Traveling through Europe

This October, my SWMBO and I are heading to Europe for about a month to sightsee, backpack, and take in some foreign culture. Clearly, for me, this means drinking as much beer in as many countries as possible. I'm going to list some of the major cities we'll be hitting up, and I'd be much obliged if anyone could recommend bars/breweries to visit.

As of right now (the trip is still a bit tentative) these are some of our major destinations:

Paris
Marseille
Corsica
Munich
Prague
Berlin

It's also quite possible we might go through northern Italy and a small portion of Austria on our way to Germany, so suggestions in Northern Italy and the Innsbruck region of Austria would not be ignored. Thank you all!

Forget about the beer in Paris, it all sucks. Drink wine.

I would recommend going to Belgium, and hitting up Amsterdam as well. Amsterdam is amazing, even if you're not there to smoke pot. There's the Heineken Brewery you can visit, the Van Gogh museum, Rembrandt museum, etc. When you guys travel, do you plan to stay in hostels?

How much time will you have in each country, and how are you traveling?

A little up in the air right now, but 3-5 days in each city. We'll be doing a mixture of flying, traveling by train, and possibly even renting a car.

+1 on the skip Paris.

I highly recommend Mons, Belgium if you want to visit a francophone country. 1000 times better than Paris. I use to dread having to take the train down to Paris, leaving Belgium. Back in the day we paid about 40 cents for a beer in Belgium and it was 7 dollars in Paris.

Brussels is a great stop for a bigger city, but if you want to use your French, Mons is the place to go.

From Mons, I would head East to Düsseldorf. Die Längste Theke der Welt!

Then head on down to Corsica and get some Grapa.

Keep us posted. After several disappointing trips to Paris, I will only go now if I am paid.

Also, in Italy, if you order a second beer they look at you funny.

Berlin is an amazing city as well - there's a brewpub on the river near Alexanderplatz and Museum Island that has a nice selection of beers. Also if there any street festivals while you are there they always have a wide variety of breweries offering their wares. Have a great time!!

Won't be skipping Paris, seeing as its the city we fly into (and the cheapest flight available at the time) so I'll just stick to wine there. To be fair, I've heard some very good account of Paris from trusted friends, too. I was just hoping maybe there was some hidden gem of a brewery or something.

I'd love to go to Belgium for obvious reasons, but I have to compromise with the lady whose already been to Belgium and isn't all that interested in going back. We might take a day trip up to Brussels (if I can convince her) to visit a friend of mine who lives in Cologne, since it's about halfway in between there and Paris.

We'll probably be staying in some hostels, but we'll also be doing a lot of couch surfing. We're both active members of couchsurfing.org, and are constantly hosting travelers in New York, so we figure we're due for some reciprocation. Plus I know enough Germans at this point in my life to navigate most of the country and never be without lodging.

Beer is best in Belgium and Germany. Skip France and Switzerland for good beer. UK is not bad.

The beers in Belgium tend to be strong w/ lots of alcohal.

Paris is a great city. For beer? No. But I wouldn't skip it if you haven't been. Hit Musee D'Orsay for sure.

If you find yourself in Vienna, hit the 1516 Brewing Company, Schwarzenbergstr. 2. www.1516brewingcompany.com. There were some great beers there when I went last fall, including a version of Victory's Hop Devil that the brewer from Victory flew in a brewed there in Vienna. They had an awesome smoked Amber Ale and a bunch of other great beers. The menu's written with a touch of that attitude you see on Stone's labels and the food's great too.

Awesome, thanks for that tidbit. Austria is another one of those places that I'd love to vist because I've never been, but my far-better-traveled SWMBO was an au-pair in Vienna for a while. Our trip is based around trying to stick with places we've both never been to (my list is much longer.) I think my best chances for good beer (based on our route) right now are in Munich, Berlin, and Prague.

BrettV said:

Awesome, thanks for that tidbit. Austria is another one of those places that I'd love to vist because I've never been, but my far-better-traveled SWMBO was an au-pair in Vienna for a while. Our trip is based around trying to stick with places we've both never been to (my list is much longer.) I think my best chances for good beer (based on our route) right now are in Munich, Berlin, and Prague.

Click to expand...

