Looking for a town to spend a weekend in (for my wife and I's 1st anniversary) and thought I would ask fellow BA's (with a knowledge of German geography/beer). I'm looking for a quaint town that is around 2 hours drive from where I live (Karlsruhe area) that has a brewery worth visiting. A bonus would be that they have a good weissbier (my wife loves them). For example, I have been thinking of Miltenberg to check out Faust. Read good things about them on here, the town looks nice, and it's less than 2 hours drive. Anyone have recommendations of places to check out that meet that criteria?
If you are willing to expand your travel distance to 3 hours maybe you and your wife would enjoy a visit to Oberailsfeld where Held-Brau is located. @danfue has wonderful posts about the beers of Held-Brau. Below is a nice write-up by Jm & Wendy Stebbins concerning Held-Brau. Who wouldn’t want to visit the “8th Wonder of rhe World”!?! Plus there appears to be great castles in the area. “Comment from Jim & Wendy Stebbins on 11/1/2004 12:52:51 PM The "8th Wonder of the World." While castle hunting one afternoon, we stumbled across this braueri in a very small village,located in the mtns. of Frankisch Schweiz. Undoubtedly,the best dunkel & helles we ever tasted. The dunkel was dark,rich,smooth with a huge,brown head,that dissipated quickly.Great food & cheap prices. A friendly atmosphere in a quaint,cozy setting. A perfect place to be on a cold day with the Kachelhofen in the corner,vines hanging from the ceiling from the heavy wooden beams. Go our of your way, if necessary to visit this braueri.” Cheers!
I was in Miltenberg in October. I thought it was a great place t spend a weekend. A really good brauerei and enough sights to see to occupy you when you're not drinking. If you would drive three hours, Regensburg is worth visiting and has more beer choices.
Ehingen an der Donau (s-w of Ulm). Three breweries, plus a fourth across the river in Ehingen-Berg. Interesting places like Sigmaringen and Blaubeuren are nearby.
Both places are more like 3 hours away according to Google maps which means if you drive like a German it's only 2 hours away My suggestions would be either Amberg (5 breweries in town and about 15 more in the surrounding country) or Riedenburg (2 breweries in town, one of them with a Weizen to die for, one more brewery (= Schneider Essing) in walking distance, located in the Altmühl Valley and I live not even 20 km from there to boot).
If you want to drink at Held Brau, you'd be far better off staying in Pottenstein and then making the quick drive over for the beer. Not much to see or do in the village of Oberailsfeld. Ron Pattinson has a nice write up of Pottenstein here: http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2012/07/pottenstein.html. It's pretty much the heart of Franconian Switzerland and has some cool caves to explore, if you're into that sort of thing. If you want to skip over to the Oberpfalz -- or even back West to Bamberg -- that's doable in 30 min or so. Plus the castle is very picturesque:
Forchheim is a great little town. I love the Hebendanz brewery tap. Byaerischer Anstich and you can take in your own food: http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/forcpubs.htm
Yes yes yes!! On one trip back a few I stayed at the Brewpub/Hotel Schneider in Essing... Easy access via train/bus to Riedenburg, Kehlheim and Abensburg... plus Stahl is in the area.... ;-) Or how about in the Murnau am Staffelsee area? There's a brewery there, plus one at Kloster Ettal, another at Miesbach, it's not far from Kloster Andechs.... Lots to choose from wherever you go! Prosit!
Happy Anniversary! Please take this with a grain of salt as I have not been to the Black Forest yet, but both Alpirsbacher and Rothaus are in the Black Forest, and I'd guess with a rental car you could easily hit some cute towns along the way. Good luck, have fun, and report back!
Thanks everyone for all of the informed suggestions! Originally, I had written a more elaborate post stating that we had just been to Franconia and next month would be in the Munich area for Braukunst. But, I wanted to leave it all open to see what everyone would suggest... had a feeling that "hey, just drive a bit further to Franconia" would come up and I was right. Since my wife and I are now living in Germany and will be for at least the next 3 years, there will be plenty of time to check out as many breweries (in Franconia especially; we had a great time there last month) as possible. The focus of this trip is not for beer; but of course since I'm posting this on BA and my wife knows me well enough that beer will play a roll. Thanks for all the suggestions, still open to more and I will be sure to report back with what we decide/how the trip goes. Prost!
Have you ever been in Trier? A very nice city with LOTS of old Roman ruins. Very impressive and about 2h/2h15min away. On your way there you can go via Saarland (visit Mettlach with the Klosterbräu and the Villeroy&Boch factory outlet (fine china-bone) and the very picturesque Saarschleife at Orscholz). In Trier there is http://www.kraftbraeu.de and https://de-de.facebook.com/pages/Trierer-Petrusbräu/294421797396522 Kraftbräu is not bad, the other one is very new
I agree, Forchheim is a great place too and the "Kellerwald" is legendary Only downside (from my personal point of view) is the distance to Laaber. And yeah, I know 120 km one way seems little by US standards but bear in mind that our gas prices are tripple and that I usually end up being the driver so I get to drink 2 beers and that's it
Thanks everyone for the suggestions; for this occasion we've decided on checking out the Schwarzwald; thanks @mjtierney2. We've got a great little apartment in the mountains (looks like a lot of snow right now) and I'm hoping to visit the neighboring breweries during the day. Alpirsbacher is just a few minutes away and a little brewpub in Freundenstadt looks like a fun place to check out as well. Does anyone know of any breweries along the way from Karlsruhe to Alpirsbach? I know that the majority of the new "craft beer" breweries are in Bayern; but I'd hate to think that we drove right past one on the way there because I didn't know about it. The main reason I mention "craft beer breweries" is because I am always looking for innovative German beers to bring back to Paris in small quantities to sell at the bottleshop I work for. It's a lot of fun sharing these beers in France; Hopfenstopfer and Freigeist has been quite popular there and I want to continue to spread the word that Germany is doing some cool new stuff!
Sounds nice! My wife and I have been talking about visiting the Schwarzwald since we moved here in 2010 but so far we still haven't made it. Sounds like a good time to be there, too. Enjoy!
