Bundesliga & Beer: Augsburg and Riegele Edition

A winter 2026 Bundesliga & Beer trip to the Bavarian city of Augsburg.

Augsburg is the regional capital of Swabia and third largest city in Bavaria after Munich and Nuremburg. It's one of the countries oldest cities and home now to just over 300,000 folk.
My early arrival provided plenty of time to wander the streets on the only really chilly day of winter 2026 that I can recall, a flurry of snow in the air.

Sightseeing...
The Rathausplatz should rightfully have been my first spot for the perfect tourist photograph.  Except I had dull grey sky above the Renaissance town hall, a stage set up in front of it, and the bell tower (old enough to only need three digits when writing the date) covered in scaffolding.

European cities do love to set up a stage in the square at the slightest excuse, a habit we really don't share here in the UK.  Over the years I've seen pagan rock and wood carving on stage in Heidelberg, an AC/DC cover band in Slovakia, and on-stage hairdressing displays in the Netherlands.
Nothing so exciting in Augsburg - just a large proportion of the city's under 10's and their pop music dance routines. But they were very enthusiastic about it.

I skipped the chance to win a 4ft high soft toy or drink local bottled beer, but did partake in vegetarian currywurst in a styrofoam cup.

Beyond the town hall are wonderful quiet streets with fast-flowing waterways running between buildings and the fascinating Fuggerei - the world's oldest social housing complex.

Elsewhere I found an impressive door knocker on St Maria's Cathedral...

And a very obscure vinyl selection in the record shop - Der Polizeikasper, anyone?

Right, time for a beer.
For this I headed back to the station where the 1516 Brewhouse within the station itself is sadly long closed, but Riegele Brewery is very close and visible from the rail platforms.

Riegele WirtsHaus (Frölichstraße 26, 86150 Augsburg)
It's a grand complex with beer garden for warmer weather, bar and restaurant, shop and visitor centre.  The afternoon football fixture had ensured it was doing a roaring trade, with a queue to be seated and plentiful plates of food being whisked between tables.
I grabbed a stool at the bar and ordered the 5% Hefe Weisse.

There was a fair bit of choice beer-wise at Riegele.
The staple light-dark-wheat beer line-up, including pils and kellerbier were in place.  I quite fancied the Speziator beers - dopplebock wheat, dunkel or helles in 7%-and-upward ABV versions.  But figured these could be very unwise - I still had to navigate getting an electronic football ticket to work at the turnstiles.

Instead, my second pick was the sensible 4.9% 'Aechtes Dunkel', a toasty dark brew made with double-kilned malts.

The loos are worthy of a mention.  There's a random puppet display behind glass on the corridor to the facilities, then the choice urinal in the gents is the one on a tree trunk... 

  

Almost up there with the Combermere Arms.

As the football-shirted crowd was thinning out, I figured I should think about finding my own way to the stadium.
I hopped on a tram at the Königsplatz interchange which takes you to the city outskirts in around 20-minutes.  The WWK Arena really is in nowheresville, surrounded by modern industrial buildings and motorways.

Negotiating the security perimeter takes you into the spacious concrete area outside of the stands where there is a fan shop, lots of grilled meatiness, chips, pancakes, and more Riegele beer to be consumed.

My vantage point amongst the crowd of 30,107 was in the corner, directly above one of the camera operators.
The Augsburg ultras occupied the Ulrich-Biesinger-Tribune to my right and made an orchestrated wall of noise and drum banging throughout the game.

When I brought my ticket, both Augsburg and visitors Heidenheim were perilously close to the bottom of the Bundesliga table.  F.C.A. have had a few good results since, including the remarkable feat of being the only club so far this season to win at Bayern Munich.
I wondered how they managed that after 45 drab minutes with no significant chances created by either side.  There was a (very minor) bit of Forest interest 59-minutes in when one-time City Ground loanee Rodrigo Ribiero came on as sub - another in our long line of misfiring strikers.
Then on 80-minutes a breakthrough.  Augsburg converted a penalty and took a deserved lead.  Right...it's bloomin' freezing...can we go home now? 

