John Keeling recently took a trip to visit some of Germany’s fine breweries. here he met some fascinating characters and absorbed a wealth of the country’s storied brewing traditions.

When I retired four and a half years ago I had several objectives. One was to do more travelling, and one was to enjoy pub lunches to the max. I also wanted to keep and maintain my connections and relevance in the brewing industry. Not being the Fuller’s head brewer anymore meant I could take a much different viewpoint. Being retired, of course, left me with more time to fill and what better way than travelling the world drinking beer.

Now I have always preferred cask beer, and this is partly due to poor British versions brewed by the Big Six in my youth. Now with the rise of Lost and Grounded, Utopian Brewing amongst others this is not the case anymore. However, I have always maintained that if you want to drink a good German style beer than the best thing you can do is go to Germany.

So, I planned a little jaunt to Berlin, Köln, Nuremberg, Bamberg and finishing in Munich. Now I was taking Symone along too and although she is into her beer and also a tour guide for Fuller’s , I could not do 100% beery things so a little touristy side had to be planned too.

The first thing I did was to ask on Twitter for suggestions and thanks to everybody who replied but it was impossible to do all of them despite them all being good. Also thanks to the advice from Twitter as I used the train app and managed to get my tickets and the trains!

So off we headed to Berlin, which is a wonderful city. I enjoyed the beer scene but simply sight-seeing in Berlin was wonderful. We stayed at a central location near Checkpoint Charlie which was ideal for what we wanted to do. I had been in contact with Louise Krennmair and had arranged to meet at a bar called Forsters Feine Biere, a short train ride away. We also met the rest of the Berlin crew – Ben Palmer and Louise’s husband Andreas. 

Andreas even gave me a copy of his book on Vienna lager (so I will have to go to Vienna to see if there is any Vienna lager in Vienna). He also bought me two examples of Berliner Weisse to try. A very nice evening indeed. Ben is a PhD candidate at VLB Berlin and was eager to pick my brains. This took all of five minutes.

Then onto Köln the home of Kölsch of course. Needless to say, I did try one straight away in my hotel, but I had an horrendous train journey due to a German train strike! I really needed a beer. The first thing you notice when you get out of the station is the magnificent cathedral. It is quite a sight and I recommend you get a look around it. I had not planned any beery visits, but we did try a number of bars and had a pleasant stay in Köln.

I had planned several beer-related trips in Nuremberg and Bamberg though. I had contacted Markus Raupach who I met whilst judging beer in London. Markus lives in Bamberg and had kindly offered to organise a few things for me.

A very nice evening indeed. Ben is a PhD candidate at VLB Berlin and was eager to pick my brains. This took all of five minutes.

John Keeling

The first thing he arranged was a trip to Tucher Brewery in Fürth. We met the good folks from the brewery for lunch first and a few beers. I was delighted that they like London Pride too and a great love of British ale. I must admit I did enjoy their beer too. It was an old brewery in Nuremberg and very good looking it is too. They experiment with barrel aging there and I was delighted to try some from the barrel. Luckily their beer was easily available near our hotel, so I tried some of their beer in the wild as well.

The next day we travelled to Bamberg. What a great trip that turned out to be. We met up with Markus and a group of trainee beer sommeliers in Bamberg before walking up to the historic beer cellars for a tour. 

This is where breweries would ferment beer and store it, the cellars were also used in the second World War for shelter and some factories were also relocated there. Absolutely fascinating.

We then had a brewery tour given by the retired head brewer Martin (I know how he feels). The highlight of the tour was the tasting directly from the tank which not only brought back memories for me but was the best beer of my holiday. We finished by having dinner together before catching our train back to Nuremberg.

Lastly, we travelled the short distance to Munich for the last four days of our trip. Munich, although a very famous beer city, was to be just a tourist experience with no beer events. Well, I had agreed to that before we had even taken off for Berlin and sometimes being a tourist is nearly as good as being a former head brewer on tour.