More details will be coming this week, but for now please take note that I’ll be collaborating with Bistro New Albany owner/chef Dave Clancy on a German-themed beer dinner on Monday, October 1 at 6:00 p.m. at BNA.
My beer plan is somewhat different from previous beer dinners at the Bistro. This time around, we hope to be featuring the fine line of beers made by the Ayinger brewery south of Munich.
These include pale and dark wheat ales, Celebrator Doppelbock, Jahrhundert (export lager) and Altbairisch Dunkel (all in bottles), and what I hope will be Oktoberfest Marzen on draft (cross your fingers). We’ll offer larger portions of fewer beers this time around, as befits the hearty Bavarian drinking and dining tradition.
Pray to your particular Gods for crisp fall weather and a chance to dine outdoors.
Here is Chef Clancy’s preliminary menu. An additional appetizer may be added, and we’re hoping to keep the price near the $45 range per person.
-Gurkensalat (cucumber salad)
-Gulaschsuppe (goulash soup)
-Sauerbraten with Kartoffelpuffer (brined and roasted beef with potato cakes)
-Schwarzwalderkirschtorte (black forrest cake)
Showing posts with label Bavaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bavaria. Show all posts
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sandkerwa NA, an homage to Bamberg’s beers, begins Friday, August 31.
Bamberg, a beautiful city of 70,000 people located in the countryside of the northern German region known as Franconia, has long been recognized as the epicenter of traditional German brewing and beer culture. Ten breweries operate within the city limits, and as many as 150 others are to be found within the outward radius of a good day’s bicycle ride on immaculately marked and maintained bike routes. The majority of Franconia’s 300 breweries are family owned and operated.
For a half-century, SANDKERWA (SAND-kehr-wa) has been Bamberg’s end-of-summer street festival, one that originated as a church-related commemoration in the historic city’s oldest central district. For six days each year in late August, the Altstadt’s narrow lanes are filled with food, beer and people in a hearty celebration that brings Munich’s better known Oktoberfest to mind, but exists on a less crowded, decentralized and more enjoyable human scale.
Sandkerwa is an idea worth emulating, and Bamberg a state of mind worth honoring, so given that I’ve been looking for a reason to stage a German-themed draft beer fest, prepare for the inaugural edition of Sandkerwa NA, which kicks off at Rich O’s and Sportstime on Friday, August 31.
Expect a dozen or so beers from Bamberg and environs on tap at the same time, perhaps even more, combining to represent as many traditional Franconian styles of beer as possible (with a few Greater Bavarian and non-regional ringers tapped to provide representative examples of unobtainable styles).
Kindly note that contrary to what you may have heard, not all of these delectable beers are smoked!
In Bamberg itself, only the renowned Schlenkerla and the tiny Spezial include Rauchbier in their daily range, as do a few breweries outside Bamberg, but by no means are smoked beers the norm in Franconia at large. Here are the beers that I’m hoping will be on hand, beginning with the core selection from Bamberg:
Aecht Schlenkerla Helles
Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen
Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock
Aecht Schlenkerla Weizen
Mahr's Hell
Mahr's Pilsner
Mahr's Weisse
Mahr's der Weisse Bock
Spezial Rauchbier
Bayerischer Bahnhof Gose (Leipzig)
Bayerischer Bahnhof Heizer Schwarzbier (Leipzig)
Klosterbrauerei Ettal Dunkel (Ettal)
Kulmbacher Eisbock (Kulmbach)
Schneider Wiesen Edel Weiss (Kelheim)
And, of course, Pilsner Urquell (Plzen, Czech Republic) and Spaten Premium Lager (Munich) will both be on tap during Sandkerwa NA.
Regrettably, and as so often occurs, both Mahr's Ungespundet Lager (Bamberg) and St. Georgenbrau Kellerbier (Buttenheim) are unavailable at this time. This is particularly frustrating given that these are the only two examples of the style even possible to acquire, but I'll persist, and maybe they'll be available later in the fall.
Finally, we'll also be debuting a New Albanian Brewing Company beer in honor of the occasion: Happy Helmut, named for a merry trinket salesman with whom I once drank numerous half-liters of Spezial in Bamberg. There's a percentage of smoked malt from Bamberg's Weyermann malting house, and some rye in the grist. California Common yeast is used, and Tony's working on the artwork.
As always is the case with our draft extravaganzas, the Sandkerwa NA beers will continue pouring until they are depleted. By mid-September, a new wave of Oktoberfest brands from Germany and American craft breweries will begin flowing, and after New Albany’s annual Harvest Homecoming has concluded, we’ll commence Lupulin Land, NABC’s annual hop festival, on October 19.
