I’ve heard a lot of good things about Bamberg – located in Upper Franconia and situated on the Regnitz which gently flows into the river Main – not least by the fame of its breweries. Therefore, while I was staying in the vicinity attending the Bayreuth Festival, I thought a day in Bamberg would make a nice rail excursion and provide me with a well-earned break from Wagner! The rail journey took about an hour and the Old Town (Altstadt) is within easy walking distance of the railway-station.
I think it goes without saying that Germany’s renowned for good beer whichever town you find yourself in be it Munich, Berlin, Nuremberg et al. But in Bamberg they have a ‘brew’ that’s very special to the town – smoked beer (rauchbier). It’s their pride and joy! The counter clerk at Bayreuth’s railway-station enthused over the beer. ‘Try the smoked beer,’ he said. ‘It’s delicious! It’s famous!’ How right he was. ‘Wagner,’ he also pointed out, ‘liked it, too.’ True or false? Tick the box!
However, within an hour of arriving at Bamberg I quietly meandered through the Old Town with its abundance of eye-catching half-timbered houses and ended up in Dominikanerstraße. It took me no time at all to log on to the fact that I was in the right vicinity and, really, at the epicentre of the smoked-beer industry.
I quickly discovered, too, that Brauerei Heller-Trum and the Schlenkerla tavern (a pigeon pair!) which I found quite by chance lying right at the heart of Dominikanerstraße, sitting in the shadow of the 13th-century Bamberger Dom dedicated to St Peter und St George, was the place to be. It’s Bamberg’s original smoked-beer house and first mentioned as ‘House of the Blue Lion’ in 1405.
Tradition holds strong in this lovely and inviting district of Germany not just in the brewing process but also in the ownership of the brewery as it has been in the hands of the Trum family for donkey’s years. Now members of the sixth generation are happily tapping the beer directly from oak-wood barrels straight to the customer. My first pint went down well, so did the next – and . . . Cor blimey, Mary Poppins! The counter clerk at Bayreuth railway-station gave me good advice. I raised a glass to him and personally thanked him the next day.
In fact, Bamberg is loaded with breweries. There are seven to choose from excluding Brauerei Heller-Trum. Take your pick: Brauerei Fässla; Brauerei Greifenklau; Brauerei Kaiserdom; Keesmann Bräu; Klosterbräu; Mahrs Bräu and Brauerei Spezial. For a city of about 70,000 inhabitants, it’s an unusually high number of breweries. Lucky for them!
Not, surprisingly, all the taverns hug Dominikanerstraße and they were jam-packed with diners tucking into shoulder of pig washed down by a good pint of rauchbier. What else? ‘Beer & Pig’ go together like the opera ‘Cav & Pag’. When in Rome! Hang on a minute, I’m bloody miles from there!
However, you need to build up your strength on a bit of old or young pig to explore this town. Although a good walking one, it’s hilly and trekking round it takes its toll as the town extends over seven hills each crowned by a beautiful church. I guess, then, that it’s no coincidence that Bamberg is nicknamed ‘Franconian Rome’ because of its seven hills echoing the Seven Hills of Rome. I was closer to the Eternal City than I thought!
One church that I greatly enjoyed was St Michaelsberg, a former Benedictine monastery, founded in 1015, and, perhaps, the site of the first brewery in Bamberg. Remember, the monks were bang on and the first to get into the brewing business. But further exploration and I came across the house of the renowned romantic author, composer, poet and painter, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, better known by his pen name, ETA Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann).
Born in Königsberg, East Prussia, on 24th January 1776, Hoffmann’s life was cut rather short mainly due to a lifestyle that was, perhaps, a bit too wild and wacky for his own good. Alcohol and syphilis eventually caught up with him and he died in Berlin-Brandenburg, on 25th June 1822, aged 46, but in that short time he packed a lot in – artistically, socially and everything else by the looks of it.
He arrived in Bamberg in 1808 to take over the management of the local theatre and his stay in the town lasted about five years. Although, it was not the happiest period in his life, it laid the foundation for a memorable career. During Hoffmann’s handful of years in Bamberg, the town strongly influenced him while he made his mark on it too, which can still be felt to the present day. His former house (now a museum) is a great visitor attraction.
Hoffmann’s stories were very influential during the 19th century and he’s one of the major authors of the Romantic Movement. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach’s wonderful opera, The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appears (heavily fictionalised) as the hero. He’s also the author of the novella, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the well-loved ballet, The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky is based while Léo Delibes’ ballet, Coppelia, is based on two other stories he wrote.
Interestingly, the eight-movement dramatic composition by Robert Schumann, Kreisleriana, written in 1838 for solo piano, is also based on an Hoffmann character, that of Johannes Kreisler, who actually appears in three of his novels. The moody, anti-social composer, Kreisler (Hoffmann’s alter ego) is a musical genius whose creativity was stymied by an excessive sensibility. Apart from inspiring Kreisleriana he also inspired the first movement of György Kurtág’s Hommage à R.Sch.
Hoffmann, it seems, was able to turn his hand to anything including knocking back a pint or two of rauchbier, I reckon, with a plateful of old pig for companionship. For instance, when his job as a theatre manager didn’t work out, he immediately found work as a music critic for the quality Leipzig-based newspaper, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. His articles on Beethoven were especially well received and highly regarded by the composer himself.
His breakthrough in publishing came in 1809 with the publication of Ritter Gluck, a story about a man who meets, or believes he has met, the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck more than 20 years after his death. The theme alludes to the work of Jean Paul who ‘invented’ the term ‘doppelgänger’ first used in his 1796 novel, Siebenkäs. He was a powerful influence over Hoffmann becoming one of his earliest admirers.
It was with this publication that Hoffmann began to use the pseudonym ‘ETA’ Hoffmann, telling people that the ‘A’ stood for ‘Amadeus’ in homage to the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, he continued to use ‘Wilhelm’ in official documents throughout his life and the initials ‘ETW’ appears on his gravestone at the Kirche of Jerusalem und Neue Kirche in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
Being a great admirer of Hoffmann, the discovery of his connection with Bamberg proved a very nice surprise and left me with such a pleasant memory of my visit. But Bamberg’s full of surprises while the town boasts the brilliant and well-disciplined Bamberg Symphony Orchestra originally assembled by musicians from Prague and German-speaking Bohemia after the Second World War. They are truly cultural ambassadors for Bamberg and, of course, Germany as a whole and have visited over 63 countries since their formation in 1946.
Apart from being barmy on opera and classical music, I’m equally barmy on jazz, blues and soul music therefore Bamberg caters for my musical tastes all round. Another discovery came my way, too, inasmuch as the Bamberg Sparda-Bank Blues & Jazz Festival is held annually in August featuring regional and internationally renowned bands.
Inaugurated in 2007, the festival has developed into the largest free open-air festival of its kind in Europe attracting over 150,000 visitors. Just think of all those lovely pints of rauchbier being downed. Right up my street! God willing, I shall whoop it up in Bamberg next year. Boom! Boom!
stadt.bamberg.de
I enjoyed your narrative and beautiful photos!