Finally, we tried it over Christmas. There are two versions available - one produced in Germany and one produced in the US (Boston, of course).
We tried the US-made one, which we found at the wonderful Charleston Beer Exchange. This is a little beer store in the historic distric of Charleston, which has a wide selection of craft and international beers (they have Augustiner Edelstof Exportbier!!) and holds monthly beer tasting dinners.
The first thing we noticed was the color, a rich amber hue. Like champagne, it maintained its small bubbles. It poured with quite a significant head, though it's settled down significantly in the picture.
As expected, it definitely had a yeasty flavor. While the smell was a bit more complex, the malt and yeast were what we tasted most. And the "beer" part of the taste was much more of an ale than a lager. Overall, it's not bad and we're glad we tried it. But it probably isn't a beer we'd buy again. It's more of an interesting idea and something fun to try than a good beer of which you'd want to drink a whole bottle. (And btw, it's best served cold)
I'm not sure exactly what you're supposed to pair with champagne-style beer, but as we were at my parents' house we tried it with some great Corky's ribs and Dad's famous homemade onion rings. Yum!
Like Lamplbräu, Kuchlbauer is privately owned. The same family has run it for seven generations (since 1904). Whereas Lamplbräu was basically in the country (bordered a farm), Kuchlbauer is near a town center.
Also, unlike our "tour" at Lamplbräu (where I just called the owner, set a time, and he ushered us around personally), you have to purchase tickets for a Kuchlbauer tour at a specific time, with a guide & 40 other people.
We arrived early and had some time to kill before our tour started. Kuchlbauer has a biergarten too, so we went there. From outside its brick walls, you immediately see something quite different -- a strange, tall tower looms:
Next photo (below) is the biergarten entrance... what exactly is that thing, and why is it here? Stay tuned:
The inside of the biergarten is decorated much like the tower. They have a colorful, unique personality:
The tower is fenced-off and not accessible from the public area / biergarten - only through the tour.
The first biergarten customers we saw: nuns! A good sign for things to come? Absolutely.
After getting a snack, we went back to the "corporate" front entrance to find the tour's starting point.
The tour takes a couple of hours to complete and costs €11 for adults, €5 per child, and €7 per teen. The intro video (in German) told us that we'll see the fusion of "beer and art" at Kuchlbauer. (Art??)
We followed our guide into the brewery for the start of the tour. First stop: the copper brewing kettles. It's easy to see the size difference now between this operation and the Lamplbräu "Sudhaus":
Then, as at Lamplbräu, we saw the next step in the brewing process - nearby cooling and storage tanks:
Moving on through the tour (& brewing process) we saw antique equipment like this bottling machine...
... then their larger, modern bottling facilities (they were not active - the current batch was not yet ready):
From the tower (hang on, info coming soon...) you could see the shipping yard and one of their trucks. It's not InBev of course, but Kuchlbauer is clearly more commercial than a classic Bavarian microbrewer:
Unlike Lamplbräu - which cycles batches between helles (a lager), pilsner (another lager), and weissbier (an ale) - Kuchlbauer brews exclusively weissbier. The have six varieties available today (five are pictured below):
The varieties are, from left to right in the graphic above: - "Sportsfreund" (sports friend)... basically a 'lite' dunkel weissbier, 40% less alcohol, 40% fewer calories - "Alte Liebe" (old love)... a dunkel (dark) weissbier - "Turmweisse" (turm = tower)... richer, uses a special malt, and has a higher 5.9% ABV (alcohol by volume) - "Weisse" or "Helle Weisse"... a traditional Bavarian weisse, described as round and mild (vs. the Turm) - "Aloysius"... named after a mythical Bavarian character, it's a dunkel bock weisse with a high 7.2% ABV - [Not pictured] "Alkoholfrei"... alcohol free and low calorie weissbier
Note: Our friends at Regensblog told us Kuchlbauer *does* brew a helles(and they love it). We found it on Google, but no link to it on KB's web site. It must be brewed at another site and considered non-core to their brand.
The traditional weisse and the Turmweisse account for the vast majority of their output and branding. The Turmweisse has the crazy tower on the label, and is available packaged with a unique weissbier glass:
(Keep reading -- we'll get to the "beer and art" explanation and tell the story behind the tower...)
