Larsblog

One thing I've always found shocking as a beer drinker is the level of knowledge about, and, even worse, interest in, beer among the people who make a living serving it. That is, waiters and bartenders. A general rule is that only in (let's say) 1 out of 10 cases will you actually get the full list if you ask what beers are available, and very often the menu won't have the full list, either, if they even bother to list beers on the menu. In most cases some persistence is required in order to actually find out what's on offer, and in some cases a lot. ...

Our recent beer holiday started in Nürnberg, a city of roughly 500,000 people in Upper Franconia. (Nürnberg is usually spelled "Nuremberg" in English, but I can't quite bring myself to do it, hence the spelling in the title.) As a tourist destination, Nürnberg has some attractions to recommend it, primarily the Altstadt (old town) with its town wall, and the Kaiserburg (imperial castle). For beer hunters it's an OK place to visit, but not really outstanding. ...

One thing I found very interesting in Germany was the attitude to the famous German purity law for beer (or Reinheitsgebot in German). German beer is famous world-wide for quality, and for being made without additives, and a lot of this stems from the purity law. Germans take great pride in this law, but their relationship to it can be a little puzzling at times, and the law is not only positive. ...

Beer in Franconia is something of a paradox: on the one hand there is a great profusion of breweries and beer styles, but on the other hand modern beer interest as found in other countries seems completely absent. This makes tasting beer in Franconia more of a challenge than in many other places, but also more rewarding. ...

When covering our holiday in Franconia, I figured it might be useful to start by explaining a little about Franconia, since it's an area few people really know much about. Most people, I think, know about Bavaria (Bayern in German); the southeasterly state of Germany, famous for wheat beer, Octoberfest, and so on. Franconia (Franken in German) is part of the state of Bavaria, but don't call a Franconian a Bavarian, as this is much like calling a Scotsman English. Franconia considers itself a separate region, and really is quite different from Bavaria, despite formally being part of the same state. ...

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time, maybe a couple of years now. It always seemed like a good idea, but I was always held back by uncertainty about what to write about, how to write it, and how to find the time to write. Ideas for things to write would crop up now and then, but they never really excited me enough that I found myself doing anything about them. ...