Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
The Alps of Southeastern Bavaria Berchtesgadener Land was once coveted for the wealth of its salt. As the salt trade waned over the course of the nineteenth century, interest in southeastern Bavaria’s spectacular scenery grew. It was a time when Europeans discovered a new …
~The Lay of the Land~ Munich. Beer gardens. And beer hiking. Three things I can’t get enough of. Put them all together and you have a ramble that takes you to some of Munich’s most beloved and most illustrious beer gardens. For years I’d …
~A Tale of Two Walberlas~ As I approached the summit of the Walberla, I couldn’t help but think that only the Germans would schlepp an entire beer fest up a mountain. And no ordinary mountain. The Walberla is shrouded in legends of witches’ sabbaths …
Back in January I sat down with All About Beer Podcast hosts Don Tse and Em Sauter to talk about beer travel with co-guest Chris O’Leary of Brew York. The timing was fitting: I had just arrived back in Oklahoma after a 24-hour journey …
Introducing Mittenwald It was September 1786. Goethe had just left Munich on his way to the Brenner Pass, where he would cross into Italy and remain for two years. The stagecoach called at Mittenwald, a market town along the ancient road from Verona …
An Upper Bavarian Idyll Rays of sunshine pierced the clouds above the marshlands of Murnau as the train trundled along the Loisach valley. As we dipped into the basin that cradles Oberammergau, the sun emerged in full splendour, illuminating the tusk-shaped Kofel that …
Prelude I was up at daybreak and on the trail early for this, one of the most fascinating and challenging beer hikes I’ve ever done. I’d arrived in Bad Schandau from Dresden the previous afternoon, spending the rest of that short but sunny November …
The rush of cool mountain air was bracing as I stepped off the train on the banks of the Schluchsee. A short bus ride later and I’d be in front of an old beer wagon laden with barrels, the coral-coloured Rothaus brewery rising up in …
Salt was once white gold in the region spanning southern Bavaria and northern Austria. Like Salzburg and Hallstatt, like Bad Reichenhall and Traunstein, Berchtesgaden was built on a mountain of revenue from the salt trade. Founded in 1102 as an Augustine monastery and raised …
Secluded Forests and Rolling Hills in Franconian Switzerland Bamberg is the epicenter of Franconian beer, but hidden gems await the wanderer willing to plunge into the verdant landscape of Franconian Switzerland, a region that owes its name to its scenic landscape of rolling hills, …