I confess to leaving on 90-minutes and not staying to watch time added-on.  I was keen to get the blood circulating back to my toes and be on the first tram back to the city centre.
Catch the first tram and you get the one with Augsburg FC colours...

Options for a post-match beer were a little limited by Sunday evening opening hours, the streets of the old town already quiet at 7 in the evening.
I strolled past the cathedral on the streets of the old town to the first brew pub I'd spotted on the map.

Brauhaus Bayrisch Brau Pub (Frauentorstraße 38, 86152 Augsburg)
Claus Kröger's brewery was set-up in an existing pub in 2010.  It's a two-roomed lay-out with one section in the dark beyond an archway. Typical large chunky farmhouse-style tables, a display of beer bottles on high shelving, and a small library of beer reading.
Here are the ale choices...note the good old fashioned laminated menu...

I stuck with the Zwickl hell, strength unlisted (but quite high I suspect), coming in under €5 for the half litre.
It may be homebrew compared to the Riegele, but I loved it - my favourite beer of the day.

It was just a bit of shame that the place was so quiet, although I guess it was a February Sunday evening in sub-zero temps.  Four customers sat around the bar, the lights above the tables put on especially for my benefit.  I had worried it was closed, but was afforded a warm welcome.  Just a pity that the locals didn't start to chat to me until I returned my glass and was on the way out.

Under 10-minutes brisk walk took me to another brewery with a tap in the same part of town.
Thorbräu have a long history dating back to 1582 and are named after the Wertachbrucher Tower which stands opposite the brewery. They've been in the same family since 1885 and currently produce around 25,000hl of beer per annum.

Bräustüberl zum Thorbräu (Wertachbrucker-Tor-Straße 9, 86152 Augsburg)
Step through the front door and there is a cosy room to the right with a fair number of customers in, bench seating around the sides, retro wood panelling, beer posters, and yellowed ceiling.  To the left is the bar counter, with more rooms beyond which are opened up at busier times.
I opted for the last remaining stool at the bar.

"What beers do you have?" I asked in the absence of any kind of menu or list.
"We have everything."
I think Mrs PropUptheBar would dispute that when looking for sours and marshmallow stouts.
I asked for my default kellerbier - 'Maximillian's' being the Thorbräu version, a cloudy well-balanced 5.2% ale.

I stuck around for a half litre of the tasty 5.6% Dunkel, entertained by my fairly tipsy friendly neighbours who roped me into their surreal conversation and gave me a big hug when I announced I had to go home.

That marked the end of my evening in Augsburg, my bed beckoning after a long day.
I do wish I'd had a little longer in the city as there are a fair few more places I'd like to have visited given more time.  But never mind, there's always the brew pub at Munich airport to get one more dunkel before the journey home.

Nuremburg - right now the fun is about to begin

Disclaimer: blog post contains no fun.
As the banner predicted, the fun was about to begin for the Nürnberg ultras who were witness to a bit of a goal fest.  But PropUptheBar is grumpy and doesn't do 'fun', even with ample statues, historic sights and brew pubs in Bavaria's second city. 

Early on a Friday morning a speedy and comfortable intercity train on its way to Berlin took me two stops from Munich to Nuremberg in an hour-and-twenty minutes.  
Let's start the city explorations with a statue, of which there are a fair few to marvel, although it was Jürgen Weber's "Marriage-Merry-Go Round" by the White Tower that had me wide-eyed.

The whole thing is supposed to depict the various stages of married life, although this section of the huge statue which I've photographed doesn't look like the most fun bit of a loving union, does it?
The whole fountain actually disguises a subway ventilation shaft and came at a hefty cost which had local residents grumbling.

Here's the football sticker of the day...

Nuremburg's tourist hotspots begin in earnest as you cross the Pegnitz river and climb the gentle hills of Altstadt St. Sebald towards the castle. 
Great views over the rooftops from the highest point, although the first glimpse of blue sky of the day made for a much better picture of Tiergärtnertorplatz.

