Beerwanderers founder Rich Carbonara not only offers guided beer hiking experiences but is among the most prolific of Franconian beer writers. Articles range from a complete guides on Franconian beer styles to reviews of Franconian beers and breweries. With home bases in both Bamberg and Munich, the region is very much his backyard. Seminal works include The Pocket Guide to Franconian Beer and Bierkellering by Numbers. He’s also the author of the book Beer Hiking Bavaria, which details 50 hikes all over his home state Bavaria. Each one ends at a brewery and chosen beer.
Beerwanderers founder Rich Carbonara
People change over time but two activities have remained pretty constant for me: hiking and seeking out new beers. I started the former relatively late, my early thirties and the latter considerably earlier. I guess in the beginning I was just seeking any beer I could get my hands on. Since those times, I’ve hiked from the Rockies to the Andes to the Himalayas but friends still mostly think of me as the beer guy. The one who was into craft beer before it became fashionable.
Living in Munich and Bamberg, a local’s perspective on beer
Living in Munich, I still do my fair share of alpine hiking in the nearby Alps. Now, I find myself ever increasingly drawn to Germany’s brewing heartland. To not only seek out the beers I’ve been looking for there since 1997 but also to enjoy the many trails that more gently get a person from point A to point B. In my case, those points are often if not always breweries. That’s the reason I now have an apartment in Bamberg too. It allows me to keep a pulse of the local beers as well as explore more of the Bamberg countryside breweries.
Why write about Franconian beer?
Much of the information on these small breweries and the trail networks that link them is nearly always in German. I initially started the site to share it in English with others. I’d hoped to find people intrigued by the idea of an invigorating walk in nature that ended in a great local meal washed down with a beer brewed by the same family for hundreds of years. This rekindling of my old university writing skills into a blog on Franconian beer led to my writing the book Beer Hiking Bavaria.
Enjoy Beerwanderers, the largest source of information on Franconian beer, or become one. It’s your choice.
Please enjoy this free resource of information about the beer, food and trails of Bavaria. The main focus is the part known as Franconia. If the ideas don’t seem self-explanatory enough, or if you just want a local guide to do all the planning, getting you on the right trails to the best breweries and making sure you know about the local delicacies, then please join me on a Beerwanderers Beer Hike Food Experience in both Bamberg and Munich.
Impressum