This effectively ended the first part of the tour about the brewing process. Next came some data and history.
You may have noticed, in the very first photo, that their logo on the side of the building said: "since 1300". Kuchlbauer is one of the oldest breweries in Germany. They have a list (below) with the 15 oldest continuously operating breweries in Bavaria. Kuchlbauer is 700+ years old (Munich's Weihenstephan is the oldest at 970).
They also had a map of all breweries in Bavaria (notice the bias towards Bavaria, and not Germany)...
... plus their wiessbier output (upper glass) relative to total Bavarian weissbier production (lower glass):
The lower glass made for quite a photo op by itself - Frau A could probably fit her head in the top of it:
Between the weissbier output comparison and the long list of Bavarian weissbier brewers, you realize just how many local microbreweries Bavaria must have (and how many more visits, tours, and tastings Frau A and I need to do).
Now the tour shifted focus again, concentrating on the topic of "beer and art". Getting closer to the tower...
Next, the guide led us down to a basement room in the main building, to a replica of Da Vinci's "Last Supper". Yes, you read that correctly -- it's a half-scale reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting:
This replica is 8 meters wide and 3 meters high - the mounted television shows a short video to the group:
The video and then the guide tried to pull symbolism from the Last Supper and link it to beer, brewing, etc.. We didn't understand the details of how they claimed to link the two, sorry. But: the head of the brewery and developer of the tower, Leonhard Salleck, has such a strong interest in Da Vinci and this specific work that he wrote a book on it titled Der Schlüssel (The Key), available on Amazon.de. (No English translation available though.)
The next "beer and art" rooms/hallways were inspired by the artist who designed the tower. (Can you guess who?) They weren't designed by him, but in his style, and done in the main building during the tower's construction:
The decor of the room above is unique enough, but one specific feature is important to our story: dwarves. The brewery owner likes dwarves, and uses them to tell visitors about the brewing ingredients, process, etc. (Video below is about 3 minutes long, and a little dark, but gives you an idea of the Disney-esque feel.) The dwarves will play an important role later in this post, about how the unique tower came into being:
The interesting designs continued into the next hallways & rooms, with beer bottler built into the walls:
Finally, we left the central building and went to the base of the tower (freestanding next to the brewery). This is what everyone was waiting for -- the Kuchelbauer Tower (plaque below: "beer art tower"):
The tower has its own live webcam -- the latest photo is always available here.
As far as we could understand, here's the story behind the Kuchlbauer Turm:
Leonhard Salleck, head of the Kuchlbauer brewery, also has a strong personal interest in art. In the late 1990s, he dreamed of erecting a beer+art tower (it'd be a tourist draw and marketing tool). In 1998, Salleck contacted Austrian architect and painter Friedensreich Hundertwasser, asking him to design such a tower. Hundertwasser initially declined.
But in 1999 Salleck sent another request. He wrote a short märchen (fairy tale) about the "weissbeer dwarves of Abensberg". The work, life, and mindset of the dwarves in his fairy tale communicted themes of brewing as art, and how brewing aligns closely with nature. (Hundertwasser was a nature lover; his buildings - like this tower - have trees growing in and through them). Finally, Salleck said that the Abensberg dwarves need a home.
Fortunately, Hundertwasser had some affinity towards dwarves (maybe why his designs are so childishly playful?) and his new response to Salleck's request was something like: "You guys in Abensberg are crazy... I'll do it".
Hundertwasser created the initial concept for the tower, but his apprentice Peter Pelikan handled the planning (and eventual implementation).
Along the way, Salleck had trouble getting Abensberg to approve. First, German tradition (and often law) holds that nothing can stand taller than the town's church steeple. Second, local leaders thought it would be a blight on the town's aesthetics and history, and not a future landmark. To overcome the strong opposition, Salleck & Pelikan cut the tower's originally planned height in half. This was eventually approved. (It was ultimately a stroke of luck, because after the experience Salleck said that the larger version might have bankrupted the brewery.)
Hundertwasser died in 2000, at 71 years old, during the planning phase and before construction even started. Construction eventually began with the laying of the cornerstone in 2007. The 12-ton "onion" dome was mounted on the top in 2008, and the tower was opened to visitors in January 2010, just 20 months before our visit.
