60 Breweries: Biking the German Beer Capital

Biking through Bamberg, Germany — 60 breweries, hearty German meats, cobblestone streets, and riverside rides. A perfect mix of cycling, food, and authentic German beer culture!

Join me as I bike through Bamberg, Germany — a UNESCO World Heritage city and one of the world’s top destinations for beer, food, and cycling adventures. Famous for its 60 breweries, legendary smoked beer (Rauchbier), cobblestone streets, and delicious traditional meats like bratwurst and sausages, Bamberg offers an unforgettable blend of culture and flavor.

In this Eat Drink Bike episode, I ride through the city and surrounding countryside, exploring my favorite stops:

Alfred Seel Bakery for fresh pastries and Kännchen Kaffee

Schlenkerla Rauchbier, the iconic smoky beer Bamberg is known for

The historic Obere Brücke (Upper Bridge)

Savoring traditional German meats and sausages at local spots

Scenic brewery stops in the Franconian countryside

I’ll also share a stop at Marsbräu for their unfiltered “U” beer, take a dip at the Hainbadestelle river swimming spot, and wrap up the day with a few too many beers at one of Bamberg’s classic biergartens.

Whether you’re into bikepacking, cycling in Germany, beer travel, or exploring Europe’s best small cities, this ride through Bamberg has it all.

👉 Watch my whole Germany bikepacking series and other episodes here: https://youtu.be/8lD_fOn5ogo?si=IuUBr2db9ZVSW1WD
👉 Subscribe to Eat Drink Bike for more rides, food, and beer adventures!

