Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
~In Search of Belgium’s “Best” Beer Cafes~ Belgium is home to countless beer cafes ranging from hole-in-the-wall locales in the working-class districts of Brussels to beer pilgrimage destinations like In de Vrede, Westvleteren’s beer café in West Flanders. Many lovers of Belgian beer …
~Three short hikes punctuated by lunch at Brauerei Mager, a beer in the Bruckmayer beer garden, and dinner in the courtyard of the Brauerei Hufeisen.~ A rare day it was when I woke up on that glorious May morning in the “before times” after …
The Horns of a Bock-Like Dilemma Duke Wilhelm V found himself caught between a rock and a hard place in matters of beer. Despite the promulgation of what we now call the “Reinheitsgebot” by his forebears in 1516, and despite subsequent attempts to regulate …
~A Day Trip from Munich~ One of the (many) things I love about beer travel in Bavaria is this: I had just spent the morning hiking around Benediktbeuren and quenching my thirst in the shadow of its magnificent monastery when it occurred to me …
1838 in the Old Town: Düsseldorfer Altbier Düsseldorf is the informal capital of German fashion and home to some of Germany’s most cutting-edge contemporary architecture. Forward-looking as the Düsseldorfers are, the very name of their beloved beer points in the direction of times past: …
Of Lemons and Lemonade It was almost two years ago to the day that I wrote an upbeat post about what 2020 had in store. I was starting work on a book project, and had a number of other writing ideas on the go. …
An entry from my beer notebook describes a day trip from Brussels in June 2019: “By shortly after noon, I had found my way to Het Anker, the ‘real’ reason for my visit to Mechelen. I love how beer, breweries, and their history get me …
‘Tis the Season If you’ve spent even a few days in Germany or Austria around this time of year, you’ll have developed an opinion about the weather. Rain, sleet, mist. Steel-grey skies you could reach up and touch. What daylight there is fades …
Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. ~Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust Scotland is a walker’s paradise of wild …
Augustiner is Munich’s retro-hip brewery. That wasn’t always the case. Until relatively recently, Augustiner-Bräu was considered a dusty old brewery. There’s no denying its age: Founded by monks in 1328, Augustiner is Munich’s oldest brewery. But conceptions of tradition change. Today, the brewery’s use …