Beer and Place: The Aromas of Bamberg
Bamberg’s one of those places that you immediately sense is a beer town. The moment you step off the train on any given day, you’re greeted with the sweet aromas of malt from the Weyermann facility just north of the train station. And oh, the aromas in the air! A cascade of caramel and brown sugar sweetness, hazelnuts and chocolate, malted milk, freshly baked dark bread, and cookie dough!
[This memory — voluntarily recalled as I write these words — brings me right back to a particular point in time: a dark, drizzly, and blustery early afternoon in October 2015 at Bamberg’s main train station. I hadn’t been in Bamberg for over twenty years and had just arrived from Vienna via Nürnberg to delve a little deeper into Bamberg’s beer culture. Since then, no matter the season or the weather, every time I step off the train in Bamberg and smell those aromas of malting grain, all the excitement I brought to Bamberg that day becomes palpable again, the past insinuating itself pleasantly into the present.]
But that’s just the beginning of your olfactory adventure in Bamberg. Continue along toward the center of town, and soon the wind will carry you the pungent, peppery scents of hops just added to the boil at neighbouring breweries Fässla and Spezial. If you’re on a morning stroll along the narrow path leading past Fässla and are lucky enough to find the brewery doors open, you might even catch a whiff of the telltale scents of fermentation.
[Though I’ve created a kaleidoscope of new memories out of subsequent tastes, smells, sights, sounds, and tactile pleasures bound up with exploring the history and culture of beer, it’s well-nigh impossible to resist the involuntary memories that strong sense associations call forth. Every time I catch the scent of those aromas when I’m passing by Spezial or Fässla, I’m taken back to moments during my first visits to both of these places — to the courtyard at Spezial one morning on a brew day, or to the lagering room during an impromptu tour of Fässla just after I had sat down to a breakfast of Weisswurst in their cozy Bierstube.]
And as the sun sets and you make your way down the hill after a relaxing afternoon at one of the beer gardens on Stephansberg, you might pick up a smoky scent mingling with the sweet smells of malt. Faint at first, the aromas of smoked meat, bread, and cocoa grow all the stronger as you pass the gates of Hellerbräu Trum, where the brewers of Aecht Schlenkerla are mashing in for the evening shift to bring you that quintessential Bamberger treat, Rauchbier.
[It was May 2018 and I was about to turn in for the evening before heading to Franconian Switzerland the next day for a beer hike. I had just finished a stein of beer while dreamily absorbing the dappled sunset light glimmering through the leaves at the Wilde Rose Keller. As I was walking down Stephansberg from the beer garden toward Brauerei Heller, Bamberg etched yet another sense-image into my reservoir of memories: the colour of the twilight sky over the spires of Bamberg intertwined with the smell of Rauchbier mash, all cake and cookie dough and brown sugar with a whiff of campfire smoke — a future past waiting to tug at my shirtsleeve when I least expect it.]
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Rest assured, there’s more on its way about Bamberg and Franconia. Lots more: rustic taverns, beer gardens, smoked malt, hiking from one Franconian brewery to the next, and everything else you need to make the most out of your beer travels to northern Bavaria. Check back from time to time. Till then, prost!
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All photos by F.D. Hofer.
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© 2019 F.D. Hofer and A Tempest in a Tankard. All rights reserved.
A magical place that gets inside you the more you get inside it.
Bamberg really is a magical place. It’s among the few places in the world that combines a rich history, a vibrant cultural scene, and impressive architecture with such a powerhouse brewing tradition — while still being small enough to take it all in during a short visit.