Taproom tour of Hamburg

Another year, another autumnal trip to Germany, promising beer, football and sightseeing.

The city of Hamburg offered the chance to catch a Hamburger SV match, plus check out what has been described as a revitalized beer scene.
With a raft of recently opened small breweries, I was prepped with a list of venues, vague google map print-outs and a tourist leaflet picked up at the airport: ready to explore the city.

Ironic then that with Hamburg having discovered micro-breweries and craft beer, the first place I found myself in was a traditional German brew pub.

Trad times at Block Brauerei, Hamburg

Block Brauerei (Bei den St Pauli, Landungsbruken 3a, Hamburg 20359).
As you can see from the picture, it's an impressive place: regimented tables full of folks tucking into schnitzels and other German-fare; brewing equipment taking pride of place; two floors plus a terrace for nicer weather; and a small stage where a man with a guitar is due to come and entertain the crowd later.
Unlike some brew-pubs I've been to around the country there is little concession here to the drinker.  I timidly asked the staff at the door if I was welcome to just have a beer and was directed to take a stool at the bar, but there's very limited space.
The frustrating thing is that, despite sitting at the bar in front of the barman, you still have to wait for the waitress to come and take your order.  Then inevitably struggle for an age to catch her attention again for either a re-fill or the bill.
Just the one beer on today - a  5.2% pilsner, at just under £5 a pint. 

Bunthaus Shankraum (Kurdamm 24, Hamburg-Mitte, 21107).
This seemed a little more of an adventurous trip - catching the S3 train southbound from the centre and jumping off at Wilhelmsburg. 
I never like having to resort to the phone for maps and directions - I'm old-fashioned and believe I should be able to find things without being glued to a smart phone.  But on the search for Bunthaus, way off the edge of my map, I was grateful for technology.

I couldn't understand that the marker seemed to be in a park and I was dubious ambling into the barely lit paths in the dark. But it turned out the tap room is located in what was once the Inselpark waterworks. They opened in September 2017 with bar and seating in what would have once been square water tanks and it's an intriguing location.

They had 7 beers available this evening.  I started with an 'Alpaca IPA' - easy drinking & okay - before going DOUBLE IPA with the 8.5% 'Hopp Koop' - my notes (yes, I'm that sad) say "alcoholic Tropicana - wonderful, could drink this all night". I then finished with a pleasant 6.4% peanut & chocolate porter.

I could just fit one more stop in on a Thursday evening whilst remaining sensible and finishing at a respectable hour.  

This would be at Bar Oorlam (Kolhöfen 29, Hamburg 20355) in the quiet streets of the business area of the city centre. 
Previously a smoky street-corner pub, it was converted and re-opened in early 2018 as the Buddelship brewery tap.
And what a cracking, homely little bar it is, with an enticing selection of 15 beers from which I picked the 'Mr B' a 6.7% New England IPA.

On the barman's advice I also tried the 'Meppener Moorbrand Stout Laphroaig', 9%, a strong and downright super whisky barrel-aged stout.

Warning - this is how you can end up on the way home after trying to visit to too many 
bars and picking the stupidly strong beers.

Day 2:With some fantastic blue skies I spent the morning doing some of the Hamburg tourist stuff. Then for the afternoon I'd booked onto a tour of Ratsherrn Brewery. The brewery is housed in a complex which also contains their sizable craft beer shop and bar/restaurant Altes Mädchen.

Plenty of choice

Ratscherrn Brauerei (Lagerstaße 30, Hamburg 20357)
I'd struck lucky with my visit coinciding with an English language tour, so I joined 19-or-so other folks from as far-off as Miami and as close as Denmark, to poke our heads around the brewing equipment.
It's gotta be said that once you've toured a couple of breweries you don't really need to see any more.   Plenty of shiny brewing equipment, an explanation of the brewing process, sniff some hops and so on. 
But to be fair, it's always nice to see behind the scenes.  
And we spent a proportion of our tour sitting in a small tasting room where we were served up a 5.2% Zwickl, then a 5.5% winter amber ale called 'Lumberjack', followed by their regular 5.6% 'Pale Ale'.
All were fine, but I'd love to have tried some of the more experimental creations which Ratsherrn brew on their smaller brewing plant, just to the side of the shop.  

The brewery have a website with info about brewing in Hamburg, their beers, the shop & bar and the chance to book your own tour.

Learning about beer in the tasting room at Ratscherrn

ŰberQuell Brauwerkstӓtten (St Pauli Fischmarkt 28-32, Hamburg 20359).
Heading directly southwards through St Pauli took me to this brew pub, separated from the banks of the Elbe by a busy 4-lane highway and set in an intriguing building. 
They were having a beer launch event this evening so ushered me away from the section to the left where the brewing equipment was visible. Through a short corridor to the side was a more restauranty part of their complex. 
This was a nice place, with a spacious terrace outside and a good pizza menu for the peckish.  You can get a platter of 5 x 0.1 litre beers to sample the range here.

UberQuell - no idea what the colourful installations
in front of it are.

Langang Brauerei (Beerenweg 12, Hamburg 2276)
I caught the train to Diebsteich station and trekked the 15 minutes or so towards Langang Brewery.
On a dark unlit turn-off from Beerenweg a pot-holed track led to a bunch of parked camper vans and in the distance to the left was a small door and big iron shutter which could just be my destination. 
A little off the beaten path.
Entering through that small door, I had to concede that Landgang was uber-cool. 

Landgang - making breweries sexy.

The warehouse unit was HUGE - so vast that the brewing equipment, itself pretty big, just took up a corner of the room. The bar itself was in a converted shipping container to one side.  The whole place was dimly lit with coloured spotlights turning the stainless-steel brewing equipment purple.  Customers called in to take bottles home, a good crowd sat on stools chatting and drinking, whilst a German-language tour set-off to explore the far reaches of the brewery.
There was an impressive selection of beers on offer: 10 beers in total covering a range of styles, with stouts, pale ales, IPAs, lager and a sour beer.
I tried an interesting smoked porter and a Tabasco pale which could have been brilliant if they'd spiced it up a little more.

The bar in a shipping container at Landgang.

After all that, still Kiel, St Pauli and a Hamburger SV match to go.  Phew.