Weekend in Bed / Dusseldorf and Day 6

Last time we left off with me being sick, it was a doozy of a cold. I am very lucky that I had the weekend to recover, and recover I did. I slept all Saturday, I left the room to eat one meal and that was it. The recovery time paid off and I was able to at least enjoy the city on Sunday.

Was able to try some of the other local Altbier. Schlussel was really good and could give Uerige a run for favorite Altbier.

Then we walked about and did some sightseeing

Really nice day as well and we walked the Rhine River

We of course end up back at Uerige and spend the afternoon people watching. Each one of the marks on the coaster is to keep track of the beer for the table. We were there for a while, but then I needed to get more rest before the last leg of the journey.

 Monday morning, first stop is Krombacher

We watched a super cheezy marketing video that was entertaining at least. Then we started the tour. They make a lot of beer here... 5.8 million hectaliters to be exact (about 4.94 million US bbls)

 If you look wayyyy out in the distance, the tower that is on the Krombacher logo is on top of the hill

Bottom cones of their fermenters and Eder dropping more knowledge

 Impressive filtering setup. They may or may not treat the beer they export differently than the beer that stays within Europe for stabilization purposes (coughPVPP). They may or may not also truck that beer to another near by brewery to package it in NR bottles. No worries though, they only export 1.5% of their overall production.

 Sampling time and a little snack before heading out to Binding Brewery

 This was the first thing we see when we enter the plant. It is a massive lauter tun with a diameter of 11.8 meters (38.7 feet)

 

 Really nice copper vessels, how do they keep these so clean!? From this point forward we were not allowed to take any pictures. They make a wide variety of products including Binding, Henniger, Schöfferhofer, and probably most notable in the US, Clausthaler. Many people know of Clausthaler from their non-alcoholic offerings, which is much more difficult than one would assume. This would be the last huge industrial brewery of the tour, so looking forward to suppliers and smaller producers.

Study Tour Day 5: Warsteiner and Uerige

Day 5: Friday! This means that we made it through the first week and will have a weekend in Dusseldorf to recover.

Bus pulling up to Warsteiner. They are a massive brewery, they can just put copper kettles everywhere cause that is how they roll

Entrance to the visitors center...copper kettle

 

Inside is an awesome display of old bottles, also they like their copper kettles

 

Outside in their biergarden...you guessed it, gazebos made out of copper kettles

Whoa, its not a copper kettle. But it is massive. Funny thing is that they don't even use it anymore.

The place is so massive, that their regular tour is on a bus that actually drives through the buildings!

Also not made out of copper, but still very impressive

Now those are some huge fermenters!

This is their beer cellar. They keep samples of each beer as a reference and to quality check

After Warsteiner, we headed to Dusseldorf where an evening at Uerige was awaiting

Dusseldorf is how of the Altbier and Uerige is considered to be the gold standard. Served in a similar manner as Kolsch in neighboring Cologne with small glasses and quick service. The beer however is very different.

As you can see, the Altbier is much darker in color and has both more malt and hop flavor. One of my favorite German beer styles for sure.

Alt means "old" in German, meaning that the Altbier is really old aged beer...just kidding, it means that is the old style of making beer. Although, they do have slight oxidation from some of the techniques that are still used.

Above we have one of their beautiful copper kettles on display. On the right you can see that they still use a coolship to begin cooling the wort after boiling.

Dedication to the old way is very important to Altbier producers, but that does not mean they can't have cool lights in their fermentation room

Bales of hops!

We were invited by the brewery to enjoy one of their schweinshaxe, which was phenomenal. It was actually the best schweinshaxe I have had anywhere in Germany, including Bavaria.

At this point in the journey, a massive plague was surging through the bus (massive plague= a cold). Although I had avoided it previously, early in the day, I felt it start to take hold. After dinner, I went directly to bed, did not pass go, did not collect more Altbier. Good thing there were no plans for the weekend so I could rest up.

Study Tour Day 4: Stauder, Potts, and Zwiebel

 Day 4!

 Started out going to Stauder Brewery, which is known for their Pils

 More beautiful copper kettles. Most of the copper kettles are just for show and have stainless inside of them, including these.

 Packaging area with the filler in the center, impressive to see it in action

 Beer time!

 Pretty cool tasting room with intricate carvings on barrels

 From a more classic producer, to a more forward looking brewery, Potts!

 Their brewer spent time brewing in the US and is more open to craft beer styles. Here he has barrels that he ages special releases in. More on this later...

 

They also have made a brewing museum as part of their new facility. The story is that the caretaker had a ton of historical items that he had been collecting. As part of the deal, he actually lives in the museum inside the barrel pictured above. Apparently there is another room with shower and more private area, but there is actually a bed inside of that barrel.

 

 On to the tasting! Their beers were very solid all around, but the highlight was their barrel aged Barleywine. It was aged in the barrels mentioned above. At this point it was a relief to have more interesting and intensely flavored beer, no disrespect to Helles, Pils, and Weissbier.

 

 Then it was on to Soest to stay overnight. We found a great local brewery, Brauhaus Zwiebel. It literally means the Onion Brewery.

This is their Maibock, it did not taste like onions. Quite delicious.

After an after dinner whiskey at an Irish bar across from the brewery, we called it a night.