A final note: It is my aim to launch Sandkerwa NA for the sake of the classic beer alone, and without the capability of providing Bamberg-style cuisine as a delicious match. The summer proved to be too busy to do more than draw up a future outline and order kegs, and yet I believe that starting small, while expedient, is also the correct approach. In 2008, it is my hope to add a full-blown German meal to the program, and perhaps music as well.
In 2007, savor the wonderful beers, and in 2008, we’ll broaden the experience.
For a half-century, SANDKERWA (SAND-kehr-wa) has been Bamberg’s end-of-summer street festival, one that originated as a church-related commemoration in the historic city’s oldest central district. For six days each year in late August, the Altstadt’s narrow lanes are filled with food, beer and people in a hearty celebration that brings Munich’s better known Oktoberfest to mind, but exists on a less crowded, decentralized and more enjoyable human scale.
Sandkerwa is an idea worth emulating, and Bamberg a state of mind worth honoring, so given that I’ve been looking for a reason to stage a German-themed draft beer fest, prepare for the inaugural edition of Sandkerwa NA, which kicks off at Rich O’s and Sportstime on Friday, August 31.
Expect a dozen or so beers from Bamberg and environs on tap at the same time, perhaps even more, combining to represent as many traditional Franconian styles of beer as possible (with a few Greater Bavarian and non-regional ringers tapped to provide representative examples of unobtainable styles).
Kindly note that contrary to what you may have heard, not all of these delectable beers are smoked!
In Bamberg itself, only the renowned Schlenkerla and the tiny Spezial include Rauchbier in their daily range, as do a few breweries outside Bamberg, but by no means are smoked beers the norm in Franconia at large. Here are the beers that I’m hoping will be on hand, beginning with the core selection from Bamberg:
Aecht Schlenkerla Helles
Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen
Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock
Aecht Schlenkerla Weizen
Mahr's Hell
Mahr's Pilsner
Mahr's Weisse
Mahr's der Weisse Bock
Spezial Rauchbier
Bayerischer Bahnhof Gose (Leipzig)
Bayerischer Bahnhof Heizer Schwarzbier (Leipzig)
Klosterbrauerei Ettal Dunkel (Ettal)
Kulmbacher Eisbock (Kulmbach)
Schneider Wiesen Edel Weiss (Kelheim)
And, of course, Pilsner Urquell (Plzen, Czech Republic) and Spaten Premium Lager (Munich) will both be on tap during Sandkerwa NA.
Regrettably, and as so often occurs, both Mahr's Ungespundet Lager (Bamberg) and St. Georgenbrau Kellerbier (Buttenheim) are unavailable at this time. This is particularly frustrating given that these are the only two examples of the style even possible to acquire, but I'll persist, and maybe they'll be available later in the fall.
Finally, we'll also be debuting a New Albanian Brewing Company beer in honor of the occasion: Happy Helmut, named for a merry trinket salesman with whom I once drank numerous half-liters of Spezial in Bamberg. There's a percentage of smoked malt from Bamberg's Weyermann malting house, and some rye in the grist. California Common yeast is used, and Tony's working on the artwork.
As always is the case with our draft extravaganzas, the Sandkerwa NA beers will continue pouring until they are depleted. By mid-September, a new wave of Oktoberfest brands from Germany and American craft breweries will begin flowing, and after New Albany’s annual Harvest Homecoming has concluded, we’ll commence Lupulin Land, NABC’s annual hop festival, on October 19.
A final note: It is my aim to launch Sandkerwa NA for the sake of the classic beer alone, and without the capability of providing Bamberg-style cuisine as a delicious match. The summer proved to be too busy to do more than draw up a future outline and order kegs, and yet I believe that starting small, while expedient, is also the correct approach. In 2008, it is my hope to add a full-blown German meal to the program, and perhaps music as well.
In 2007, savor the wonderful beers, and in 2008, we’ll broaden the experience.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Get thee to the Hofbrauhaus Newport. Seriously.
Few institutions in the world of beer and brewing are as revered as Munich’s Hofbrauhaus.
Few are as misunderstood.
People the world over tend to confuse regional Bavarian culture with that of Germany as a whole, something that never fails to elicit sighs from residents of Bremen, Idar-Oberstein and Hannover. In like fashion, the Hofbrauhaus is erroneously viewed as the exact model of how German beer is made, served and celebrated, but in fact it is uncommon to see such a large-scale beer and food service entity outside of Munich itself, even in the remainder of Bavaria.
