On the beautiful blue danube
Jeff Evans visits the Weltenburger brewery in Germany; the oldest Abbey brewery in the world (without the monks).
The Danube is a wide and lazy river. As the pleasure boat chugs calmly upstream it sends a light, rippling wash over stony little beaches on either side. Apart from the splashing of the occasional canoeist, there’s nothing else to disturb the languid, olive-green water as it meanders its way through Bavaria on the hottest day of the German summer.
There is to be only one stop as we pull away from the baking riverbank at Kelheim, 50 miles north of Munich, and, after 40 minutes in the quiet shadow of craggy green and grey cliffs, passing herons as still as garden ornaments, the boat eases its way through the trickiest part of its journey, negotiating a narrow gorge where the current races strongest. As it emerges from the torrent and rounds the final bend, there, like a confection in marzipan, looms our pastelshaded destination.
Most of the tourists who wander ashore at Weltenburg Abbey probably have spiritual reasons for making the pilgrimage, but I have a feeling that there are plenty who have at least some interest in what draws me up river. And when I see them gleefully raising foaming glasses of refreshing dark lager in the abbey’s leafy beer garden, my suspicions are confirmed.
The abbey was founded by the Irish and Scottish followers of St Columbanus in the seventh century, and then taken over by Benedictine monks around the year 750. It sits in a precarious position. Lines and dates inked onto the walls bear witness to the power of the river when in full flood. Time .....
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By Jeff Evans
Section : International Brewery
Page number : 46
