• Travelsignposts Home
  • Country Guides
  • City Guides
  • River Cruises
  • Europe Photos
  • About Us

River Cruises

  • Home
  • About River Cruises
  • Photos
  • Map of Europe
  • Site Map
  • Cruises
    • Rhine Danube River Cruises
    • France River Cruises
    • Germany River Cruises
    • Holland Belgium River Cruises
    • Italy River Cruises
    • Spain Portugal River Cruises
    • Russia Ukraine River Cruises
    • UK River Cruises
  • Riverboats
  • Sightseeing
  • Useful facts
  • News & Events
You are here: Home / Sightseeing / Bamberg and its Smoky Rauchbier

Bamberg and its Smoky Rauchbier

By Helen Page 1 Comment

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

Rauchbier, Bamberg’s specialty smoked beer:

Bamberg Schlenkerla rauchbier

Bamberg’s rauchbier

Bamberg is a town that’s not only famous for its medieval heritage, but is also noted for its excellent beers.  For its small population of 80,000, Bamberg has nine breweries which brew some fifty different types of beer.

A specialty of Bamberg is rauchbier, a “smoked beer“.  On our river cruise stop at this town, passengers were recommended to try this specialty beer and the place to go to is the Schlenkerla tavern at No. 6 Dominikanerstrasse.  It’s in the middle of the old part of town, near the cathedral.

Smoked beer certainly is an acquired taste and even some of our fellow Australian passengers, who are hardened beer drinkers, did not finish their drink.  This is quite unheard of!  I thought it tasted a bit odd, a bit like beer that’s been infused with smoked ham!  The truth is that the malt is roasted over beech fire to give it that smoky flavour.

Schlenkerla’s history

Schlenkerla tavern has a history dating back to 1405 and has been run by generations of the Trum family.  Walking around the tavern, you’ll notice interesting features. On the walls there are numerous historic engravings of Bamberg, like the “World Chronicle of Schedel” from the year 1493.  The family tree of the Trum/Graser family can also be seen.

The “Dominikanerklause” with the arched ceiling dates back to 1310. The “Klause” used to be the house chapel of the Dominican monastery and was used for daily prayer. During secularization the monastery was closed down and all its buildings were nationalized by the State of Bavaria. The “Klause” was later  sold to the Trum/Graser family.

Ordering Rauchbier

Ordering Rauchbier

The original Schlenkerla smoked beer is still being tapped directly from the wooden barrel according to the old traditional way. If you wait at your table for service, you’ll go thirsty.  To order a beer you’ll need to go to the small window in the wall, ring the bell and the bartender appears at this hole in the wall and serves you your beer.

Amongst the group of passengers who tried rauchbier, Tony was the only one who finished his drink.  The colour of the beer may be as dark as Guinness, but it certainly is no substitute for the mighty Guinness.

See our Bamberg photos HERE

Click here to get a free PDF of this post

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

Related

Filed Under: Sightseeing Tagged With: Bamberg, rauchbier, schlenkerla, smoked beer

avatar

About Helen Page

Helen Page is a prolific blogger and ardent traveller; she runs Travelsignposts with her professional writer and photographer husband Tony.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

eNews and Updates

feedburner Sign up now to get emailed news as well as other site updates!

You can also find us on

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Plan and Book Your Trip


Get the Guerrilla Travel Photography ebook here now!

Latest Additions

  • From Salzburg to Budapest to Prague: Planes, Trains, and River Cruises
  • Embarkation Day – Amsterdam to Budapest River Cruise
  • Amsterdam – The City of Canals
  • Cologne on the Rhine
  • An Evening Stop at Koblenz
City Guides
Country Guides
River Cruises

Who is behind Travelsignposts?

Helen and Tony Page at Singapore Changi Airport

We're Helen and Tony Page, and we love travelling - lucky as we've been doing it for the last few decades!

Tony has long been a professional photographer and writer, but Helen now writes most of the posts and takes a lot of photos herself!

Travelsignposts is our main travel planning site, but we've just launched Travelsignposts China and Tony also runs the Travelsignposts Photo and Guerrilla Travel Photography web sites, as well as publishing the Take Better Digital Photos and Guerrilla Travel Photography eBooks.

Read more about Helen and Tony or contact them.

Other Countries

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • England
  • Estonia
  • Europe (General)
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Portugal
  • Scotland
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine

Resources

  • Take Better Digital Photos eBook Take Better Digital Photos eBook
  • Take Better Digital Photos Free eCourse
  • Travel Signposts Photo – our main travel photography site
  • Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook

Copyright Travelsignposts Pty Ltd © 2025 Log in

Get a free PDF of this post!
Just enter your email address below and we'll send it to you immediately.

Please enter your Email Address