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Fall Beer Tour: Sampling the Pleasures of the Table BOOKANDSAVEDUPE2

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Hello to Slow Food
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and Artisanal Eats
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Sourdough from local rye, baked just a few hours ago… Unfiltered pear juice from a fruit press the next village over… Six varieties of heirloom potatoes at the market… Beer from a 300-year-old brewery made with barley from the region… Speck, fresh sausage and a groaning board of charcuterie from a master butcher down the street… Feeling the love?

SeelBamberg

Bamberg’s Seel Bakery has been making bread since the 1500s.

Germany has 13,171 bakeries, each with with a certified master baker who did an apprenticeship.

German bakers are seeking UNESCO status. If the agency agrees, German bread will be recognized as an object of immaterial cultural heritage.

Germany has 2,583 kinds of bread according to the country’s official bread registry.

Beer and food go hand-in-hand. So in addition to local brews our fall beer tour is also featuring Bavaria’s Slow Food and regional cuisine with a selection of special highlights.

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It’s not the case everywhere in Germany, but visit a weekly market or walk down a street in many villages or small towns and you’ll find yourself wandering through a Slow Food diorama with native products right and left.

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You will see imports from the outer edges of Europe or beyond, such as Spain or Morocco. But there’s a good chance you’ll also find local asparagus, herbs and chanterelles, heirloom potatoes and fruit from the region as well as hand-made cheeses, artisanal bread and trout, carp and perch from local waters.
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And if you stop at local Gasthof for lunch and a pint, and there’s a good chance that the pork in your goulash was sourced locally and the beer was made at a family-run brewery within a 20-kilomter radius.

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If you’re a locavore, or just a lover of good food made with integrity, it’s easy to be seduced.
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Celebrating Local Taste on the Beer Tour 

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Do well-adjusted cows make for great cheese? The cows that summer in the high Alpine meadows around the Zillertal have to be the happiest on the planet. You’ll have a chance to see what the mellow Alpine vibe does for the cheese local dairies produce from their milk. We’ll be visiting a regional cheesemaker outside of Mayrhofen and a family cheese workshop in an Alpine meadow. Samples included.Book and Save

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Graze to your heart’s content at the Viktualienmarkt. It’s Munich’s quintessential outdoor market with its own beer garden. High-end nibbles and an unbelievable array of vegetables, charcuterie and cheese. We’ll visit the Viktualienmarkt during our stay in Munich. You can graze at will and assemble your own personal picnic from local and regional delicacies.

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Germany has just under 14,000 master butchers and you’ll be hosted by one of the best during an afternoon visit to Möhrendorf, a teensy village in Franconia. Our host Jürgen Reck was voted Bratwurst King of Bavaria last year. No small feat when you realize that the brat is the national dish of Franconia and has to be made to exacting standards. Herr Reck will give us an inside look at his sausage kitchen. We’ll see him perform sausage magic and there will be a liberal supply of samples. His wurst is the best.

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Germany’s luscious bread will be part of the culinary backdrop during the entire trip. Sourdoughs, to-die-for pretzels, farm rye and wheat loaves, the omnipresent breakfast rolls made fresh every day, pumpernickel and a range of regional specialties will be on tap. Over 30 percent of Germany’s bread is still baked in stone ovens, and baking is still an art.

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Schäufele, the popular succulent meat dish of Franconia, in the northern tip of Bavaria, is not to be resisted if you are a connoisseur of pork. The word means shoulder. And it’s baked fat-side-up in a roaring oven, usually basted with brown beer. The top of the roast is scored and seasoning rubbed in, resulting in a crunchy outside rendered of most of its fat and unctuously tender strands of meat on the underside. It’s pig at its very best. You’ll have a chance to try Schäufele in Bamberg or on the road in Franconia. Detailed Itinerary Reserve
Backstory
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Industrial farming and factory food took hold in Germany in the 20th century, but they never totally squeezed out artisan producers and traditional regional suppliers the way they did in the U.S.
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Food and drink in Germany are intensely regional and rooted in local tradition. That’s one reason artisanal products and regional cuisine have survived. It also explains why a stubborn inborn streak of Slow Food consciousness has existed in Germany all along.

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As a result, Germany is still very much a land of small-scale and midsize farms, weekly markets, family-owned bakeries, regional fruit and vegetable growers, small meat-markets and master butchers.
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It’s not that there are no food chains in Germany — there are — but regional suppliers and local food artisans have found a way to survive and exist alongside Big Food. And many of them have fiercely loyal supporters that are enabling them to survive.   Schäufele

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ASCHINGERALM GoldenerLöwe IMBISS