beer bar next to Brauerei zum Malzmuhle close to the Heumarkt.