So my mom is going to Frankfurt in August and I want her to bring back some beers from her trip but have no idea on what is distributed there and where any good bottle shops are so any feedback would be great. Cheers
I lived in the Frankfurt area for 4 months, and I can confidently say that nothing Frankfurt has to offer compares to Bavaria (or many other parts of the country, for that matter). I found myself enjoying my weekly purchases of Andechs from my local getrankemarkt, but I also know large department stores like Karstadt and Galaria Kaufhof to have above average beer selections. Those are quite central to Frankfurt, closest to the Hauptwache stop on the U-bahn and on the Zeil. If your mother wants to make an extra effort, Maruhn's in Darmstadt is the best bottle shop in all of Hessen, with an incredible selection of Bavarian and Black Forest beer, just to cite two examples. I made regular trips to Maruhn's and always found something interesting, plus it's extremely close to the Darmstadt-Eberstadt S-bahn stop. Obviously, the Frankfurt area is no Bamburg or Munich, but with a bit of an effort, you can find decent beers for sale (it's good you're not looking for great beer bars, though, because Frankfurt struggles in that area). Don't look for beers specific to Frankfurt, because you won't find anything that comes close to rivaling other parts of the country. And if your mother is really adventuresome, have her visit the getranke bros in the village of Kirdorf in Bad Homburg. Bad Homburg is a beautiful large town/small city, and I have a particular fondness for this getrankemarkt because it was only a few hundred yards from where I lived. Hope this helps! At the very least you should be able to enjoy some brews purchased at the Karstadt in the center of Frankfurt. Not bad at all.
Here we go again.... oh never mind....Hell f-ing NO. btw, I just did the Cantillon tour at Quintiessence yesterday I'm curious if anyone's interested in my views here. I thought about posting them in the BeNeLux forum or the main one, but I wanted to ask here first?
Seems like either BeNeLux or main forum would be better, IMO. I would be interested in reading it, though. To OP, sorry, no Cantillon readily available in Frankfurt. There's a place in Stuttgart that has a few of their things (Kriek, Framboise, & Geueze I think), but that's not really in the area of Frankfurt. Bottle shops (Getränkemärkte) around Frankfurt will more than likely just carry local stuff and major German brands. @boddhitree can correct me if I'm wrong. @whatsgoody has it right, Maruhn's in Darmstadt is the best place in that area to get beers from Bamberg and etc. You could always send her up to Düsseldorf to pick up some fresh bottles of Uerige, though.
@whatsgoody seems to have pretty much summed up the Frankfurt beer situation. I would, however, add that there is a small cigarette-type store right by the train station on Münchener Str. 32 called "Yok Yok". It looks like nothing from the outside, and it is quite small, but for the space they have an excellent and eclectic selection of non-Frankfurt beers: a few of the normal Belgians (Leffe, Chimay, ... no Cantillon), but mainly difficult to find German beers (Mahrs, FritzAle, to name just a couple). They advertise over 200 different beers, but when I was there it felt like less than that. Then again, the beers were all rather spread out wherever there was space. But if you don't want to put your Mom to too much trouble, it's a very convenient location. Having said that, Maruhn has almost anything that they might have, and much, much more as well. Plus, you pay for convenience, the beer in Yok Yok is fairly expensive.
Hey @boddhitree - how about the Belgian restaurants in Offenbach & Frankfurt - did they have any gems? And my assumption is, if they are getting Belgians, there must be someone supplying them...