Aha, there's another oddball statue to frown at...

Handily just around the corner from this charming square and the Albrecht Dürer house is a brewpub.  Time for a beer, I think...

Hausbrauerei Altstadthof (Bergstraße 19, 90403 Nürnberg)
I couldn't remember this place at all from a previous visit to the Nuremberg, but can't imagine I didn't visit the original brewpub slap bang in the most touristic part of the city.  They've been concocting beers here since 1984.
The bräustüberl is remarkably small: just a few chunky large tables and a handful of high stools to the side of the bar on the route to a very cramped WC (don't try and negotiate it with your backpack on).
House beers chalked-up on a blackboard were the city's signature red beer, kellerbier, schwarzbier, or a rot-weisse.  I seem to have been very unadventurous on this visit and just stuck with the pale kellerbier.  

For a bite to eat I decided to head to a bar called Kloster which promised rotating local ales and home-cooked vegetarian fodder.
They'd done their best to hide themselves from me, scaffolding obscuring the whole place...

Kloster (Ob. Wörthstraße 19, 90403 Nürnberg)
This is a fantastic quirky little bar, once you've worked out the establishment you're looking for is actually behind the building site and actually open.  There were just a handful of tables plus stools at the bar, an eclectic obscure musical soundtrack, unusual decorations including a skeleton in the window and a coffin over the door.

Three draft beers gave you a choice of helles, dunkel, or weissbier from different local breweries, whilst the lesser-seen brews appeared to be those on the bottle list. 
I ordered the Brauerei Kanone dunkel and a GREAT chilli-sin-carne.

Suitably fed, I caught the U1 line to Bärenschanze.
This is where you'll find the Memorial of the Nuremberg Trials, an exhibition in the Palace of Justice.  In 1945 this was chosen to hold the trial of 24 of the most important political and military leaders of Nazi Germany.  Unlike most of Nuremberg, the court had remained largely undamaged during wartime bombing and the location was significant: the downfall of these men happening in the same city which held the enormous rallies as their party rose to power.

 

We've watched the movie 'Nuremberg' recently so are experts on this bit of history. 
This is the actual courtroom where Russell Crowe stood trial...

That bit of historic sightseeing from dark times complete, I was within walking distance of the Schanzenbräu brewery tap, which came highly recommended, the beer being a bit of a favourite with the locals.

Schanzenbräu Schankwirtschaft (Adam-Klein-Straße 27, 90429 Nürnberg)
This brewery - the beer being produced a couple of kilometres further west in the suburbs - was founded in 2004 although I'd never have guessed they're a 21st century outfit based on their retro tap room.

The first Schanzenbräu beers were created in the cellar of a workshop, with some innovation required to make up for the lack of proper kit: old barrels being sawn open to act as fermentation vats.  The current brewery in the Höfen suburb opened in 2016 with an annual output of 5000hl, their staple products being Rot Beer, Helles, Kehlengold and a Pils. 
I had the impression that only the helles was on tap in the bar, but may have been misunderstood when I tried to ask the question.  Chalkboards in every direction, but not a beer list to be seen.

Never mind - the Helles was excellent.
Quality frothy head.  On a super unfiltered, full-bodied, floral pale ale.
This is a fantastic little pub in which I could happily settle for longer if it weren't for time racing by awfully fast with a football match to get to in the evening. 

I walked back into the city centre, dropped by backpack at my hotel, then considered where I could grab one more beer prior to the evening's kick-off.
I'm really not sure how I ended up in the modern Bruderherz and am conscious there were lots of good places I missed.

Bruderherz (Luitpoldstraße 15, 90402 Nürnberg)
I think I may have been fooled by this one - it was once one of the city's brewpubs but appears to have closed in 2024.  Well, I can confirm it's open again, although it looks like the brewing kit you can see in the basement room may now just be for show.
At least I got to try the Schanzenbräu Rotbier which I'd missed out on at their pub. The red beer is something of a speciality in Nuremberg, an old style that has been revived in recent years - a kind of maltier, spicier Marzen - thoroughly enjoyable.

