Huber Haus Bockfest 2009

Thanks to Choo for these pictures of this year's Bockfest at the Huber Haus in Omaha!

Thursday, 26 March 2009: Neu-Ulm, Ulm, and Freising

Yesterday: Berg and Ehingen/Donau

(The complete Google Earth map of this week's adventures is available here.)

Paris knew that her meeting would run late today, so rather than take the train to Munich and arrive around midnight, she decided we should rent a car and drive there. So this morning Choo and I picked up a Volkswagen Polo — with a handy TomTom navigation device ­— at the nearby Budget office and headed for Neu-Ulm.

Fine German Engineering

We zipped up the B30 to Neu-Ulm and found Brauerei-Gasthof Schlössle. The beers were excellent, the food was satisfying, and the coffee was necessary.

Brauerei-Gasthof Schlössle, Neu-Ulm

Schlössle Zwickel

Schlössle Spezial Märzen

Schlössle Hefeweizen

After lunch, Christoph the "Lerner-Brauer" kindly gave us a tour of the "new" (2005) brewhouse.

Scenes from Schlössle

Not far from Schlössle is Brauhaus Barfüßer Neu-Ulm. It's one member of a small brewpub chain; the other two locations are in Ulm and Heilbronn.

Brauhaus Barfüßer, Neu-Ulm

Barfüßer Blonde

Barfüßer Schwarze

Barfüßer Weiße, the highest-scoring beer on the trip!

Barfüßer's grounds abut the Danube River.

Ulm, from Neu-Ulm

Choo dips the Donau

With several hours to kill, we drove into the heart of Ulm and wandered around a while.

This monument stands on the site of Albert Einstein's birthplace, which was destroyed in the firebombing of 1944. The Albert Einstein Memorial McDonald's is visible in the background.

We encountered the former Brauhaus Drei Kannen, which is now a Gasthaus and Biergarten. They commission a beer from Gold Ochsen that's served under the Drei Kannen name.

Historisches Brauhaus Drei Kannen, Ulm

Drei Kannen Spezial

The B30 took us back to Biberach, where we picked up Paris around 7:00pm, then we were off to Freising. Most of the trip was on the Autobahn. For most Americans, Autobahn driving is exhilarating, the closest we'll come to driving a race car. It requires a great deal of attention and even more driving skill than on our freeways, and it's great fun. I got our VW Polo up to 180 km/h (110 mph), but the front end started feeling a little light, so I backed off to 160 km/h (100 mph) for most of the trip. We arrived at our hotel just after 9:00pm.

After checking in, we decided to visit one last brewery, the famous Brauerei Weihenstephan, just a couple of kilometers from the hotel. The oldest brewery in the world, founded in 1040, brews some of the best beer in the world. And the food here is pretty damn good too.

Bräustüberl Weihenstephan, Freising

A brief history of Weihenstephan

Weihenstephaner Tradition Dunkel

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel

Weihenstephaner Korbinian

Weihenstephaner Vitus

Tomorrow:The trip home, uneventful, unworthy of an article

Wednesday, 25 March 2008: Berg and Ehingen/Donau

Yesterday: Bamberg to Biberach

We didn't plan on leaving Biberach and starting today's brewery tours until 11:00am, so Choo and I spent the morning wandering around town and checking out the view from the Weisser Turm.

Weisser Turm, Biberach an der Riß

Biberach an der Riß

"Spring, he says." Choo was led to expect nicer weather than we experienced this week.

A half-hour bus ride got us to Berg. We passed the Warthausen malthouse along the way. There used to be a brewery here, but no more.

Warthausen Malz, near Biberach

Brauerei Berg is a bigger brewery than I expected, in a very small town near the Danube River. The beers were pretty good, and the Maultaschen were excellent.

Brauerei Berg, Ehingen/Donau-Berg

Berg Original, UlrichsBier, and Hefe-Weizen

Berg Bräumeisterpils and Märzen

Berg Schäfleshimmel

Berg Spezial

Berg Kristallweizen

Berg advertises in Biberach

Brauerei Rößle in Ehingen/Donau is a small brewery in a bigger town, and it's just three bus stops away from Berg.

Brauerei Rößle, Ehingen/Donau

The brewer, the 7th-generation of the family that has owned the brewery since 1833, happened to be there, and he gave us a quick tour. It's an 80-hectoliter brewhouse producing 3000 hl per year, 80% of which is sold for distribution.

Scenes from Brauerei Rößle, Ehingen/Donau

They had three very tasty beers on tap today:

Rößle Helles

Rößle Dunkles

Rößle Edel-Ross

The plan was to catch a bus at Ehingen Bahnhof and head back to Biberach, but nature called us instead to the nearby Brauerei Schwert, which I had visited last year.

And at the end of the night, we had a glass of Zwiefalter Pils with our fajitas at El Poco Loco in Biberach.

Tomorrow: Neu-Ulm, Ulm, and Freising