Some beers in Bavaria

I recently has a brief trip to the Hallertau region to visit a hop company. It was really interesting being shown round and if I find the time to write it up I have such sights to show you.

I also managed to get in a little freelance research into the local beers, starting at the airport:

The airport has its own brewpub, so maximum points to the Bavarians on for that. I was on the wheat beer which was good stuff. 

As is often the case my planning for the trip was rather minimal and this time consisted of downloading Ron Pattinson's guide the day before I set off. I really must start planning for Portland.

When we'd finished with the hop company we were near Freising. Unfortunately the bars that Ron had visited there all sounded a bit rubbish, so we only used the guide to rule them out. With the help of our host we chose Weißbräu Huber and called in there for a swifty.

Like the best of the bars in Prague, this one looked more like a pub than a bar.

They had an unfiltered Hells on draught so I went for that. Once again I was struck by how quality beer around the world is moving closer to how god intended it to be. I have to say though I can't help but think it would have been better with more hops. Though my experience of lagers is still a bit limited I seem to prefer Pils to Hells.

The landlord was friendly so despite my almost non-existant German I was able to expand my international beer vocuabulary: Obergärige and Untergärige seem to be what we would call Top and Bottom fermented repectively.

Before the plane back we had time to pop to Munich and the guidebook proved useful here. I took my colleage to the Hofbräuhaus. 

But only to take a quick picture before heading across the road to Augustiner am Platzl, an altogether pubbier propostion.

I went for a Dunkel here. the darker malts making it a much better beverage than the Helles I'd tried.

I'm definitely getting more familiar with lager styles, but had no time for more reseach as after the Dunkel it was time to go back to Blighty.