One sunny afternoon in Bern, we struck north in order to sample the best local beer, Felsenau, at the brewery itself. We did eventually try the beer, but the journey was not as smooth as we would have hoped.
Some locals told us that on Fridays from 3-6 the Felsenau Brewery serves up fifty-cent glasses of their beer. And you can sit right along the riverfront and drink the city's best beer in the afternoon sun. What they failed to tell us was that at 6:00, they don't serve any more beer at all. At any price.
After a causal lunch in a park in the Altstadt, we walked due north towards the brewery. The way there was simple enough - we just follow a single, main road straight to the brewery. A couple wrong turns later, we were still headed towards the brewery but were a bit behind schedule.
When we arrived at the location where the brewery was supposed to be, we saw only a cluster of buildings way down the hill from us. Before venturing all the way down there, we figured we'd better get another opinion. We stopped a pair of younger, hip-looking locals biking by and solicited their knowledge about the brewery's whereabouts. The couple was very friendly and thankfully did in fact know the way.
We arrived at 5:55, walked through a very small crowd of locals - one group of teenagers who seemingly got their money's worth, and a second group of men sitting in the back of a delivery truck - and up to the brewery employees, who informed us that the serving time was over.
With nothing left to do except trudge back up the hill in defeat, we slowly made our way back up the hill disappointed that we so narrowly missed the time window.
At the top, our spirits all but broken, we stood across the street from a small restaurant with a small Felsenau Beer sign out front. The brewery may have shut us out, but we were resolute to taste the beer.
They had a dunkles and a lager; we ordered them both.1 We drank the first in silence. Over the second, we cheered up convincing ourselves that the trip was worthwhile.
After all, we saw a bunch of green roofs and solar panels. We brought up the construction site with the massive tunnel/pipe, bigger than any we'd ever seen, half buried in the ground. And we reminisced about the flock of pirate sheep, or were they sheep pirates?, that we passed along the way.
As we finished off the last of our beers, we decided that an adventure is an adventure, and at least we got off the beaten path. Then promptly headed for the bus stop.
1. The dark, named Bärni, is delicous - interesting flavors, a nice mouthfeel, and a nice malty-hoppy balance. The lager was nothing special.
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