Brewery – Löwenbräu Buttenheim
House – Gaststätte
Address – Marktstrasse 8, Buttenheim, D-96155
Date of first visit – July 28th, 1997
Most recent visit – November 18th, 2022
Ruhetag – Monday & Tuesday
Bier Notes
Weizenbier 0.5 Fl
The tale of our first visit to Buttenhem has been recorded on the Löwenbräu Buttenheim website for many years. Richard and I walked into the Gastätte to be told it was closed, yet there people about, a private function. Our first tatse of this excellent Weizen was therefore in the Keller adjacent to St Georgen, well it would have to be. This was also the first time we observed the optical effect known as ‘Mit Rim’, a collar of about once centimetre at the top of the Bier proper. Only Weizenbier with enough Hefe can create this effect.
Annafest 0.5 Fl
Having successfully procured a t-shirt next door at the St Georgen factory, we marched back into the ‘closed’ Löwenbräu house. Our perseverance certainly paid off. We held up our St Georgen t-shirts and asked if there was an equivalent. A guy took charge and disappeared, meanwhile a lovely chap who have flown over from the States especially for the day engaged us in conversation. As I recall he was originally Polish but had left Germany some years before. Richard put his foot in big style..’Why did you leave?’ ‘Could you not tell why he felt he had to leave?’ I asked him?
We had gatecrashed the funeral of Herr Modschiedler Snr. We were now made very welcome and were sat down in the company. We had to pretend we knew about Whisky. Bier was presented, our first taste of the Annafest, it was bottled. The fore-mentioned guy returned with an armload of t-shirts. We were given two each, one was a Löwenbräu Radler t-shirt, we would discover the meaning of the word Radler when we reached Andechs. The other had the Löwenbräu-Buttenheim logo, as did the next t-shirt presented on the next visit a year or so later. We also departed with a couple of bottles of Weizenbier.
Needless to say, not a single Pfennig had been asked for.
The ‘guy’ was Hansi Modschiedler who had just inherited a Brauhaus – nice. His English is certainly competent. We have been recognised on every subsequent visit, though it usually takes Hansi a few moments to put us in perspective. ‘Scottish?’ He too recalls the first day we set foot on the premises, hardly a day he would forget.
Many Scots have now been to Buttenheim and he knows he can trace this fact back to this day. The welcome is always fantastic, we have had to refuse t-shirts latterly as I felt to arrive mob handed in expectation is a bit crass.
If the price of Bier in Bamberg is less than one would expect to pay, out here in the rural hinterland the Bier is at give-away prices. At times the Bier is given away.
On Marg’s first visit, Hansi was so keen to see us looked after he gave Marg someone elses dinner. This did not please Marg as the customer had ordered Potato Salad, which she cannot stand.
In one of our first Ryanair £20 return flights to Hahn, Olaf turned up to meet us. Olaf Schellenberg has delivered our Bier to the Athena Greek Taverna (no more) and currently The Allison Arms and Jim’s garage (for our own domestic requirements). Olaf ordered a round of cold meats et al. When it came time to settle up he announced he was paying for everyone except ‘Hector’. (I could point out that he had enjoyed hospitality overnight in Clydebank during the previous Paisley Beer Festival, but I will not dwell longer on this matter.)
In July-August 2007, Robin’s 60th Birthday Bash, about twenty of us were booked in for dinner. Before the bill had been settled we were each given a Löwenbräu-Buttenheim baseball cap. We were charged for the food, the Bier was free.
In November 2015, Hector finally made it to the Tapping of The Bockbier – Bockbieranstiche – and each year since to 2018.