The tower stands 35m (114ft) tall, is 10m (33ft) in diameter, with the curves and colors of classic Hundertwasser. (Further interesting information about the German engineering firms and software involved can be found here.)
The biergarten was later implemented at the foot of the tower and its grounds designed in a similar style. Every December, Kuchlbauer erects a typical German Christmas Market in the biergarten space as well.
We entered the tower at ground level and immediately went down the stairs to the lower level. Here, the tour guide gave a final speech and left the group to explore the tower independently.
On the other side of the "basement" is a wall of weissbier glasses from brewers around the globe. With more than 4200 on display, it is the (claimed) largest collection of weissbier glasses in the world. We took a short (24 second) video walking past the glasses, to give you an idea of exactly how many there are:
From this lower level, then you climb the stair to the top of the tower. Each level has another mosaic area, depicting important aspects in beer brewing. We'll cover those in a separate post. And then you descend to the beer garden and turn in your ticket for a Kuchelbauer beer of your choosing.
What is there left to say? This was one of the most, um, unique tours Frau A and I have experienced.
Of course, the last activity was heading to the gift shop and getting a six-pack (one of each kind)! For a million+1 reasons, this is a great destination on any trip to non-Munich, non-Alpine Bavaria.
A couple of new beers popped up in our local grocery store, so we had to try them. We have seen a few restaurants around here with the Hofbräuhaus Traunstein logo on display, so we guessed it was a smaller local beer.
Upon further investigation, we discovered this was a private brewery from southern Bavaria (Traunstein is not too far from Chiemsee) and has been around since Elector Maximilian I founded it in 1612. See, the royalty had declared a monopoly over weißbier, so Maximilian started this brewery in order to help pay off debts he'd inherited. Traunstein survived the Thirty Years War with relatively little damage. Through the years, the brewery survived wars and fires, passing through different hands until being acquired by the Sailer family at the end of the 19th century. In fact the beer saved the brewery at least twice - they extinguished the fires with buckets of beer!
Today, Hofbrähaus Traunstein is a medium-sized brewery (10M liters per year), focusing on a mix of beer and hospitality (guesthouses and restaurants). They use Hollerdau hops, local malt and are the last brewery to transport their beer with horse-drawn carriages.
The Weißbier was quite good. It had hints of the standard banana and clove weißbier flavor, but was not overwhelming. It was nicely carbonated and unfiltered. Overall, we recommend it, especially to someone who enjoys a subtle weißbier rather than a sweet, strong one.
We also tried their helles.
The helles was OK...not bad but also nothing special. Not hoppy, not malty, not really much distinctive at all. It's definitely a decent beer and totally drinkable, but nothing exceptional.
We're looking forward to seeing what else might turn up on the shelves soon!
The Alps are a little too far away from the Hallertau region for hard-core hiking or trekking. However, biking is big here, and over a dozen towns have well-marked nature walks. Many of these family-friendly trails include information signs along the way about flora, fauna, or culture so they are called a "lehrpfad" (learning path).
(Note: like hops in Hallertau, many towns in wine regions have a similar path through vinyards.)
The lehrpfad is about 4km long (under 2 miles) and has 26 signs along the way (like the one in the photo above). It takes 2-3 hours to walk the circle, is open year round, and has a small parking area at the start/finish point.
We were interested in seeing hops fields close-up and learning more about hops and the region in general. The hops field at the very beginning of the path was already harvested, but shows the grid structure clearly...
...with the poles, wire lines where the bines are attached, and rows of hops plants (now cut back) on the ground:
We read further about the "largest hops cultivation region in the world" (translation below):
From the sign: Hops have been cultivated in Germany for over 1000 years... for a long time only near Monasteries and breweries... only in the last 200 years has Hallertau developed into a major production region... today they export to over 100 countries throughout the world.
Hallertau has 14 official areas (each with their own "seal") that control and track quality across more than 1500 production entities and their 15,000 hectares. Almost 50% more area is farmed today than in 1970.
Sign #4 shows what to expect in the fields throughout the year, from the winter rest (Oct-Feb) to first growth (Apr-May) to bloom (July) and harvest (Aug-Sept). The bines are cut back aggressively after the harvest for the winter.
Each hectare of hops requires 250-300 hours of labor a year, compared to grains that require only 10. Wow. Guiding the bines (3x a year, to help climb) and cutback is done by hand, although the harvest is semi-automated.
