Brew Ha Ha: making a fuss about beer

A big (small) surprise

by Chris on August 19th, 2007

Some time ago I was riding my bicycle on a weekend club tour through the Bavarian countryside. Now, Bavarians are pretty serious about their bicycle riding, but they’re also pretty serious about their Saturdays, and almost every one of these 60-mile plus tours was sustained by a lovely beergarden stop in the middle somewhere. After an hour or two of sitting in the shade of a lovely chestnut tree somewhere, two beers and a lot of pork settling in my stomach, I was pretty much ready for a nap. My fellow cyclists, however, were ready for the next 30 miles and, outnumbered, I piled onto my bike and rode off.

On one of these trips we stopped at a beergarden which served the fairly obscure but tasty beers of Arcobräu, a small Bavarian brewery which has held it’s own for some 430 years now. It seemed a strange name at the time, but I remember enjoying it, and regretting at least one of the beers on the ride back to the train station.

Flash forward some twenty years and imagine my surprise to see Arcobräu listed on the menu of Le Catalan, a lovely little Provencal bistro in Wilmington, NC (I know, the head spins). It’s a wine place, more or less, so the beer selection is meagre to begin with, so seeing that particular beer was quite a shock. In fact, it’s so much a wine shop I had already ordered a nice Riesling.

Anyway, this obscure Bavarian brew is now available in the US, imported through an importer in Charlotte, NC. If you see it, check it out and let me know what you think.

Share This

Related Stories

• Surprise, surprise
• When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Growing
• More on German beer
• Cold beer, cool jazz
• Heat and beer

POSTED IN: Brewery