After walking past Augustiner Bräu for several days in a row, we finally ventured over to the largest beer hall in Austria. Augustiner Bräu has been producing beer since 1621. Its beer hall has five large indoor halls (total capacity inside is about 1,000), a few small private rooms for rental, numerous food stalls, and an outdoor garden. The outdoor garden alone seats around 1,400.
It is an ingeniously simple operation. At the cashier stand you pay for drinks, with cash. There is only one choice to make, either 0,5 L or 1 L beer. Get a receipt and proceed to grab a stein off the shelf. Next up is a water fountain station to wash your stein. I’m fairly certain the steins are washed, as they are dishwasher warm on the shelf. The real benefit to using the water fountain is to cool them off.
Just past the water fountain are two employees each manning a huge wooden barrel of beer. Hand over your stein to be filled and receipt as proof of payment. Leave a small tip on the tray and head out to find a seat. Don’t worry if there is a long line. It moves fast.
Outside there are a few picnic tables, but it is mostly round tables with six folding chairs around each. Smaller groups share tables. We shared a table with, at times, two guys in their late 20s, an older couple in their 70s, and a single guy about our age who sat down and promptly lit up a cigarette. Thankfully we were just finishing up our second 1 L beer and were getting ready to head out at that point.
Vendors selling several different types of food can be found both inside and outside. During the two hours or so we were at Augustiner Bräu we shared a plate of pig’s knuckle, a sausage, and two pretzels. Delicious.
Ordinarily we do not plan to visit tourist locations on weekends. But a few rainy days jumbled up our sightseeing plans. So on Saturday morning we headed to DomQuartier, a museum complex that includes Prunkräume (State Rooms); Residenzgalerie (art museum); Dommuseum (Cathedral Museum); and Museum St. Peter.
The museums are spread out across portions of the Residenz and the second floor of Dom Du Cathedral. Basically the museums are in a large Baroque palace complex that incorporates the cathedral.
We were very fortunate with the timing of our visit. As it was the last day of a temporary exhibit, adult ticket prices were reduced from €13 to €5. And we were first in line that morning. We walked through all of the exhibits in a little over an hour. During this time we were completely alone. Just us and the occasional employee hanging around.
The Prunkräume looked very similar to the rooms we saw in palaces in Vienna. The Residenzgalerie had a good selection of art and paintings that we both liked. The best part about Dommuseum was walking through the rear of the cathedral across the organ loft. Finally, Museum St. Peter had a few interesting pieces from the Archabbey’s collection but, like Dommuseum, was too religious for our taste.
Having been to Museum St. Peter we figured it was only appropriate to go to Erzabtei St. Peter, the Archabbey itself. We limited our visit to St. Peter’s Collegiate Church, St. Peter’s Cemetery, and the “catacombs”, ancient caves on the side of Mount Mönchesberg.
The most interesting of the caves is Gertraudenkapelle, a chapel inaugurated in 1178. A second chapel, Maximuskapelle, dates to the 1500s. Basically each is a cave that served as a chapel at times.
After leaving the Archabbey, we discovered that Universitasplatz had been taken over by a market. There were food trucks and stands selling everything from fruits and vegetables, meat, cheeses, gingerbread cookies, to bread and pretzels.
Stephanie even found fresh jalapenos, meaning we will have homemade pico de gallo in Salzburg.
In Vienna I declared Stiegl Goldbräu to be my favorite Austrian beer. So it was only appropriate that we took the brewery tour at Stiegl Brauwelt in Salzburg.
Tours are offered in both German and English. Obviously we took the English language tour. Offhand I’d guess that at least half of the other folks in our tour group (about 12 total) also spoke German.
Stiegl is the largest privately owned brewery in Austria. It has been operating in Salzburg since 1492, if not earlier, and owned by the same family for over 100 years.
The 90 minute tour began with a mug of beer in the company museum. That is definitely the way to get off to a good start. After a short talk on the history of the company, we had time to wonder around in the museum for a bit while drinking our beer.
Next we watched a 10 minute film on how beer is made, and then walked over to a production area. There we had another mug of beer, this one being an unfiltered beer. It was also really good. Unfortunately I do not recall the brand names of the two beers we drank.
Our tour guide mentioned that Steigl exports only about 10% of its production, and that the United States is the largest importer of Steigl beers. I’ll have to look for it back home.
Next up was a trip to the brewhouse tanks and finally the production lines, where we saw bottles being filled with beer, capped, labeled, and crated. This particular Stiegl location produces its line of craft beers.
The tour ended in the gift shop with a final mug of beer. Unfortunately the third beer was an IPA. We hate IPAs. Judging by the reaction of the other dozen folks on the tour with us, the IPA was the least popular. Not even Stephanie could drink it.
Before leaving I could not resist buying a Stiegl glass.
Unfortunately it is time to leave Salzburg. In hindsight I’d have stayed longer as I really enjoy the city. But Stephanie is ready to move on, and we have train tickets to Innsbruck.
Garrett and Stephanie
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