Ohhh... My Head... - Summer tour 2003

Next stop (and running out of gas on autobahn doesn't count as a stop) was Leipzig. We visited the nice little brewery resteurant Brauhaus an der Thomaskirche who made one of the top pilseners we had during the trip, and the unusual brewpub Gasthof & Goseschank Bayerischer Bahnhof, where amongst the four beer we tried we tasted our first gose. Last stop was Sinfonie, a cosy downtown pub with an excellent assortment of beers. Amongst others we had the other existing gose Döllnitzer Ritterguts Gose, brewed by Ernst Bauer. This gose which shares similarities with lambic and berliner weisse ranks as one of my favourite beers during the trip.

The morning after we continued to Memmelsdrf, a village just outside the Franconian beer Mecca Bamberg. The original plan was to hit 6 breweries by, but as one was closed for the day, we only managed 5. We started 3km away from Memmelsdorf, in the tiny village Merkendorf at Hummel-Bräu, where we enjoyed a full range of typical Franconian beer styles, including rauchbier, along with dinner before we continued 50m to Wagner. In Memmelsdorf we lived at the brewery hotel Höhn, which only served their dark, hearty Görchla, and the walk to the next stop, Drei Kronen was only a couples of meters. Drei Kronen offered a small range of tp quality beers, before we made our last walk to Drosendorf and Brauerei Göller.

Switzerland (and Biel/Bienne) was up next. Finally we met up with an old friend Bov. Together with him and his friends we visited the Lago Lodge, where the excellent Seeland beers are brewed and served, we had dinner with his family and ended up having two rating session with the Swiss beer drinking elite. Many thanks to Bov, and the rest of you - I had a wonderful time! The top beer of the whole summer tour was sampled here: Bush Millenium 1999, aged 4 years, which was brought by fiulijn. we also enjoyed many interesting Alsatian microbrews.

On the way from Switzerland to the Atlantic coast we made three brewery stops. Two Fleur de Houblen and 3 Brasseurs (Aubière) were unremarkable brewpub chain like establishemnts. The 3rd was something entirely different. La Ferme de Laubicherie is situated in the middle of the French countryside, and it's a relaxing place where you live on the farm and eat with the family. They also brew a limited amount of beer. Both their beers are flavourful and very unusual. This place certainly ranks as the most charming brewery I've ever visited.

While staying at the coast we enjoyed some of the bottles we had purchased in Germany and Switzerland before turning back home again. We didn't have time for as many beer stops on the way home. However we did stop at Brasserie Bouillon, and at La Ferme au Chene, wher we had the elusive, delicious Marckloff beer, and finally at Le VaudreeAngleur, Liège, a pub which claims to serve 1000+ beers.

However the tour wasn't over when we crossed the Swedish border on the bridge from Denmark. We made a halt in Halmstad where OMH member Cicci now lives, and a rating session there. From there on we continued up the west coast to Ljungskile, where Turisthotellet, one of Sweden's top beer establishemnt lies, and sampled many good beers there.