Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
Through a glass darkly
Just ninety minutes from Munich by train, Regensburg is an eminently walkable city where you’re never far from a brewery, beer garden, or Bierkeller. It’s also an ideal base for visiting Kloster Weltenburg and Schneider Weisse in Kelheim, and for exploring the woodlands cradling …
The broad verdant valley north of Nürnberg gradually gives way to hillier terrain covered in woods. There’s gold in them there leafy hills the closer you get to Bamberg. Liquid gold, that is. And liquid amber, bronze, and copper. The spires and steeples of Bamberg …
King Max and the Hungry Beer Garden Patron A refreshing beer and a meal in the cooling shade of the beer garden: It’s a beloved rite of spring and summer that dates back to early nineteenth-century Bavaria. For several years, the citizens of Munich …
Kloster Andechs occupies a central place in the pantheon of German brewing. Founded by Benedictine monks in 1455, Kloster Andechs has been offering hospitality to weary pilgrims ever since. Now run by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Boniface in Munich, Kloster Andechs is the largest …
Weissenohe at the Gateway to Franconian Switzerland It’s a gloomy afternoon in late spring made slightly brighter by the cheerful yellow canola in full bloom and the several shades of green fields spread over the hills like a patchwork quilt. The bus from Forchheim …
Tucked away in northeastern Bavaria on the Czech border, the Oberpfalz is home to Zoigl, a beer style brewed the same way it was a century ago. But Zoigl is more than a beer style. It’s an ethos upholding a tradition that has long since …
It’s been awhile since I’ve put pen to paper and said hello to all of you. Well over a month now, which is way too long. But oh what a crazy beautiful past few months it has been. I celebrated a milestone birthday surrounded by …
A few years back, the beer world came together to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot (Beer Purity Law) promulgated in 1516. The atmosphere across Bavaria was festive. Breweries touted the Reinheitsgebot during their tours, museums staged exhibitions about the edict’s history, and beer …
Writing about the history and culture of beer in Central Europe invariably involves acts of translation — not only translation of the German-language sources that I read, but also translation in a broad sense. The Russian linguist Roman Jakobson identified three modes of translation, including …
A journey to Kelheim in eastern Bavaria is a journey to wheat beer nirvana. A charmingly unassuming town at the confluence of the Danube and the Altmühl Rivers, Kelheim began life in the ninth century as a county seat. Through the ages it has served …