Here comes a new challenger

Bamberg, capital city of beer culture in Germany, is not known for a here-today, gone-tomorrow approach to breweries. The establishments that put it on the map for the beer tourists of recent decades are, well, established: all with at least a century under their belts and some famous far beyond Bamberg. I idly assumed that that's how it works: with the exception of the 2004-vintage Ambräusianum, the list of breweries is pretty much fixed. I was wrong though. Perhaps because of the city's reputation, new players have been setting up their kettles and fermenters in recent years, hoping to get a piece of Bamberg's beer action. Attracting pilgrims has been Bamberg's core business since the beginning.

Apart from beer, the other thing Bamberg is famous for, at least locally, is market gardening. Zollnerstraße runs up behind the railway station, and from the street side seems perfectly normal, urban and commercial, but behind the buildings is a lot of green space and greenhouses. Kris Emmerling's family owned one of these gardens and when he inherited the site he was determined to continue growing produce there. He added Bamberg's smallest brewery -- Hopfengarten -- to the premises and in 2021 converted the former flower shop at the front into a taproom. Hopfengarten specialises in exotic recipes using botanicals grown onsite, and you get a hefty portion of horticultural education as a side order.

He introduced us to Hopfengarten's beers with Koala, a sweet and clean kellerbier-style lager at its base, but with added eucalyptus for an extra sweet and herbal complexity. Without knowing what it was I guessed rosemary as the interloper: while it has the wintery oily quality it didn't taste as full-on herbal as I would expect from eucalyptus. There's a subtle lightness of touch here, suggesting that they're not out to make gimmicks. Bamberg's reputation still counts for something.

Rauchbier is part of that reputation. I mentioned yesterday that Klosterbräu seems to have decided that adding one to their roster is essential. At Hopfengarten they have too, though given it their own twist. Where everyone else uses smoked malt, Hopfengarten smokes the hops. Rauch Hopfen is broadly a Märzen, I think: 5.8% ABV and amber coloured. The smoke is mild but present and there's a dominant savoury aspect, tasting a little like tomato seeds to me. Again, it's decent lager and not just a gimmick or a joke recipe.

For gimmickry, we finish on their Chilibock. They grow chillis out back and fifty different varieties go into this dark red-brown doppelbock of 8% ABV. It smells quite innocent, all smooth with sweet caramel and biscuit. Stylistic concerns, and indeed sanity, leave the equation from the first sip, and sip is all you can do. There's a ferocious chilli heat which drowns any beer character it may have had, while I also get a strong kick of acidic vinegar, suggesting the peppers have been pickled rather than boiled. They sell this by the big bottle, but not to me.

Down in the city centre, you would be forgiven for thinking that the brewery/inn Gasthus Zum Sternla had been operating for centuries: it fits the model of the rambling restaurant with onsite brewery perfectly. But while the site is historic it only took its current form in 2019 and the brewhouse out back is very high-tech and shiny. Despite having this small batch production set-up, they're not constantly producing new recipes the way a brewery like this at home would. Instead there were two permanent beers and a seasonal, all of them pale lagers.

Sternla Märzen is a bit of a lightweight at 5% ABV though is a healthy amber colour and sports a heavy bitterness. I get a rye-like grassy pinch and some cardamom or poppyseed spicing. Märzen isn't meant to be quaff-and-go easy drinking, but I found this one demanded my time more than most. While hard work to drink, it's fun and rewarding too.

A different hefty lager style is on the other permanent tap: Sternla Export. Although a much paler yellow colour it's just as dense, and slightly stronger too: 5.1% ABV being perfectly acceptable for Export. That said, it's generally a malt-forward beer, and this one really lays on the hops, with bags of celery and fresh spinach. That makes it a little busy, though it gets away with it by being super clean, allowing each flavour to play its part separately and distinctly, not all smushed in together. There's a poise and precision here that's very unusual for something produced onsite at a large German restaurant.

It seems quite topsy-turvy that Sternla Helles -- an accessible 4.7% ABV -- would be the special-edition seasonal, but here we are. It's almost completely clear and supremely smooth. There's a dry and husky aspect to the flavour, as well as a soft candyfloss malt middle. That doesn't leave much space for hopping, and I would have liked a little more green, even given that it's a Helles and an especially light one at that. More than anything, however, this was drinkable, and I could easily have opted for a second and third Seidla. That's the whole point of Helles so I can't say this one didn't achieve its goals.

The Sandbank Prison is one of Bamberg's landmarks, and with closure and repurposing imminent, the area around it is ripe for redevelopment. The Ahörnla brewery has stolen a march on this, with their brewkit installed and operational in a tower above their Ahörnla im Sand pub, and a sister hotel on the way nearby.

There are two flagship beers in production, and I'm starting with Sand Hell. This also seemed low-strength for the style, at 4.8% ABV. It was also much less polished than the Sternla fare, tasting of sweet caramel with added strawberry and raspberry. "There'll be butterscotch too" I thought, and sure enough the telltale diacetyl arrived a second or two later. Despite being unlikely to win any homebrew competitions, it does manage to stay enjoyable. I think there's merit to the fruity complexity, even if it's quite untypical.

Ahörnla Rot is quite a different proposition. This is 5% ABV and a clear red. Burnt caramel is the first impression I got from it, but exploring further gave me fruitcake, and tea brack in particular, with a sprinkling of coconut complexity. The overall impression was of a wholesome and old-fashioned teatime treat. Again, this is perhaps not how lager should be brewed by-the-book, but again it's enjoyable and drinkable.

One more brewpub finishes this whistlestop tour, and it's as different again as the others. Like Hopfengarten, Landwinkl stakes a claim to be Bamberg's smallest, crammed into a side room beside the poky corner pub that's been serving the beer since 2019.

There's a rauchbier in the set here, called A Rauchigs. This is a garnet red-brown and 5.4% ABV but packs in a lot of flavour to that package. Tar, salty fish, brown sugar and cola all feature, and I was reminded of Schlenkerla's delicious but slightly extreme Ur-Bock. Like it, the smoke is smoothly integrated into the weighty dark-malt-driven body and it makes the beer incredibly satisfying to drink. This is the kind of beer that one might expect to find on every street corner in Bamberg but which is sadly rare.

With time for just one more, I thought I'd go for a cleansing Helles. Landwinkl's is called A Hells. I give up kvetching about relative strengths, because this one is only 4.7% ABV too. Though dry and chalky at first, the flavour evolves into a beautiful summer-meadow floral quality before bringing a balancing spinach bitterness in the finish. As at Sternla, there's none of the roughness of what is essentially a kellerbier, and it's completely clear to boot. I loved how it adheres to the strictures of Bavarian pale lager while also showing superb creativity in its complexity. Very nicely done.

After four nights and a lot of legwork, time was up in Bamberg. Phase two began with a train journey westwards.