Bamberg

Our final stop on our beer journey was Bamberg. Although Bamberg is officially in Bavaria, the locals still consider it to be part of Franconia. Franconia became part of Bavaria in 1803 and I don't think they ever got over it. It's a beautiful city of about 80,000. It's situated among seven hills, just like Rome, but our tour guide told us that the archbishop named one hill twice so that Bamberg would be considered Rome's equal.

They have a section along the river that they refer to as 'Little Venice' as well and I can see why.

I do know there are 8 breweries in the city though. That may seem like a lot for a city of 80,000 people, but when you consider all of Germany has around 1,400 breweries, it's not that many. The most famous of these breweries is called Schlenkerla. Most breweries used to roast their own malt using a fire fueled by wood. This gave the malt, and subsequently the beer, a smokey flavour. During the industrial revolution, most breweries got their malt from a malting house. For efficiency, these malting houses switched to coal. Obviously, the coal smoke did not provide a pleasant taste for the beer, so they filtered out the smoke and just roasted using heat. Schlenkerla did not do this. They continued to roast their own malt using wood and today they are one of two breweries still producing a 'Rauchbier' or a smoked beer. A lot of Germans outside of Franconia do not like this beer, but I thought it was great. If you enjoy BBQ, you'll probably like this beer too.

We had a great talk with the current owner Mathias about the history of the brewery and pub. His English was perfect, primarily because he spent his Grade 11 year on exchange in Welland ON. Afterwards we had a great dinner. I had a local specialty called the Bamberg Onion. It's essentially a meatloaf stuffed into an onion. Very good.

The next night we had our farewell dinner. Lori flew in to spend a couple of extra days with me in Bamberg was able to join us for the meal. It was a lot of fun and we ended up staying out quite a bit later than we planned. We joined a group of local beer enthusiasts for an impromptu beer tasting.

The next couple of days were a little quieter and more our pace. We went for a walk along the canal, read and spent time on patios watching the world go by.

Our final day, we left early and took the train to Nuremberg. We spent a few hours touring the city before we caught our flight back to Paris.

This gave us one more chance to enjoy nice light German meal (can you detect the sarcasm?).

Despite the awful ending when we got back to Paris, it was a great trip. I was exhausted by the end though, but that had more to do with the fact I had just spent two weeks in Calgary plus a trip to Rome before that. In total, I was living out of suitcase for five weeks. Add in all the beer I drank and food I ate and it's no wonder I was burnt out. Having said all that, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time I just won't plan another two week trip right before it. I think I'd like to do the Farmhouse Ales of France & Belgium next though, so if anyone else is interested, let me know.

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