Privatbrauerei Aying

by Alan Ditky, beerguard@aol.com

"Really Alan, I just do not understand the point of driving all the way out here in the country just to drink an Ayinger beer that we could have just as easily ordered at the Platzl in Munich."

Germans tend to be parochial about their choice of beer brands, so I was not totally surprised that this stylishly dressed Munich-born woman across the beer garden table from me didn't share my enthusiasm for visiting the Ayinger Brewery. After all, the village of Aying is all of 15 miles southeast of Munich – and in a country only twice the size of Wisconsin that still has over 1,200 breweries, your local one is usually just a brief Swatch car ride away. Still, when an otherwise demure female effortlessly waves about a full liter stein of Ayinger Radler (89 points: a mix of beer and lemon soda – sort of a Teutonic shandy) while making her point, I do pay attention.

It is more than just a degree of distance that makes the Ayinger Brewery stand out for me amidst the clutter of German brewers. It's not a big brewery; the annual production is somewhat less than 100,000 barrels. Nor is it all that old. While there has been commercial brewing in Aying since 1385, the Inselkammer family has operated their brewery only since 1878, which makes it younger than Budweiser. The beers, which we'll get into in due course, are certainly noteworthy, but not exotic. No, what I think first charmed me about Ayinger is that it is a picture-postcard Bavarian brewery in a picture-postcard Bavarian village that you can visit by riding the Munich subway.

Munich is the home to some large and well-known breweries. Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr (now owned by Paulaner), HB (Hofbrauhaus), Spaten, Lowenbrau (owned by Spaten) and Augustiner dominate the market, with large beer halls and beer gardens scattered across the city. The best known of these is the euphoniously named Hofbrauhaus, located on the Platzl Platz in the heart of Munich. As the hoards of tourists stream out of the HB hall, the first thing that they see is the bright green and gold logo of Ayinger beer; for Ayinger had the cheek to open its own beer hall, the Platzl, directly across the street. Bavarian beer politics being what they are, it is safe to say that the beer barons of the Bavarian state-owned HB were not amused.

The Platzl, a cheerful combination of beer hall, restaurant, cabaret and hotel, is a good place for a beer pilgrim to be introduced to the beers of Ayinger. The Platzlbrau (actually Ayinger Jahrhundert-Bier – 92 points) is served in a mini beer barrel when a round of beers is ordered. This hugely malty, perfectly balanced Export-style beer greatly encourages the consumption of weisswurst, which are drawn from a porcelain crock at the center of your table.

Once you have been fortified by your visit to The Platzl, it's time to head for the source. The Munich rapid transit system is a mixture of subways (the U-Bahn) and surface lines (the S-Bahn) that merge together in a manner similar to comparable systems in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Walk about two blocks to the Marienplatz S-Bahn station and take the S-1 train (the pastel blue line on the transit map) for the 25-minute ride to Aying. If the long trek to the station has parched your throat, you'll find that Marienplatz has several bars and package stores.

Cruising through the semi-industrial outskirts of Munich via commuter train will give you a startling reminder of the spread of globalization. Forget about McDonald's and MTV, Germany now has its own homegrown version of taggers. And their spray-painted graffiti is a dead ringer for the multi-hued, flamboyant graphic expressions of homeboys in South Central L.A. Most of it is even in English, of a sort. These reminders of urban social angst soon vanish though, as the city gives way to neat suburbs with orderly orange tile roofed homes situated on streets the width of American driveways.

Abruptly the suburbs end, replaced by fields of grain and increasingly dense patches of dark green forest. Promotional literature for the brewery describes the region as "...what Little Red Riding Hood must have been looking for when she went to visit her grandmother." In truth, portions of the forest are so lush as to bathe the train in pale green filtered light as it finally pulls up to the quaint, plaster and exposed-wooden-beam train station at Aying.

Actually, quaint is the operative word for pretty much everything in Aying. The village itself dates from approximately the 9th century, with some surviving buildings hailing from the 14th century. Many of the 1870s-era low-slung dark-wood buildings have a patina of bright green moss, and every other windowsill is obscured with blossom-choked flower boxes. The Bavarian predilection for kitsch is made manifest in the numerous lawn gnomes who peer out from under carefully tended box alders, which mark the residential property lines.

At the north end of town is the town square, with a 30-foot maypole in the center, the Baroque onion-domed St. Andreas Church, and a spike helmet-topped memorial to the village's war dead tucked off to the side. Radiating out from the square are different parts of the original brewery complex. The brewery-owned Brauerei-Gasthof Aying, which looks like a19th century hotel and restaurant, but actually dates from the 1920s, is located across the street from the old brewhouse and malting facility. The brewery beer garden is a low-key modest affair, with picnic tables sheltered under old chestnut trees. The garden pavilion supplies visitors with steins of the 12 beers that Ayinger produces, along with a limited menu of Bavarian comfort food (hint: think pork).

A few words at this point on German beer garden cuisine. We are not talking lean cuisine, folks. Ham hocks are on most menus, for example. The mutant giant soft pretzels called bre'zen, which are easily a foot across, are what passes for bar munchies. Sausages of every size and shape abound, some grilled, some boiled. And then we get to the main courses. Schnitzel, in its various manifestations, is popular, as is pork shank served in a surprisingly (for German cuisine at least) spicy paprika sauce. My personal favorite though, is the spit-roasted herb chicken (Ayinger's is quite good), which, when it's done right, combines a crispy spiced skin with still-juicy meat. With this sort of food the liter steins of beer begin to make sense. Eating in a beer garden is thirsty work.

Back at the brewery, all of this Bavarian country quaintness is a bit deceptive. The ivy-covered cut stone brewhouse, with its broad windows that look out on to the square, stands quiet and unused. Since 1999 all brewing has been conducted at the new brewery, about a mile east of the town.

The new Ayinger brewery is a flashy Bavaria-meets-San Francisco Bay Area affair, with classic Bavarian-styled roofs and ten-foot family crests set above a floor-to-ceiling glass-walled brewhouse and lots of big stainless steel tanks and vessels. Brewery owner Franz Inselkammer is a noted progressive in a national industry that is notorious for being set in its ways. The brewery, which would not look out of place in Napa or Sonoma counties in California, reflects his forward-looking vision.

The brewery tour also has some California notes, including a 3-D film presentation and a multi-media show that dispenses appropriate aromas on cue. The very, very well-stocked gift shop confirms the old marketing adage that people will buy anything with a beer logo emblazoned on it. All in all, show biz, Bavarian style, but slickly made and quite well done for all of that.

And then there is the beer. The beers of Ayinger, which are lagered from six to 12 weeks, are seriously malty, and lend themselves to such descriptive adjectives as "rich," "filling," and "well-balanced." Americans first became generally aware of Ayinger in the early 1980s when the specialist beer importer Merchant du Vin began distributing Celebrator Doppelbock (called Fortunator in Germany) in the United States. This 98-point beer seduced a generation of beer geeks, and has served as the inspiration for many American craft brewery doppelbocks.

The hits have just kept coming ever since, with my personal favorite being the superb Ayinger Maibock (94 points), an immense burnished gold beer that is both perfectly balanced and (to quote our tasting notes) "dangerously drinkable."

Even the lighter-bodied Ayinger beers (a relative term to be sure) are substantial brews. The range of weizen beers, not all of which are exported to the United States, have the banana and clove notes that signify a true weizenbier in perfect proportion. The 91-point Ayinger Bräu-Weisse in particular is a benchmark for the style.

Good, beer, good food, good sleep, good grief! This old beer hall toast is also a pretty good summary of Ayinger and the various ways that it makes its customers happy. Good grief, indeed.