Region & History

How many breweries are there in Franconian Switzerland? The regional tourist board puts the number at over seventy, nearly all family-run. They're scattered across a range of low mountains between Nuremberg, Bamberg and Bayreuth, and hardly any other area in Germany packs in so many breweries.

The landscape got its name late. In 1793, the Erlangen students Wackenroder and Tieck hiked through the valleys here and felt reminded of Switzerland. The Romantic era turned that impression into a label that still appears on every hiking signpost today.

The beer is older than the name. In many villages, the innkeeper brewed the beer himself, because the inn was the village's living room, and fresh beer had the shortest possible journey to the glass. Many an inn grew into a brewery this way, often with its own butcher's shop attached.

Nowhere is this denser than in Aufseß. Around 1,300 people live there, and four breweries operate: Rothenbach, Reichold in Hochstahl, Stadter in Sachsendorf, and Kathi-Bräu in Heckenhof. According to the municipality and local tourism authorities, Guinness World Records listed Aufseß in 2001 as the place with the highest brewery density per capita anywhere.

Franconian Switzerland beer has no protected designation of its own. It falls under the EU seal "Bayerisches Bier," registered as a protected geographical indication in 2001, and in Bavaria even top-fermented beer is not permitted to contain sugar.

The town famous for smoked beer sits at the edge of the region, but it has its own story to tell. Here, though, the focus is on the villages, the cellars, and the paths that connect them.