One of my Croat friends who lived in the Czech Republic said that there are some breweries where you can take a beer bath. I don't know where and he's not around for me to ask, but you might look around online or read up on it if you're interested. I'd totally do it if I went.

Go to Salzburg, Austria. Wonderful town, nice hostel, home of 'the sound of music', there are also some monk-based brewerys around there somewhere.
Def. go to Germany! I don't care which city, just go there! Trier is nice, theres an old roman colliseum there. I could ramble about how great the country is, but I'll stop here. Maybe even go cry a little since I'm not going to europe this fall...

EDIT: When in Germany go to Heidelberg, there go to Vetter Alt Heidelberger Brauhaus Neuenheim and ask for "Vetter 33*"

I made a trip in Europe this summer. I went to Austria then Czech Republic. I would recommend:

Prague: Go to U Fleku. The waiter will try to rip you off with Becherovka (sp?), but focus on the beer. ***(see the end for explanations) The beer is amazing. The best beer, by far, on my trip. A very refreshing chocolate-coffee bohemian dunkel. Amazing. You can buy bottle version of this beer (750 ml, 1.5 l swing-top and 2.5 l) on place. But they are not nearly as good as on tap, in U Fleku itself. Even my girlfriend still talks about it...

The other very good place in Prague I found was the Strahov monastery. The beers were excellent (the bohemian dunkel was close to U Fleku's one, but not as perfect).

If you go in Austria, in Vienna, as MattHollingworth said, you can try the 1516 Brewing Company. There seems to be some amazing beer, the ambiance is good, but the hefe weiss was meh. The blackberry ale too. Otherwise, you can find some good austrian beers in supermarket. In one, named Billa (they are all over austria, but the beer stocks vary from one Billa to another), I found Franciskaner Weiss and Edelweiss, two very good weissbier.

In Salzburg, Austria, you can try the Augustiner Brau's Bier Garten. The place is cool, the beer is good too. Stiegl Brauerei is meh, but if you happen to buy the salzburg card, you have like three free beers there, a gift (a glass or a bottled beer) and a free visit of the museum. I don't have good memories from Stiegl, but it may be because I lost myself while trying to return in the hotel with the bus system...
_____________________________________________________

***: Basically, a guy first came and gave me and my girlfriend a beer. Very polite. A good waiter. Then, another waiter came after the first one, and asked us if we wanted a Becherovka. This one was less than polite.

Waiter: "Do you want a Becherovka?"
Me: "No, thanks..."
Waiter: "It's a Czech tradition to drink this before drinking a beer"
Me: "No, really, I don't drink liquor..."
Waiter: "Come on, you got to live the Czech tradition!"
Me " Really, no, I hate liquor..."
Waiter : "Ok, then, just take one for the two of you!"
Me : "No, we don't want to."
Waiter: "Oh come on!!!"
Me: "No..."

Waiter: *BIG SIGH*, took a sheet of paper and made two lines (two beers) and got away. He came back, after the first beer, but he understood really fast the second time...

Just wanted to update everyone on my trip! It's almost done now, and I've been happily drinking my way through Europe, including a few places that people here suggested. In Munich I hit up a few of the Big 6, including Augustiner, Hofbräu, and Paulaner, as well as sampling some random cheap beers I found in the stores. We took a day trip to Salzburg so I went to the Augustiner monestary where they were serving up a pretty tasty Märzen, and despite its factory like appearance we went to Stiegl where I was surprised by a refreshing unfiltered organic lager. In Prague I drank my weight in beer daily since it was cheaper than water at around 30 Czech crowns ($1.75) per half liter. There's a relatively new pub there called the Beer Museum that has 30 Czech beers on tap that's worth a visit. I also hit up the Strahov monestary where I had the best IPA outside the states I've ever tasted. Plus the whole place absolutely reeked of malt and hops, so it was an olfactory smorgasbord. Now in Berlin, our last stop, I'm trying some Berlinerkindl weisse, but if anyone has any suggestions for the former center of Communist Central Europe, I'm all ears!

Sounds awesome! I was through Munich in September and enjoyed visiting the Hofbrauhaus.

I bet those Czech pilsners are phenomenal.

There is a pretty nice beer garden in the Mitte district in Berlin. Also, non-beer related... check out Tacheles (also in Berlin), which is an squatter art house that is in danger of being shut down. Really cool stuff there and in that area in general.