The hanging lines are 7.5m tall (24.6 ft). Each hectare of hops field has 3500-4300 lines (2 per bine); this plus the main structure requires 30 kilometers of wire. At harvest, one hectare yields 1500-2500kg of dried hops.
By signs #5-6 we still had not encountered a non-harvested hops field! But we carried on and learned more:
From Sign 5: hops bines have three stalks (we knew this from our hops wreath-making)... the plant can live up to 50 years but is mainly productive from 3-18 (then removed)... in May & June they grow 35cm a day, by harvest reaching 7m... only the female flowers are used (seeds aren't useful so pollination is prevented).
From Sign 6: 99% of hops production is used in brewing beer; the remainder is used in herbal medicines and as flavoring in liquors... beer brewing can use the flowers directly (like Lamplbräu) or extract syrup/pellets.
The flowers from one hops vine contain ~450g of resin, which is enough for 350 liters of "helles" beer. As a rule, weizenbier uses 80g of dried hops per 100 liters, helles uses 120-150g, and pilsner uses 200-400g.
Finally, we rounded a corner and came directly to some "ripe" hops fields -- very tall and very full:
You can see the tire tracks in the background that the tractor and harvesting machine will follow:
The smell of the flowers was rich and fresh:
The next stretch along the lehrpfad had long hops fields...
... and the landscape in many directions was end-to-end hops fields:
The rest of the information signs were about nature in the area: forest trees, insects & animals, etc. At one point, cattle pastures took over, along with a Christmas Tree farm!
The sign below says: this is a field of northern pines... trees are 8-12 years old when cut for Christmas.
In one of the cutest things of the day, the farmer has built a "wild bee hotel" in the edge of the woods:
Of course nothing in Bavaria is complete without at least one shrine:
The Wolnzach "learning path" was really quite fun to walk and photograph (plus we had great weather). It's another of those things to do when you schedule your beer pilgrimage to Germany and Bavaria.
About one year ago, to launch the Schnitzelbahn blog, we took 64 German beers (available in Munich, our home) and arranged them into a bracket like the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The "regions" were loosely defined as:
16 helles 16 weissbier (although the "selection committee" had to send a few Oktoberfest beers here) 16 pilsner 16 dunkel & other styles
The starting bracket looked like this (click for larger version):
Some beers were from large firms and are available all over Germany (and beyond). Others were local. Some beers were expensive, but one Munich helles costs just € 0.39 a bottle - much cheaper than water!
For a little background, we wrote posts to introduce some of the styles and specific beers in the bracket: - This was the very first post to kick things off - Here we explain the differences between a Munich helles (a lager) and weissbier (an ale) - In this post and this post we match beers with well-known universities/teams in NCAA basketball
So, with our faithful friends, we would test four beers per evening. Each of the two pairs was tasted blindly. The two winners were then pitted against each other -- basically Round 1 and Round 2 run back-to-back. (In this case, "winner" simply meant "the beer I liked the best" - a subjective voting, but good enough.)
And yes, this tournament also had strong favorites, underdogs, and upsets along the way. You can relive the action in our posts below:
At the end of our tour of the Lamplbräu brewery, Herr Stanglmayr kindly gave us a 6 pack with three of his pils and three of his weißbier to try, and we picked up some helles at the Deutsches Hopfenmuseum.
The helles was quite good. A smooth, classic helles style beer. Easy to drink, but with a good light hoppiness (from Hallertau hops, of course!) and just the right carbonation. When we visited the brewery, he had already sold his last batch of helles (apparently it goes quickly!), but we were able to pick up a six-pack at the Hopfenmuseum.
We'll have to try it up against Tegernseer and some of the better Munich helles, but we think it would stand up quite well in another beer tournament!
The pils was also much to our liking, not surprising for a southern Bavarian pilsner-style beer. It was a more hoppy beer, but not at all bitter. Very enjoyable.
Note the different bottle style - he had had some trouble with the bottles he normally used for pils and ended up having to use a different one. So it may be that this batch will be in a different bottle than ones we would get at another time.
As you can probably tell from the lights, rides, and people passed out on the hill, we tried these at Oktoberfest (as part of our engagement picnic).
