London to Istanbul – Epic Rail Journey : Day 2
A more leisurely start to our second day with a mid-morning DB ICE departure to carry us across Germany to Munich. The vagaries of the seat reservation selection managed to put us opposite the mid carriage luggage rack, great for keeping an eye on our cases but removing any view. An uneventful 4½ hour journey, at least on our side of the train, saw us pulling in to Munich only a few minutes late. Not bad for DB. The hotel was a short walk away and we checked in with no problems and started to plan the rest of the day.
We had been to Munich before and so I was keen to visit some new bars, although this wasn’t helped by the fact that it was Monday and a few of the interesting looking bars were closed. A plan was formed to head away from the centre for some interesting looking places and so, with Mrs MA still unable to walk for too long with her dodgy knee, we jumped in to a taxi and headed out to our first stop. We were dropped outside a very closed looking Paulaner am Nockherberg but thankfully it proved to be open. Part of the large Paulaner group I was attracted here by the fact that they brew on-site and these beers are not available anywhere else. No problem with either the Helles or the Dunkel but the seasonal beer had sold out. An impressively large space it was empty on our arrival but started filling up as the working day came to an end. The beer garden is supposedly very impressive but the overcast day dissuaded us from checking it out.
Paulaner am Nockherberg, Hochstraße 77, 81541 München, Germany
We called another taxi and made the journey to Frisches Bier, a small one room tap that is home to Tilmans Biere brewery and also has a number of guest beers available. Across the 14 taps they had beer from 3 different German breweries, all of which were new to me. The bar itself was packed and clearly very popular with the younger after work crowd. Well done to the one poor guy behind the bar having to manage it all!
Frisches Bier, Thalkirchner Str. 53, 80337 München, Germany
We spent quite a long, enjoyable, time here before making the relatively short walk, albeit slowly, to our third stop of the evening, Paulaner Bräuhaus. This is the main beer hall for Paulaner and, as you would expect, it is quite large. It wasn’t overly busy when we got there and we had no problem finding a table. Alongside the regular Paulaner range they were offering a couple of their seasonals that I had not had before, so those were the two beers we had. On trips like this we have a good system of swapping beers halfway through allowing us to sample more. That is until the point when Mrs MA reaches capacity and then I’m on my own!
Paulaner Bräuhaus, Kapuzinerpl. 5, 80337 München, Germany
From here we took a taxi to our final stop of the evening, Augustiner-Keller, just the other side of the main station. Second visit here, but a must do as it brews some of my favourite beers! This is a vast beer hall that was packed on our previous visit, but was virtually deserted late on a Monday evening. Augustiner Helles wasn’t on tap so I went with my second choice of Edelstoff and it didn’t disappoint. It never does. With that our time in Munich, and Germany, was nearly over. We headed back to the hotel to rest before the long train journey that was awaiting us in the morning.
Augustiner-Keller, Arnulfstraße 52, 80335 München, Germany