Nope. Mostly they got the conglomerates and the beer you can find in most places in Belgium. From their website... see anything interesting here? I mean, you can't find most of these in Germany anyway, so gems? Hahaha.: Belgische Biere in der Flasche Lindemans Peche 0,25l 2,5Vol. 3,00 € Lindemans Kriek 0,25l 3,5Vol. 3,00 € Applewhite Beer 0,25l 3,1Vol. 2,80 € Chapeau Mirabelle 0,25l 3,5Vol. 3,20 € Lindemans Geuze 0,25l 4,0Vol. 2,80 € Mongozo Coconut 0,33l 3,5Vol. 3,90 € Mongozo Banana 0,33l 4,5Vol. 3,90 € BiolegereBiobier 0,25l 3,5Vol. 2,80 € Blanche d'Ardenne 0,25l 4,3Vol. 2,20 € Grimbergen Optimo Bruno 0,33l 10,0Vol. 4,60 € Grimbergen Double 0,33l 6,5Vol. 3,40 € Leffe Blond 0,33l 6,6Vol. 3,40 € Leffe Bruin 0,33l 6,5Vol. 3,40 € Corsendonk Agnus 0,33l 7,5Vol. 3,00 € Duvel 0,33l 8,5Vol. 3,90 € Delirium tremens 0,33l 8,5Vol. 3,60 € Kasteel Bruin 0,33l 11,0Vol. 4,60 € Verboden Vrucht 0,33l 8,5Vol. 4,60 € Kwak 0,33l 8,1Vol. 3,60 € Palm Speciale 0,33l 5,4Vol. 2,80 € Chimay Bleu 0,33l 9,0Vol. 4,80 € Stella Artois 0,25l 5,2Vol. 2,20 € Jupiler 0,25l 5,2Vol. 2,20 € Hoegarden 0,25l 4,9Vol. 2,20 € Les Grandes Chimay Cing Cents 0,75l 8,0Vol 9,90 € Brigand 0,75l 9,0Vol 9,10 € Kapittel Prior 0,75l 9,0Vol 9,40 € Kasteel Bruin 0,75l 11,0Vol 10,90 € Biere de Mil Biobier 0,75l 8,0Vol 10,20 € Fassbiere Corsendonk Paternoster 0,33l 3,20 € Mort Sub.Xtreme Kriek 0,3l 2,90 € Bitburger Pils 0,3l 1,90 €
Sorry to bust your advice, but I went to Yok Yok on the Münchnerstrasse and they had no Belgians and very few beers you can't buy any most Getränkemarkts. The only mildly interesting beers I saw were the 2 I pictured below. The first one was fair, only half good, mostly an average Pils. Schussenrieder's Original Nº 1: Museumsbier. The 2nd one, let's just say I wish I had read the beer label better. It was a Biermischgetränk: 50% Weißbier and 50% Sprite-like stuff. Although it wasn't horrible, it was a step above Schöfferhöfer, but that's not saying much. It was definitely, basically a Frauenbier. Otherwise, don't anyone waste their time hitting up this place. I'll go back again in a few weeks or months and see if it's the same.
Hopf makes fairly good Weißbiere. I recently had their new Weizenbock that's called "Muospacher Bockfotzn". A little harsh that name, but creative. They're part of Paulaner which belongs to that Brau Holding Group (the one that also owns Kulmbacher). I don't know if you're familiar with "Russ'n", but that should have been warning enough on that label.
Well, that is extremely disappointing! I was there in October of 2013, and it was a bit disheveled, but had a very nice selection (for Germany...). Checking my notes (yes, I keep notes on interesting Getränkemarkts... very few things bother me more than finding a great beer and not being able to remember where I found it), I grabbed a Mahrs ETA Hoffman, a FritzAle IPA, a Weißenoher Klosterbrauerei Bonifatius Dunkel, a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and an Anchor Porter. As I mentioned above, they were rather disorganized and had less selection than they claimed. Perhaps, in retrospect, that disorganization was simply a winding down of the beer section. Either way, quite disappointed by that. Thanks for the report though! Sorry you went to the trouble to check it out.
Like I said, I'll check it out again in a few weeks to see if their stock improved. It was no trouble for me, after all, I was in the Bahnhofviertel of FfM. I wouldn't have never given the place a 2nd glance and never have gone in if you/someone here hadn't mentioned it. I actually had hoped to find a Mahrs Bräu or FritzAle. I'm just as disappointed as you are.