Other than a shared fondness for pilsner-style lagers, which is a relatively recent historical development, beer and beer culture vary widely throughout Germany. Munich has no smoked beer; Bamberg does. Cologne and Dusseldorf brew Kolsch and Alt, respectively, and both are top-fermenting, but neither city has a tradition of wheat ales, which are a Bavarian innovation … except for Berliner-style wheat ales, which are something entirely different and come from much further north.
To be sure, Bavaria’s self-promotional savvy conjures imagery of Lederhosen, Bratwurst and “Ein Prosit!”, and as such, it is perhaps appropriate that a pilgrimage to the Hofbrauhaus at its Platzl address has been de rigueur for tourists in Munich ever since the current building was constructed in 1897. Be as curmudgeonly as you please, and yet no one seriously doubts that a visit to the Hofbrauhaus is fun, memorable and infinitely capable of being photographed.
Paris feasts may be moveable, but Hofbrauhaus stories are expandable. Typically soft, clean Bavarian lagers are served in oversized liter mugs, pork in all its conceivable bodily incarnations is expertly prepared, a vast and sprawling acreage of diners and drinkers clink noisy toasts and sing along as they are regaled by tuneful brass bands, and restrooms the size of Rhode Island are patronized constantly and tended by grimly serious cleaning personnel.
While the Hofbrauhaus well represents Bavarian beer, cuisine and communal traditions at an almost lunatic, exaggerated extreme, experiencing these wonders would be nowhere as delightful if their intrinsic worthiness were not so transparently obvious to beginners and veterans alike.
But can that worthiness be transplanted to foreign climes?
In 1999, and with much fanfare, the Hofbrauhaus was cloned and a second location opened in … yes, Dubai, of all places. This was followed by a third site in Newport, Kentucky (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio) in 2003, and then another in Las Vegas. A fifth Hofbrauhaus is slated to open in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the fall of 2007. More are sure to follow.
I had not had the chance to visit the Hofbrauhaus Newport until last Saturday afternoon, when it was crammed to the rafters with locals and tourists devoting a gorgeous day to enjoying resurgent Newport’s aquarium and surrounding shops and eateries, or, like my party, preparing to walk across the nearby pedestrian and bicycle bridge to watch the Reds play at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati.
Hofbrauhaus Newport’s web site takes a reasonable approach to expectations in spite of muddling the Bavarian with the German:
The first authentic Hofbräuhaus in America is here. Guests are now able to enjoy many of the traditions from Germany that have made Hofbräuhaus famous.
So it was for us, and we enjoyed the ongoing translation of these venerable traditions into something comprehensible for the masses, and that for the most part has not lost its potency and relevance during the course of the conversion. As one who has been to the Hofbrauhaus Munich and numerous establishments throughout greater Bavaria many times since 1985, the ultimate compliment that I can pay the Hofbrauhaus Newport is that during much of my time there, while devouring a workmanlike facsimile of Leberkase and several (small for varied sampling) mugs of tasty Bavarian style Helles, Dunkles and Export, it was indeed possible to drift off into an incredibly relaxed continental reverie – and accordingly, almost impossible to resist hopping a cab to the nearby Northern Kentucky airport for an immediate flight to the original Munich address to sate the voracious desires thus released.
So, just remember: You’ll enjoy “many” of the traditions, and “much” of it will be authentic, at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, but an exact match it is not (and to its credit, does not claim to be).
Brewing is licensed and supervised by German brewers, and it shows, although the presence of a “light” version reminds you that it’s the Ohio outside and not the Isar. Televisions at Newport make sense; not in the Munich Hofbrauhaus. The Newport menu has numerous reliable Bavarian beer hall options, and the overall effect is quite close to the mark, but to be blunt, Americans simply don’t do pork as pork is done in Bavaria – and burgers aren’t exactly on the Speisekarte at the Platzl location. Finally, Bavarians instinctively understand one crucial truth about beer and the average male: Allow him to drink liters of tasty lager, and he will make frequent trips (somewhere) to return that spent liquid to nature. That’s why the Hofbrau Munich restrooms are so thoughtfully large … and the HB Newport might profit from it.
By and large, these are niggling criticisms, and a trip to the Hofbrauhaus Newport is highly recommended by the Publican.
Riding back to Louisville after the game with a busload of human karaoke machines is much less desired. In Bavaria, they’d have been speaking German, and while still obnoxious, not so painfully fact deprived.
Few are as misunderstood.