Six-thirty - time to start thinking about getting to the football ground for kick-off in an hours time.
If in doubt about directions, follow this chap...

Special S-Bahn trains are laid on to whisk you non-stop to the Nürnberg Frankenstadion station, a few kilometres south of the centre.

All the usual features of the walk between public transport and the ground were in place: stalls selling a vast array of football scarves, bratwurst and beer retailers, the scent of marijuana in the air, chaps with trolley bags collecting empty bottles, blokes in the bushes having a wee.

This was the weekend-opening Friday evening Bundesliga 2 game, Karlsruher SC the visitors at the Max Morloch stadium.
It's a big ground with a lots of empty seats at one end where visiting supporters were located, the impressive second tier attendance of 29,378 not coming close to making it look full.
I was at the very edge of the 'posh' seats in the main stand, looking across the running track towards the most dedicated and noisy Nurnberg fans.

Twenty-five minutes in, Julian Justvan grabbed two goals in three minutes to dash Karlsruhe's spirit.  The home side were having fun and looking like scoring every time they surged forward, going into half-time 3-0 up.  Despite the two clubs sitting next to one another midway up the league table, Nürnberg continued to dominate, Mohamed Ali Zoma scoring his hat-trick in an eventual 5-1 win.  It's the first time in my German football travels that I've seen a set of fans give up with their drum beating and chants, the Karlsruher support looking utterly fed-up and ready to head back to Baden-Württemberg by the hour-mark.

I could have dived into Nuremberg's Friday night city centre action once I'd travelled back from the stadium.  But all I wanted was my comfy bed and a cup of tea.
Gotta save some energy for more Franconian beer the next day.

Maisach and München

Day three in Munich and I opted to set out on the S-Bahn to find a nearby brewery in the town of Maisach.

Located 16-miles northwest of Munich this sleepy place has increased in population size by over 40% since the late-80's.  What's bringing them all here?
Could it be because they have a UNESCO cultural heritage listed shooting club? The folk festival? The fact that pagan metal band Equilibrium were founded here? The town's own brewery?
Or perhaps because it's peaceful and less than 30-minutes on the train from central Munich.

As there really isn't much to see, especially on a chill grey morning with the raindrops beginning to fall, I headed straight to the brewery...

Bräustüberl Maisach (Hauptstraße 24, 82216 Maisach)
It's unmissable as you walk down the main street, the chimney and brewery logo on a white wall visible from some distance.  Their wirsthaus/restaurant takes up the left-hand side of the building.

Maisach Brauerei dates back to 1556 according to the beer mat...

It has been in the hands of the Sedlmayr family since 1907.  Somewhere within the brewing building are historic steam engines, early 20th century coppers, and a grist mill from 1925, the latter two still being in use today.

Beer-wise, four regular drinks are on offer: 'Perle' (a hoppy Helles), Keller Bier, the dark beer - Räuber Kneißl, and an unfiltered Weißbier.

I started with the marvellous Dunkel, then followed it with the unpasteurised Keller Bier, served in earthenware mug.

It's a lovely place, all tables filled on a weekday lunchtime with a mixture of locals, business-folk, and couples.  I felt a bit guilty that I was sat at a table for four and wasn't eating (too good a breakfast buffet that included pancakes and cheesecake).  Plus, I wanted to get back to Munich with a reasonable amount of time to keep exploring, so I paid the bill after two beers and moved on.

Here's a picture of me stumbling out the pub...

I made it back to the train station and hopped aboard the next S-Bahn service to Munich, alighting at Marienplatz and returning to theViktualienmarkt for a bite to eat.
Close to the outdoor market is this little bar...

Giesinger Bräu - Stehausschank Viktualienmarkt (Prälat-Zistl-Straße 4, 80331 München)
A stehausshank is literally a stand-up bar - somewhere to call into, get served at the counter, perch on a ledge and quaff your beer elbow-to-elbow with your fellow patrons. I thoroughly approve.

There really wasn't much room in here: just four perching tables in front of the counter with no stools, although pavement seating allows you to take the weight off provided the weather behaves.

