Hey guys, my wife is traveling to Frankfurt next week for a few days and had a couple of questions. She's going to be working quite a bit, so her time is limited! If she was looking to partake in any kind of Oktoberfest events/gatherings, are there any places she should try to check out? And my other question--from what I've gathered, Cantillon is hard to come by in Germany in general--but are there any shops she could grab a bottle or two to bring home? Cheers!
Don't know with any certainty if they carry cantillon, but only big bottle shop I know of near FRA is Maruhn - http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/18167/?view=ratings They might have some.... Prosit!
You may want to do a forum search and review posts by boddhitree. I believe he still lives in FfM and he has posted a lot of good information about it.
Cantillon will be hard - Maruhn has only a few Belgian beers - and mainly the "Macros" incl. Chimay.... but no real sours afak. There is a great craft-brewery in Frankfurt: http://braustil.de - and in Sachsenhausen lots of Cideries producing cider only for their pub! The cider-culture is in Frankfurt much bigger than beer...
Thanks for the help guys. Confirmed my suspicions about Cantillon--appreciate the recommendations/suggestions for the wife, I know she will appreciate it
I was at Maruhn last week — no Cantillon. Only some Boon (and, of course, Lindemans) from what I recall for Lambics, but I was mainly looking at the German craft selection. Store is worth a trip though.
Frankfurt isn't really a place to get involved with anything regarding Oktoberfest, so I don't recommend partaking. Add to that that Ofest is already over (officially), it's not worth discussing. As other Frankfurt threads have stated, it's a wasteland for beer. She might be able to pick up a few seasonal beers at any local Getränkemarkt. If you know where she will be staying, maybe we can point you/her in the right direction.
Still the case? Or worth bumping this thread? I'm there from time to time, back next week. I'm content with the ol' apfelwein places and could use some good old school place. For newer good stuff, I've been to Braustil & Naiv (and still thinking about the Amaris I had there). Other thoughts?
A month late in answering... oops. Anyway, to answer @ManforallSaisons ... living in Ffm, I'm quite happy only having Naïv & Braustil. Naïv now has a huge beer menu. Not many are on tap, but there's got to be more than 100+ beers in bottles and now cans, a large majority of which are German craft brewers as well as Stone-Berlin. There are always new beers to discover here, so there's no need to complain it's the only game in town. They're wildly successful and it's always packed. There is a bottle shop adjacent to the restaurant, but it's got funky hours. Mo - Fr 15:00 - 19:00 / Sa 13:30 - 19:00 Braustil - still has great, absolutely fresh beer on tap, though only 4 (sometimes 5 with kegs) at any time due to having a limit of only 4 tanks of 500L that they've managed to cram into a minuscule space that was once the office of gas station, while also fitting a small drinking area for guests therein. Yet those limits have super advantages, which is that no beer lasts for more than a month, meaning a beer that is always super super fresh. There are 2 Stammbräu, or regular beers: a Helles, which rivals any you'll find in Franken and alone a outstanding reason to visit, especially if you don't have time to visit Bayern in your stay in Germany; and the FPA (Frankfurt Pale Ale), which is still after 3 years a mild though nicely malted version of an IPA. The other 2, sometimes a limited 3rd, are rotated among a wide selection that the brewer, Sascha, dreams up. He's gotten quite experimental by German standards. For the last month, he's had a Lambic Ale, which is a malty pale ale soured slightly with lactic acid yeast, and which, according to Sascha, to my huge surprise has been very well received among their German clientele. Also recently, a whiskey ale, etc. There have been a couple of other bottle shops which have opened up in FFM that sell craft beer, and craft breweries are popping up in almost every major German city, so a huge improvement on beer life here since I moved here in 2008. If anyone's interested, I can make a report on bottle shops for craft beer in FFM. But back to the OPs pipe dream of finding Cantillion in Ffm... fuggetaboutit..
And why not, for a city known for nicely tart apfelwein? ... Never too late for a good response like this, thanks much. Since my latest visit, after my renewed question, I made it back to Naïv and had good service both in the bar and the shop. I was with a group that I tried to steer toward Braustil but didn't succeed... next time. Anyway, I'm somewhat glad to hear that I haven't walked right past a bucket-list place and missed it. Please feel free to report in with further finds. (Now, are any of those grocery-store apfelweins worth a shot?)
To answer about the Apfelwein (Ebbelwoi, Äppler) in supermarkets...yes, they're very good. I've tried almost all of them, and to various degrees they're different from each other, some sweeter, some sourer, etc. I once bought 5 of them, so there were 5 liters to drink, and did a taste test. My favorite was surprisingly the cheapest one off the shelf. One of these days, I'll have to take a pic of the label of that one. When I go out to bars or Kneipen, I never order beer, for there's only Fernsehbier on tap, and only drink Äppler, aber logischeweise nur Sauergespritzt! [logically only with sparkling water.]