People the world over tend to confuse regional Bavarian culture with that of Germany as a whole, something that never fails to elicit sighs from residents of Bremen, Idar-Oberstein and Hannover. In like fashion, the Hofbrauhaus is erroneously viewed as the exact model of how German beer is made, served and celebrated, but in fact it is uncommon to see such a large-scale beer and food service entity outside of Munich itself, even in the remainder of Bavaria.Other than a shared fondness for pilsner-style lagers, which is a relatively recent historical development, beer and beer culture vary widely throughout Germany. Munich has no smoked beer; Bamberg does. Cologne and Dusseldorf brew Kolsch and Alt, respectively, and both are top-fermenting, but neither city has a tradition of wheat ales, which are a Bavarian innovation … except for Berliner-style wheat ales, which are something entirely different and come from much further north.
To be sure, Bavaria’s self-promotional savvy conjures imagery of Lederhosen, Bratwurst and “Ein Prosit!”, and as such, it is perhaps appropriate that a pilgrimage to the Hofbrauhaus at its Platzl address has been de rigueur for tourists in Munich ever since the current building was constructed in 1897. Be as curmudgeonly as you please, and yet no one seriously doubts that a visit to the Hofbrauhaus is fun, memorable and infinitely capable of being photographed.
Paris feasts may be moveable, but Hofbrauhaus stories are expandable. Typically soft, clean Bavarian lagers are served in oversized liter mugs, pork in all its conceivable bodily incarnations is expertly prepared, a vast and sprawling acreage of diners and drinkers clink noisy toasts and sing along as they are regaled by tuneful brass bands, and restrooms the size of Rhode Island are patronized constantly and tended by grimly serious cleaning personnel.
While the Hofbrauhaus well represents Bavarian beer, cuisine and communal traditions at an almost lunatic, exaggerated extreme, experiencing these wonders would be nowhere as delightful if their intrinsic worthiness were not so transparently obvious to beginners and veterans alike.
But can that worthiness be transplanted to foreign climes?
In 1999, and with much fanfare, the Hofbrauhaus was cloned and a second location opened in … yes, Dubai, of all places. This was followed by a third site in Newport, Kentucky (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio) in 2003, and then another in Las Vegas. A fifth Hofbrauhaus is slated to open in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the fall of 2007. More are sure to follow.
I had not had the chance to visit the Hofbrauhaus Newport until last Saturday afternoon, when it was crammed to the rafters with locals and tourists devoting a gorgeous day to enjoying resurgent Newport’s aquarium and surrounding shops and eateries, or, like my party, preparing to walk across the nearby pedestrian and bicycle bridge to watch the Reds play at Great American Ball Park in downtown Cincinnati.
Hofbrauhaus Newport’s web site takes a reasonable approach to expectations in spite of muddling the Bavarian with the German:The first authentic Hofbräuhaus in America is here. Guests are now able to enjoy many of the traditions from Germany that have made Hofbräuhaus famous.
So it was for us, and we enjoyed the ongoing translation of these venerable traditions into something comprehensible for the masses, and that for the most part has not lost its potency and relevance during the course of the conversion. As one who has been to the Hofbrauhaus Munich and numerous establishments throughout greater Bavaria many times since 1985, the ultimate compliment that I can pay the Hofbrauhaus Newport is that during much of my time there, while devouring a workmanlike facsimile of Leberkase and several (small for varied sampling) mugs of tasty Bavarian style Helles, Dunkles and Export, it was indeed possible to drift off into an incredibly relaxed continental reverie – and accordingly, almost impossible to resist hopping a cab to the nearby Northern Kentucky airport for an immediate flight to the original Munich address to sate the voracious desires thus released.
So, just remember: You’ll enjoy “many” of the traditions, and “much” of it will be authentic, at the Hofbrauhaus Newport, but an exact match it is not (and to its credit, does not claim to be).
Brewing is licensed and supervised by German brewers, and it shows, although the presence of a “light” version reminds you that it’s the Ohio outside and not the Isar. Televisions at Newport make sense; not in the Munich Hofbrauhaus. The Newport menu has numerous reliable Bavarian beer hall options, and the overall effect is quite close to the mark, but to be blunt, Americans simply don’t do pork as pork is done in Bavaria – and burgers aren’t exactly on the Speisekarte at the Platzl location. Finally, Bavarians instinctively understand one crucial truth about beer and the average male: Allow him to drink liters of tasty lager, and he will make frequent trips (somewhere) to return that spent liquid to nature. That’s why the Hofbrau Munich restrooms are so thoughtfully large … and the HB Newport might profit from it.
By and large, these are niggling criticisms, and a trip to the Hofbrauhaus Newport is highly recommended by the Publican.
Riding back to Louisville after the game with a busload of human karaoke machines is much less desired. In Bavaria, they’d have been speaking German, and while still obnoxious, not so painfully fact deprived.
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