Beer Hiking in the Franconian Switzerland - Part 1

One thing I find very compelling about Franconia, Germany, in addition to the great beer, is the opportunity to combine hiking in the countryside with beer touring.  The very concept of being able to walk for miles in a day getting plenty of fresh air and exercise while also being able to stop along the way at various breweries and bier kellers is enough to make me want to cross the Atlantic for a vacation.  You can have your beaches, your Carribean vacations, your cruise ships, Disney World, etc., etc.  Give me beer hiking in Franconia over any of that any day of the week.  To each his own I suppose.

However, a word of caution is appropriate.  Things do not always go according to plan.  The Franconian Switzerland is as rural as it gets.  The folks there don't always follow the rules regarding what we consider normal/expected travel amenities here in the US.  For example, they may not be open for starters.  This is how my first visit to the heart of the Frankische Schweiz began.

I had a lovely drive out from the Bamberg area.  The countryside gets more and more beautiful and remote the further you go.  Lots of farms, a few scattered tiny villages, plenty of hills and barley fields.  Ultimate I came to what was supposed to be my hotel for the night in the small village of Hochstahl.  It looks like a fairly good sized brewery for such a small village.  I parked the car in back behind the brewery and decided to leave my luggage in the car before checking in (good move).  I walked up to the brewpub/hotel building and all the doors were closed.  I inspected the doors and windows a bit more closely and lo and behold there it was ... the dreaded Urlaub sign.   They were closed for vacation that day.  Just that day mind you.  Really?!  No shit really?!  I had a reservation, how could you be closed?!  So after I took about 15 minutes to chill out and think through the situation my first thought was to drive back into Bamberg to get a hotel for the night but this didn't set well with me.  I came out here to hike and drink beer damnit and that's what I was going to do.

So, this is where all my hours of studying maps and breweries of this region really paid off.  As I got about 1/2 mile down the road a light bulb went off and I remember there is another brewery/hotel just about a mile or so from the one I planned on staying at.  I figured its a Wednesday and it looks pretty slow around here, they must have rooms.  They did.  So I checked into Brauerei Rothenbach in Aufsess instead.  Nice place, nice people too by the way and the beer was enjoyable.

So I began a short beer hike.  One thing that tickles me to death about this region is they are nice enough to put up signs that tell you where the next brewery is.  In the case of this little crossroad there were two choices. 

I had to scan my memory and my map based knowledge of the terrain to figure out the right way to go since my first planned stop was to be Kathi Brau in Heckenhof.  I managed to choose correctly.

The first part of the walk led me uphill sort of overlooking Aufsess and then across farmland:

The trails were very easy to follow.  They serve the primary purpose of tractor roads but a nice secondary role of beer hiking paths.  Franconia is such a friendly place to let us beer tourists traverse their farmland in search of the next beer.

I found Kathi Brau without much trouble and was happy to find it open.  It's a nice old farm building with a beer garden next to it. 

The beer garden was fairly busy so I took a seat there and had their very tasty dunkle beer.  It is the only beer the brew and quite frankly it is the only beer they need.  It's a good one.

My next target was to be Brauerei Schroll in Nankendorf but it is a good 4-5 miles away so I figured I'd call over there to see if they were open or not.  Good idea.  They were not open that day but I was told they would be open tommorrow.  So I headed back to Aufsess and put Schroll on hold until the next morning.

There was a nice view of the brauerei/hotel Rothenbach as I came out of the woods. 

There is a small castle on a hill behind the brewery that I would have a look at before settling in:

Rothenbach is another fairly large brewery considering the size of the village:

So I settled in at Rothenbach and it started to rain.  I had a nice dinner and a few beers and called it an early night.  Tommorrow morning I would have a long hike ahead of me and the luckily the weather improved.  I got an early start after a nice 10 hour sleep.

At around 9am or so I reached the village of Waischenfeld. 

They had a nice overlook that I climbed up to.

But my real goal was about 1 mile away in the tiny village of Nankendorf where I would find Brauerei Schroll open for business at 11am.  Joy!! 

I've heard many good things about this beer so I was glad to be able to finally try it.  A very friendly, grandmotherly woman fetched me my first Schroll beer.  It was a beautiful, malty, nutty dunkle bier.  Just as it should be. 

I snapped a photo of the ausschank and on the wall next to it were the braumeister certificates.  Braumeister indeed!!  There is no doubt.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay long as I had places to be that day.  Next time I visit the area, I'm going to stay in Waischenfeld so I can visit this brauerei again and stay longer.  Not to mention Waischenfeld also has it's own stellar brauerei that opens later in the day.

Next up Geisfeld.