Travel and Tourism
Day Nine: 10 breweries April, 2008 - Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
We were so busy on our last day that I didn’t have time to reflect that it would all be over soon. We started with a trip out into the countryside to the small village of Aying, home of Ayinger Beer. This is a small, independent brewer who has managed to stay that way through automation. It takes only 3 people to run the whole brewery. The picture on their bottle is of the former brewery in town. The gleaming new glass and steel brewery is out at the city limits. I had time to jog the half mile to the old place before our tour of the new facility began. A nice touch during the tour is that you don’t have to wait until the end to get your beer samples. They wheeled out a serving cart with glasses and tapped some beer straight from the fermenters. Then it was on to the taproom for a fine meal served on brewery dinner plates, along with steins of all their beers. I wish I’d taken a picture of the main course, which I recall as being in a beer sauce. I did photograph the cabbage salad with coarse ground beer bread.
We were so busy on our last day that I didn’t have time to reflect that it would all be over soon. We started with a trip out into the countryside to the small village of Aying, home of Ayinger Beer. This is a small, independent brewer who has managed to stay that way through automation. It takes only 3 people to run the whole brewery. The picture on their bottle is of the former brewery in town. The gleaming new glass and steel brewery is out at the city limits. I had time to jog the half mile to the old place before our tour of the new facility began. A nice touch during the tour is that you don’t have to wait until the end to get your beer samples. They wheeled out a serving cart with glasses and tapped some beer straight from the fermenters. Then it was on to the taproom for a fine meal served on brewery dinner plates, along with steins of all their beers. I wish I’d taken a picture of the main course, which I recall as being in a beer sauce. I did photograph the cabbage salad with coarse ground beer bread.
After heading back to our hotel on our bus, we reorganized for a ride out to Dacchau Concentration Camp, another half hour out of Munich. Like the medieval walled city of Rothenburg, it was something that cannot be passed by. We had only 2 hours there, although we easily could have spent half a day to look over all the exhibits. By evening we were back at Hotel Jederman, and ready for our farewll dinner at the Augustiner brewery restaurant, again just a few blocks down the street.
The advantage of going with a tour is that we got our own table. My wife and I had come here the day before, on our own. We’d walked all around the restaurant, looking for an empty table. The only spot open was right across from the bathroom doors. Next to them was a sheet of plexiglass separating the restaurant from the stables where they keep their version of the Budweiser Clydsdales to haul THEIR brewery wagons out to Octoberfest.
I don’t recall the main course, but I remember the only dessert I came across that I didn’t care for, the Dampfknodel. This was an unflavored sweetroll. No cinnamon or sugar, just some vanilla sauce to dip it in, but as bland as could be. It’s on a par with Leberkase, that I had back at Andechs. It’s described in books as a type of meatloaf. Didn’t look at all like meatloaf. Looked and tasted like the most bland slice of thick baloney you could imagine. It is edible only after slathering with German spicey mustard.
But great thing about this old place Augustiner was how they brought up their beer barrels. About every half hour, I’d hear the sound of a roulette wheel, but I could never see one. Then I realized it was the sound of chains reeling up a wooden barrel from the basement up to the bar to be tapped. I was never quick enough with my camera.
While we were lingering after our meal, one of their Brew Masters joined us at our table. He talked at length to our tour leader, who runs his own German beerhall back home. I grabbed this photo opportunity and put myself into the action. Afterwards it was back to the hotel for our final night in beloved Bavaria. Wiedersehen!
If you have information or links that you would like included in BeerPedia™, please email us at: