Author: Franz Hofer

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

The scent of hops wafting through the air. The cookie dough fragrance of mashing grain. These are the first telltale signs as you make your way from Munich’s main train station a short walk away that you’re getting close to the Augustiner Bräustuben on the old brewery grounds.

The Augustiner Bräustuben is both a beerhall exuding Gemütlichkeit and current location of the Augustiner-Bräu brewery, Munich’s oldest (founded 1328). It’s a classic beer hall with character to spare, more down-home than other beerhalls in the city.

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Salt was once white gold in the region spanning southern Bavaria and northern Austria. Like Salzburg and Hallstatt, like Bad Reichenhall and Traunstein, Berchtesgaden was built on a mountain of revenue from the salt trade. Founded in 1102 as an Augustine monastery and raised to the status of a market town in 1328, Berchtesgaden changed hands several times over the centuries. Back and forth Berchtesgaden and its hinterland went between the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Wittelsbachs until, in 1810, the area definitively became a part of Bavaria.

Nowadays, Berchtesgadener Land lies in the far southeast of Bavaria, like an arrowhead jutting into Austria just west of Salzburg. Salt has faded from view, replaced by tourism in the late nineteenth century as the region’s main industry. First came the painters and literary figures, then came the cityfolk along the railways, all drawn by the sublime and wild landscape.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

SCHWABENBRÄU WIRTSHAUS AND BEER GARDEN

Let’s start with Wieninger’s Schwabenbräu Wirtshaus, an inn with colourful paintings (Lüftlmalerei) depicting a mélange of religious, chivalric, and culinary images splashed across its façade. The interior is suitably rustic, but it’s the beer garden that drew my attention on that warm and sunny afternoon. This is one of those “klein aber fein” (small but fine) beer gardens with all the trappings you’d expect from larger affairs, but with one slightly different touch: grapevines round out the shade provided by horse chestnut trees.

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Written by Franz Hoffer @A Tempest in a Tankard

It’s Friday afternoon, the day after our homebrew club’s St. Paddy’s Day Potluck.

It’s also been a long stretch without a break from translation projects and beer writing projects, a few of which you’ll soon see in print.

And it’s been quite some time now since I posted a recipe. The last time was just as the pandemic hit, when I wrote an article about fermenting cabbage into sauerkraut.

So it’s nice to take a break from writing by … writing. Writing about something completely different for change is actually quite relaxing.

And today’s actually St. Patrick’s Day, so there’s that, too. If you’re like me and have left your food plans till the last minute, you might just get this recipe in time for your St. Paddy’s Day festivities over the weekend. In this case, fortune favours the procrastinators. Even if you don’t cook this for dinner this weekend, it’s still stew season for at least another month.

*I’ve included a number of tips below. These are helpful for any stew you’ll make, from goulash to stoofvlees (Flemish stew).

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A cool breeze coursing through the canopy of green leaves overhead. The crunch of gravel underfoot as you seek out a table in the shade, frothy mug of beer in hand. Nothing bespeaks summer in Bavaria more than the beer garden. And nothing meets the current pandemic moment better. If you’re still on the fence about traveling this summer, an al fresco beer is one of your safest culinary options.

Written by Franz Hofer, illustrations by Ariella Basson

-Three short hikes punctuated by lunch at Brauerei Mager, a beer in the Bruckmayer beer garden, and dinner in the courtyard of the Brauerei Hufeisen.~

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

A rare day it was when I woke up on that glorious May morning in the “before times” after completing the 5-Seidla-Steig. Sunshine two days in a row after a week-long stretch of getting soaked and even snowed on. An auspicious start to the day. I caught the first train out of Gräfenberg along the 5-Seidla-Steig via Nürnberg through rustic villages, emerald fields, narrow chasms, and the occasional hop farm. The bus from Pegnitz plunged even deeper into the forest before emerging in Pottenstein, where I met up with Rich Carbonara, beer wanderer extraordinaire, for a day packed with hikes.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

OF LEMONS AND LEMONADE

It was almost two years ago to the day that I wrote an upbeat post about what 2020 had in store. I was starting work on a book project, and had a number of other writing ideas on the go.

And then the pandemic hit. I shelved the search for an agent and publisher. Who’d even be interested in a beer travel book in the midst of all this uncertainty, I thought? — And then wondered, in those early months of the pandemic, whether it was even a little perverse to write about travel. There was so much more at stake.

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Written by Franz D. Hofer for A Tempest in a Teapot

An entry from my beer notebook describes a day trip from Brussels in June 2019: “By shortly after noon, I had found my way to Het Anker, the ‘real’ reason for my visit to Mechelen. I love how beer, breweries, and their history get me out to places I wouldn’t otherwise visit!”

When you think about all those dazzling Belgian cities like Bruges, Antwerp, or Ghent, Mechelen probably isn’t the first place you’d think of visiting on a trip to Belgium. But with its magnificent St. Rumbold Cathedral, historic béguinage quarters, and vibrant squares, Mechelen is well worth the 30-minute train ride from Brussels.

Mechelen is also home to a dense concentration of classic beer cafes that exude a time-worn charm you just won’t find in many of today’s sleek but curiously anodyne establishments. And if that’s not enough, it’s also home to Het Anker, brewers of Gouden Carolus, a range of weighty beers named after Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

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