Landkreis Forchheim

The back end of the trip was shaping up, with the prospect of a fabulous day out.

So today was the day we met Tony and Laura at the station with Rick Carbonara, the founder ofhttps://www.beerwanderers.com
A very affable fella: something of a nomad who had settled in Bavaria, he had a deep knowledge and fine appreciation of AllThingsBeery for the region 🍻

We hopped on a Ubahn to Nordostbahnhoff, then rose out to the beautiful sunshine to catch a regular train to Gräfenberg: literally the end of the line….& finally a bus up to Thuisbrunn, ready for the Fünf-Seidla-Steig beer hiking trail: over 8 miles of pure pleasure 😍

There we started our day with a short sharp climb up to the hill overlooking the village. Dating back to 1348, the small castle next to us was plundered many times over the centuries, but has now been in private ownership for over 60 years.

Back down the hill, we found our first quaint brewery, Gasthof Seitz. Rich secured our first pints (0.5l 😉) - three pils, two dunkels.

Very refreshing.

He also gave us all his branded wooden beer ‘lid’ - bierdeckels 👍
Stops the bugs sneaking in for a sip, very cool merch, they will get much use 😎

The brewery had suffered a recent fire, with evidence in the form of a missing roof…but the brewing continues 💪

After finally draining our glasses, we set off.
A perfect day for a hike in the forests and paths, we enjoyed a lot of banter along the way.
Brauerei-Gasthaus Hormann was next on our walk, about 30 minutes away. Here we managed to squeeze onto a table and decided to have lunch there: stuffed cabbage and a Käsespätzle: good hiking fodder!

The next leg was over an hour away at the Gasthaus Linden Brauerei, where we chatted with a couple of older fellas.

On the way we saw quite a few young people having a break from their walk with a game of Flunkyball. A simple drinking game: one plastic bottle sits between the two teams, who all have a beer to drink by them. In turn, they throw a ball (or bottle) at the target. If they hit, they get to drink until the other team have reset the bottle and got the ball back to their side.

Our fourth brewery was just around the corner at Friedmanns Brästüberl. More shade under an umbrella, the day was turning quite warm 🌞
Interesting car spot when a Porsche Speedster rumbled past us.

A final mile and a half took us up a hill to a big mast and then back down to Klosterbrauerei Weißenohe: a monastery, & monks always know a thing or two about brewing 💪
Rich’s favourite place to finish the walk, a lovely beer garden with plenty of shade.

A final stroll down the hill to catch the train back, we bade a final farewell to our leader as he headed off back to Munich.

Since the munchies had struck, we stopped for a final cheeky Pho. Sorry to report I was the only one able to face one final ale….
At last, we wearily called it a day.
A GREAT day!!Read more