[Music] This is Bombberg, Germany with over 60 breweries in the greater area. Fun cobblestone streets, great food, meats, schnitles, a river, swim in. I love this city. So, I’m going to show you around Bombberg and take you to breweries and restaurants, show you the bakeries and the river and beautiful sites all via bike. I’ll stitch together a couple days worth of rides. I’ll do it in a geographical way as if you’re moving along through a map. What I love about Bombberg is the whole thing feels like a dream because it’s so windy that you just turn a corner, you’re like, “Oh, okay. So, this street connects to this street.” And it’s hard to have a concrete map in your head. We’re just coming around the corner here to my favorite bakery in Bombberg. This is Baker Eye Seal. Open those doors and it’s just hits you. The smell of fresh bread. I love German breakfast. It’s based around getting little bread rolls, brochins, and little slices of cheese and ham to put on it. I kept getting this platter that had salmon and fresh aasa that was spiced. Kind of like a cream cheese, but a little different. Always fun to get like a German softboiled egg in a cup. I love this place. From Baker Zil, you’re already in Oldtown and all you have to do is go around the corner and you’re at the most iconic and famous brewery in Bombberg, Schlankula. Schlanka is known for its smoked beer. It is a punch-in-the-mouth beer. This tavern is so cute. It’s like dark. It feels like the sort of place you’d want to be in a cloak on a rainy night. I truly wish I didn’t care what other people thought enough just to wear a cloak every once in a while because there’s some people who are doing that and they often have um neck beards and fedoras. No judgment. I don’t know. I’m not confident enough in myself to do that. I just wouldn’t want it to be a joke. I’d want it to be like, “Oh, yeah, of course you’re wearing a cloak at this bar, which I’m just It would be everyone would see it as a joke.” I would recommend the Vison. It is a little less smoky than the mainstay beer. It is so smoky. I’d liken it to a pumpkin pie in that I’m so happy just having one slice of pumpkin pie a year. Like, that was perfect. You can leave Schlinkerla and turn around the corner again and you’re at the Bombberg Bridge. It has a courthouse in the middle of it, making it very unique and special. The courthouse is there apparently because it was a way to show partiality between two jurisdictions on different side of the river. It’s cute. If you go early enough in the morning, you’re allowed to bike over the bridge and land enough at night. There’s concerts sometimes happening on the bridge. Fun fact, when I was 22, I got punched in the back of the head on this bridge for no reason at all, leaving a disco tech, very drunk by an American soldier who was in a group of four soldiers. And I just hit the ground, stood back up, and was like, “Have a good night.” in Iran. Got a lot of special memories on that bridge. From the bridge, you can just wrap back around and get back to the river and go to Hinebach Stella. Hinebot Stella is a place where you can swim in the river and have a beer, some French fries. The river is freezing cold. Freezing cold. It was perfect because when I was there it was like 100 degrees a couple times and um southern Germany does not have air conditioning because they don’t want to change the aesthetic of their old buildings and build an HVAC and it used to be doable in the summer but now it’s just getting crazy hot. I was in a horse barn in an attic and it was very hot. It was a nice horse barn. It was renovated. Feels super special to jump into a river. One of my favorite parts about Austin is the fact that you can swim to Barton Springs, Austin, Texas. I live right by the river in Chicago. And it is so sad to me that that river is disgusting. And although we kayak on it, we would never swim in it. If I fell in, I would be terrified. From Hinebad Stella, you could go through the park and go to my favorite brewery, Marsbrow. Favorite brewery in the freaking world. I’ve been here in the winter. I’ve been here in the summer and the beer garden. And it is just so stinking special. The oo beer is unfiltered. It’s my favorite. Well, I don’t know. I like the Heelis as well, which is a light beer. They’re both I believe they’re both Keller beers, which I’ll talk a little bit about Keller beers when we get to Vera Roza. We Okay, we got some sausages and bread, classic German. Then we got the schnitle one from the first times we went there this summer, and I kept going back for it. It’s a schnitle that is battered in the spent grains um from the brewing process and they serve it with this delicious onion gravy which the third time I went and finally dawned on me just to be like, “Hey, can you give me a bowl of this on the side? It is so stinking good.” I love everything about getting a beer in a half liter stein too. It feels like the perfect incremental amount of beer. We were lucky enough to have the most amazing Airbnb host in the world and they were so sweet. They took us out into the German countryside to a couple of breweries. The countryside outside of Bombberg is super picturesque. It’s got a lot of breweries outside of the city and there’s a couple river crossing opportunities. We actually had to get on one um where the guy brought us across the river. There’s no sort of like paddling or motor. Just uses a little chain system and they correct the angle of the boat and it goes back and forth. Um but it only operates so late into the night and so when we left to come back, we had to go a different direction. This cute little adorable countryside brewery is everything I love about German drinking culture. You go there, you stand in line, you order one beer because there’s only one type. Don’t make the faux pa of asking them what type of beer they have. You go sit out in the beer garden with a bunch of other people. Beer is super cheap. People bring their own little wooden lids and put it on top of their steines. We have the famous Franconian disha. It is a pork shoulder that’s super tender and then has like a crispy crunchy fat cap on it. It’s great. It’s everything you hope it’s going to be. We biked over to our second brewery after a couple Steins and didn’t disappoint. Again, I learned at this brewery, a fun little German thing, you can order a schnit of beer, which means like give me a half cup. But at this brewery, when you order schnit, they give you like 3/4s or more cup of beer. Headed back into town and stopped for one more beer, which we probably didn’t need to. If you enjoyed this, I’ll make this into a two-parter. There’s more I want to show you at Bombberg. Barreling down some amazing cobblestone streets. It almost feels like as exciting as mountain biking. My favorite beer garden up on top of this hill. the marketplace, donor kebab, which I love. There’s some gardens that are awesome in Bombberg, and a couple really cool coffee shops. So, if you’re interested in seeing those and you’re not yet subscribed, please feel free to subscribe and hit the bell for a notification for when those come up. I’m back in Chicago and I’m excited to showcase Chicago this summer. more breweries, cool rides, little breakdown on my bike packing trip of what worked well for me when I was biking through Austria. Thanks everybody for being part of it. The subscriptions, comments, and likes mean a lot. The supers are huge. And if you or somebody you know does some video editing, I’m looking for some help. I end up not filming so many rides because it takes me so long to edit videos. Uh yeah. So, let me know if there’s anything you want to see more of in these videos. Please let me know in the comments. And thanks for coming along.