Schlenkerla

15th-century brewpub serving the classic smoked Rauchbier

Address Dominikanerstraße 6

The classic Bamberg brewpub, in a Dominican monastery refectory from 1310, smoke-blackened beams, and a beer drawn directly from wooden barrels rolled out into the public room. The house Rauchbier — dark, intensely smoky from beechwood-fired malt — tastes for first-time drinkers like someone has dropped a slice of bacon into the glass. Stay for two. After a few sips it stops being shocking and starts being delicious.

Long communal tables, simple Franconian food (Schäuferla, sauerbraten), no reservations. Get there before seven on a weekend or you will queue.

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A story
The malt is dried on the brewer's own beechwood fires — a method abandoned by almost every other brewery in Europe when industrial kilns arrived in the nineteenth century. Schlenkerla kept doing it, more or less by accident; today Rauchbier is what Bamberg is known for.