My Nuremberg Week In Beers 23.06.23

Nuremberg is a fantastic city to drink beer in. Big enough to offer variety and small enough to traverse by foot, Nuremberg (Nürnberg in Deutsch) is hugged by an imposing city wall and crowned by an impressively maintained pair of castles. There’s a fairy tale serenity on the cobbled streets with preserved hints of an ancient past providing an ideal context to drink beer steeped in tradition.

We arrived in Nuremberg on Friday and after checking in to our room immediately went to Hausbrauerei Altstadthof as recommended to me by 1/3rd of The Beerstreet Boys and Dylan’s dad who I’d met the previous day.

Hausbrauerei Altstadthof

Altstadthof is a really cosy place with an authentic and unpretentious line up of house brewed organic beers. I started with the Rotbier (red beer) the Nuremberg specialty. It was strong and sweet with tastes of biscuits and caramel and an appearance that seems to swirl with all those flavours. A very repeatable beer and a huge sign that people who live in Nuremberg are very lucky (recently anyway).

We’re still in big head country.

I chased it down with a schwarz bier (black beer) that unlike other black beers with lots of flavours of coffee and chocolate, is light and approachable with just a bit of a hint of mystery, more of a Scooby Doo than Amityville Horror.

I ordered some classic Nuremberg crispy roast pork with gravy, black kraut and dumplings and already I could tell I was going to love this place.

On Saturday we planned to do a bit of a beer crawl of Nuremberg, party for work but if we accidentally ended up having fun then that would be OK too. The first place we visited is called Hexenhäusle, just outside the city wall in a building that was once the gatekeeper’s quarters and the alleged home of a witch in the ‘60s. I had a Hells Hefeweizen by Tucher, the local Nuremberg brewery that appears on outdoor umbrellas all around the city. It was delicious with some sweet and sharp banana flavours.

Great beer garden at Hexenhäusle

Then we moved on to Cafe Wanderer, a bar with a really small indoor seating area and limited outside seating meaning most people enjoy their beer sitting directly on the cobblestones, sort of like drinking during a school assembly. Unlike a lot of bars and beer cafes in this part of the world, Cafe Wanderer is an order at the bar situation that also involes a five euro deposit for your glass that you get back when you return it at the end of the night. Some people let the staff keep the deposit as a tip but when I’m the one running the glass back to the bar I tend to think I’m the one who deserves a tip. Sorry if that’s a wee bit Mr Pink but abolish tipping, pay hospo workers fairly instead.

Beer list, rare seat and tired dog at Cafe Wanderer.

Anyway, Cafe Wanderer has six taps of local beer and I started with the Roteskeller which might have been better than Altstadthof, even if it does sound like you’re saying “Ross Geller” when you’re ordering it. I then had a Bio Helles which my notes state “definitely tastes like it was good for the environment”. I then had another Roteskeller because it was great and finished the night with a delicous Organic Lager that packed much more punch than regular German lagers. At this point we realised we’d properly given up on the crawl but didn’t care as the atmosphere was amazing and the night was long.

On Sunday we went back to Hexenhäusle because the food had looked really good there and by golly was it ever. The roast pork just crumbled like an Aussie politician in front of a mining lobbyist with a crackling that is a contender for the best I’ve ever had. Alongside I had a Tucher rotesbier that had my tummy crying “what are you doing? You already HAD beer last night!”

Trip highlight at Hexenhäusle.

We then went for a walk to their weird and sandy beach themed bar that spanned about an acre on the outer edge of the old city. Ankle deep in a pool I had a really savoury and savourable Bio Keller by Tucher as kids splashed past me and made me feel old after I inevitably was like ‘c’mon, careful now!’ as some filthy pool water nearly made it into my beer.

For dinner we decided to try the traditional Franconian sausages at the central and well-regarded Bratwursthäusle. You must order sausages in groups of six, nine or 12 which was intimidating but they are little and you could easily polish off twelve if you were hungry/drunk. Alongside I had a Franconian Dark, again by Tucher, which had plenty of dark flavour but didn’t drown you in it rather let you explore some brown and bitter notes.

Ate the sausages too quick for a photo.

Suddenly it was Monday, our last day in Nuremberg so after finally exploring the interior of the castle, we went back to Altstadthof to get some additional footage for our video. She shared another Rotes and schwartz as well as their helles, all of which were so good but the rotes stands out being a local delicacy. We then enjoyed a hoppy, fun and almost tickling summer beer and a weisse beer which was nice but just not on the same level as the other four.

I then realised I hadn’t done a single beer review in Nuremberg and for some weird reason I decided to got to a cocktail bar and review a Rote Weisse, even though I was starting to realise weisse is not one of my favourite styles. It was a weird choice, I think I panic sometimes. (Here’s the review if you wanna watch it anyway)

Our final beer of our short stay in Nuremberg eneded up being another fantastic Roteskeller and Cafe Wanderer. We chilled out by the weird statue of a fucked up rabbit crushing a guy to death and soaked in the last of the city. The bloke at the bar said the huge night on Saturday is actually a standout occurence and that they only get three nights a year like that. We were very lucky in Nuremberg and I left feeling like I somehow owed it some sort of debt.

And the kids love it too!