Hey everyone, A friend of mine is traveling to Germany soon. I know he’s spending most of his time in Frankfurt. I was wondering for venue recommendations where one could find some Westy, Cantillon and/or 3F to drink. Even better if you can recommend another place that does to-go sales. Thanks y’all!!
In all honesty, it is hard to find anything except German beer in Germany. They are proud of their product and rightfully so. I found it very difficult to find anything from outside the country. I highly doubt you'll find any of those beers on a shelf in Germany. This store has some Belgians, but they are pretty much run-of-the-mill stuff for Belgian standards, which is still very very good! This place is only 30. min south of Frankfurt. Maruhn GmbH & Co. KG Beverages Retail Pfungstädterstr. 174 64297 Darmstadt I just spent 15 minutes on Google Sat trying to find the place where I had the best Kebap's I ever had! It was also my first one. I only remember parking at what I think was a grocery store and walking a few hundred yards, crossing a fairly main street to visit this place on the corner. It couldn't have been more than 5 min. from the drink market. I'm thinking it was East or South.
I highly doubt you're going to find that stuff on tap anywhere, but you might be able to find a few (overpriced) bottles at craft beer bottle shops, so I would look out for those. I don't know about Frankfurt, but there are multiple shops in Cologne that sell that stuff, although few of them really have a great selection. Also, forget about any specials or seasonals, but the standard offerings should be available if there are any decent craft beer bottle shops in Frankfurt. You should also be able to find plenty of other international craft beer offerings there. The Germans being so proud of their great beer that they won't sell anything foreign is just silly stereotyping. Maybe it was like this in Bavaria 20 years ago. From what I understand there's even a pretty lively craft beer scene in Munich these days.
Check the bottle shops, as Craftbier is a thing now, but not when I lived there almost 20 years ago. Things change. Last September we stopped into a bottle shop in Bamberg, looking for one of the local beers to take home. No Cantillon, but they had many other Belgian beers. 3 West 12s we’re still available, setting their wooden case. I commented, but didn’t bother to ask the price after seeing the stickers on the other Belgian beers. Most Germans I knew viewed Belgian beers with suspicion, as they were not brewed to the Reinheitsgebot. One guy told me they were not fit for human consumption. 20 years later, maybe those views have changed?
The Craftbier scene is on the rise in Germany. And it seems to be catching on in some places, but the majority of Germany still hasn't embraced it. I believe that to be the Reinheitsgebot Purity law as hopfenunmaltz pointed out and how Germans like tradition. Having lived there for 4 years fairly recently, I'm only passing on my experience; hardly stereotyping. Being that Belgium beer is far and away my favorite, I looked long and hard for sources nearer to me as opposed to driving 4-7 hrs into Belgium to get it. But I never really found a location that was worth a second visit. I'd rather drive two or three times as far and load up with two or three times more beer. If you want to take a train ride, or other type of ground transportation, the grocery store "Cora" has a really good selection of the more common stuff. With Delhaize coming in a distant second. But once in Belgium, your second visit could be to a craft beer store to find some of the offerings you seek. Enjoy the adventure!
Belgian beers are a lot more common in Germany now than they were 5 or 6 years ago. It’s quite easy to find the more well known Belgian beers like Chimay, Leffe or Rochefort in normal beer stores. What you won’t find is Westvleteren or anything else rare.
I know three craft beer bottle shops in Cologne/Bonn that carry Cantillon and 3Fonteinen. At least one of them carries Westleveren as well.
Your best bet is P&M Getränke in Bonn. They had by far the largest selection, and the best prices, the last time I was there. Definitely lots of Cantillon and 3Fonteinen, not a 100% on Westvleteren, to be honest. I think I saw some in the cooler in the back, but I could be wrong. Maria Eetcafe in Cologne serves Westvleteren, including 12, but since they are a cafe/bar, it's probably not to go. It's also listed as strictly limited on their menu. You should also be able to find a bunch of Belgian beer at Bierothek and Ixi Getränke in Frankfurt, according to google, although they don't appear to carry any W/C/3.
As Westvleteren is nowhere sold really legal (officially the monastery forbids selling it and can (theoretically) take you to court if you stock it in your shop), it is a) totally overpriced (15-20€/33cl) and b) sold out very fast as the stores only get a few bottles from the grey-market each... Getting hold of some of them might be very tough. Rudat in Dortmund has it occasionally as well - but I was there today and didn't see it.
If it makes you feel better, I'm on your side. I lived in Heidelberg from 2010-2014 and my experience lines up with yours. To be fair, a Crafty bottle shop opened there after I left, so who knows. Towards the end of my time in Germany, I knew of one shop in Munich that I think had 3F, one shop in Stuttgart that had a few Cantillon (Gueuze, Kriek, and Framboise maybe?), and absolutely nowhere that served Westvleteren anything. In fact, I remember being in a bottle shop in Belgium and asking the proprietor about Cantillon. The woman replied, "if I want Cantillon I have to go to Brussels just like everybody else". They did have cases of Orval stacked up to my shoulders and why I didn't buy them out of their stock I'll never know. Orval at like €1.25 per bottle. But I digress.
They don't really have a legal leg to stand on there though, which is why their beer is pretty widely available throughout Belgium and even Germany and the Netherlands to a much lesser degree, admittedly at black market prices though. It may be in their EULA that you cannot sell their beer for profit, but such EULAs are not legally binding. Otherwise a lot of places in Belgium would have gotten sued already... One also has to wonder if all this hype generated by low supply, creating a "grey market", isn't really in the monks best interest.
Working from Frankfurt, Maruhn in Darmstadt would be your safest bet. Was there 2 weeks ago and they have a fair supply of 3F and De Ranke, Dupont and a few StFeuillien magnums...
A 25-30 minute train/s-bahn ride to Wiesbaden: http://www.petitbelge.de/ Good belgian beer options. Small menu, but well-made food to snack on with a trippel. Then your friend can go enjoy some good german beer and food (or apfelwein since he is staying in Frankfurt and, well, in Germany), but maybe that's the subject of another thread...
Good recommendation, walked by that place the last time in Wiesbaden. From the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhauf it is more like 50 minutes, a little less from the Flughafen. Then you need to get from the Wiesbaden Haubtbahnhauf to the cafe, another 15 minutes by foot, or a cab ride to the Wilhelmstrasse area. Just saying it is more like an hour+ by S-Bohn when you add on the walking to/from the stations.
While nowhere near Frankfurt, Tap-House Munich had Westvleteren for sale. Pricing was borderline crazy (25 Euro), but such places do exist now. Bierothek stores carry American and Belgian imports and it looks like there's one in Frankfurt. I doubt they'll carry Westvleteren, but Cantillon and 3F could be a possibility. They are at least "retail" beers that can be normally sold. While I want to roll my eyes at this post a little, it's no longer even a ridiculous question. A decade ago the answer would have just been simply "drive 3-4 hours west."