Giesinger started out in a garage in 2006 in the suburb of Giesing and have since grown into the second largest private brewery in the city, with a capacity of 1.2 million litres per annum.  I've read that they've been trying to get a tent at the Oktoberfest for a number of years, but keep finding new hurdles put in front of them.
Perhaps there's a suspicious eyebrow raised at the modern beers which Giesinger concoct alongside the traditional ones.

I'm afraid that I only tried the one on this occasion.  I vow that Giesinger will be high on my list next time I'm in this neck of the woods.

The Dunkles was served in a clay mug for €4.70 a half litre and was a fine example of the style.

I didn't move on far, my decision dictated by worsening weather.  The smart modern Hacker Pschorr pub is pretty much straight across the road.

Der Pschorr (Viktualienmarkt 15, 80331 München)

This is a modern smart bar/restaurant which I can't say was my favourite in the city.  Very much a 'please wait to be seated' place - quite the opposite to where I'd been beforehand.
The main draw was the chance to drink the Hacker-Pschorr 'Edelhell' from the wooden barrel...

So, how was the ambitiously-billed "Pschorr Experience"?
Hmmm...pricey with that €6.70 charge for a half litre.
Perhaps a little too chilled for my liking and nothing special in my opinion, wooden barrel or not.

But - wow! - the psychological effect of the bell ringing when a new barrel is tapped is something to behold.  The number of people draining their glasses and putting in orders as soon as the bell rang was incredible, despite the fact that I don't imagine any one barrel stays in place for long enough for the beer to get tired.

My next point-of-call was to the Munich tap of a brewery 50-miles to the south.

Tegernseer Tal - Bräuhaus (Tal 8, 80331 München)
The brewery traces its roots back to 1050 (take that, Britain's oldest pubs!) and is connected to an ancient Benedictine abbey in the lakeside town of Tegernsee.  They've grown a bit over the years and now have a second production site and the official name Herzoglich Bayerisches Brauhaus (The Bavarian Duke's Brew House).

The building this pub is housed in dates back to 1897 and previously housed Brauerei Schlicker who ceased brewing in the 50's.  It has remained a pub ever since and was taken over an refurbished by Tegernseer in 2013, providing another alternative to the dominant Munich brewers. 

I was really comfy sat in here, helped by the fact that I was sheltered from a heavy rain shower outside, refreshed by a light, hoppy, grassy half litre of helles, and earwigging a beery conversation between Americans and Aussies sat at the bar.

Tegernseer had WC signage worthy of a covert bit of photography...

 

Then I was off into the gloomy late afternoon, examining football stickers on lamp-posts (must come back and get to an 1860 game), and searching for more modern beer.

My evening diversion for 'craft' beer (Maisach may have a thing or two to say about that descriptor and will vehemently tell you they've crafted their beer for hundreds of years).  

I caught the underground to Poccistraße, then made a short walk to Fisches Bier.

Frisches Bier (Thalkirchner Str. 53, 80337 München)
This modern moodily-lit bar, in a part of town that really deserved a bit more exploration, offered up 14 tap lines of trad lagers, Dutch pastry stout, bocks, and IPAs.
I picked the 5% dunkle from Tilman's, who I assume the bar is associated with based on the number of their beers listed in pride of place at the top of the menu.
Tilman's is a Munich nano-brewery set up in 2014 by a fella called Tillman Ludwig.  The enjoyable 'Die Dunkle' was like a very light English stout with caramel and blackberry notes. I just wish I'd have given myself longer to stick around and try more.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a decent interior photo of Frishes bar.
But I do have a picture of donuts at the train station...

Which I think is a fine alternative.

Those sticky sweet treats bring my 2026 exploration of Munich to a close.
My evening ended up at the back of an aircraft hangar of a venue watching Biffy Clyro...gosh, they have an awful lot of ballads.

Bear with me - if you will - for further posts on Nuremberg, Bamberg, and Augsburg, before I return to these shores and Banks's bitter in backstreet boozers.