On a later day, we tried the Weißbier.
We are big fans! This is a great weißbier, and one that will please both weißbier lovers and those who find it too sweet. While it does have hints of the weißbier flavors, it is not at all sweet and is very subtle (but complex) in the flavoring. No one aroma or taste overpowers the others - it's quite a nice balance. Also an unfiltered weißbier, and one that is not too fizzy. We'll have to get some more of this!
During our weekend in "Hopfenland Hallertau" (that grows 25% of the worlds hops) we saw the Hopfen Museum:
Right outside the front entrance the museum had a hops "field" - you can see their size relative to Frau A:
Each row was a different variety of hops, with small white signs identifying the type and characteristics:
For example, "Hercules" has stronger bitterness while the classic Hallertauer is subtler & more aromatic:
Here is a close-up photo of a hops flower:
And a basketful of dried hops:
If you tear a flower apart you can see the golden resin/powder inside, which is the part used in brewing.
The printed information gets into great detail about the different hops/flower varieties... but only in German:
You also get a good view of how the rows are cultivated in the hops field, kinda-similar to asparagus mounds:
Inside, the museum had more hops growing -- probably so that in winter you can still see & smell live bines:
An interesting fact from the Museum plaques: the amount of hops used in brewing "helles" beer today is only one-fourth of the amount that was used 200 years ago (from 400g per hectoliter in 1806, to 100g per hl in 2003). Our guess: it's a combination of more efficient/stronger extract, less need for preservations, and taste change.
A similar chart showed how farmers have improved the field structures and processes to increase efficiency. The chart below shows hours per hectare -- was manually intensive even in the mid-1950s, but then wow!
Of course engineering came into play somewhere -- they had examples of early processing machines that separated the flowers from the bines. Interestingly, the first machines were British and US, then Germany caught up:
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, they used simple drying racks for drying the hops flowers, before later constructing more complex drying buildings:
The museum also had old-fashioned presses used to compress dried hops flowers into more efficient shipping bundles/sacks:
As is typical for Germany and Europe, the towns within the Hallertau geography have always been careful to control and market the quality of their product - regional branding. You can see the metal seal press/stamp on the left and labeling template on the right that were used to identify sacks containing true Bavarian hops:
Just an hour away, nearby Nürnberg because the largest hops trading center in the world at one time:
Nürnberg Hops Market, 1914, courtesy of Photo Archive of Nürnberg
Today, Nürnberg is not needed as a hops way-point. Plus, many of the merchants were Jewish and their businesses were ruined during the Third Reich. These sacks contain just dried flowers - resin/powder not yet extracted:
Even though the above bundles are very old, the herbal scent of the hops flowers was still quite strong.
There was surprisingly little on the resin extraction process, perhaps because the focus here is agriculture. We did learn that many processing firms sprang up in the 1950s, but there are only three large ones today. The output is usually dry pellets, but also cans of extract/syrup(?) are made as well:
Germany brews a lot of beer, but they grew enough hops in 1900 that they exported 1/3, and today it's 70%! You can see where all the pellets go to below -- note how much the beer-loving Czechs get! (And Italy?)
In addition to commercial and technical topics, the Hops Museum also had a history of the region and hops cultivation. I found the old books most fascinating: "Hops as brewing material" from 1901. Notice that "Prof" (professor) Braungart wrote the book -- hops has been a long-standing topic of serious study for Bavaria!
Hops bines are grown on complex wire systems that must stand up to heavy winds. As the wires on which the bines grow are cut during the harvest, they have to be reinstalled each season. A dangerous task, and one that still must be done by hand (today luckily they have things a bit more sturdy than these ladders from the 1920s and 40s!)
But after we (successfully!) strung the wires together in this puzzle version in the museum, we gained an appreciation for how complex the wire system has to be to support everything...not as easy as it looked!
The Museum offers weissbier tastings, and beer & chocolate tastings... but only during the week. (???) So we didn't (and probably will never) have a chance to try them -- too bad, not very customer friendly.
The entire Museum is relatively small (two floors, takes maybe 1-1.5 hours to see everything). Audio guides are available in English and it really makes for an interesting and educational "beer stop" in northern Bavaria.
And don't forget to get the two local beers from the Museum store, including Lamplbräu (our tour here)!
Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 9:00 
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