Beer hunting in Lüneburg

As my friend Paul recently reminded me via his blog, the North German mediaeval Hanseatic town of Lüneburg – where I used to live – remains a popular tourist destination for cruise passengers, coach parties and more. I’m a bit too late to help Paul, but if you’re visiting in the near future and are interested in beer, here’s a few ideas of places to look. 

There’s only two commercial breweries in town these days, both brewpubs. Brauhaus Nolte is quite a way out from the centre, so it’s unlikely a casual visitor will make it there – although if you do, it’s very much a local pub, with a traditional menu (think schnitzels, etc) and usually one light (Helles) and one dark (Dunkel) beer, plus maybe a seasonal special. This range is typical for a German brewpub. 

The bar at Mälzer

Much easier to find is the Mälzer Brauhaus, as it’s just a few metres off Am Sande, the big town square that’s actually a long rectangle. It’s spacious and rustic, with wooden beams everywhere and the brewkit taking pride of place. There’s even a small bar you can sit at if you want, though because the tapster is usually busy filling orders for the waiters, service will be faster if you take a table like everyone else!

As usual, two regulars plus maybe a third seasonal, though the tweak here is that the second regular also changes – a Marzen from October, and a Weizen from April. The first is a Pilsner, of course. It’s not cheap – well, we are in tourist-town here – but it’s a nice place to sit and eat, or just drink, there’s even free WiFi now. Beware though that, like a lot of German places, they don’t take Visa or MC, only cash or a German bank card. 

The 1902 brewhouse

Once upon a time there were more than 80 breweries in Lüneburg, and a few doors up from Mälzer is the only surviving one, now the town’s Brewery Museum. Before it was bought and eventually closed by Holsten, it was the Lüneburger Kronenbrauerei, or Crown Brewery. You can still find very drinkable Lüneburger Pils and Kronen Dunkel at the Krone Bier & Event-haus next door, but they come from Holsten in Hamburg now. 

It’s several years since I visited the museum, but the brewhouse (which dates from 1902) was a very interesting image of early 1900s and inter-war German brewing. It looks like it’s a lot more accessible now too, having been connected to the adjacent Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum* – when I visited, it was pre-booked groups only, and the guide had to open it up specially with a large key… Well worth a look if you have time. 

A five-minute walk from here will bring you to the Altstadt – the old town. Here you can stroll along Ob. & u. Ohlingerstraße (Upper and Lower Ohlinger Street) for the lovely old buildings, but from the beer perspective what I recommend is Anno 1900. It's nominally a traditional German restaurant – their motto is “eat like in your grandmother’s time”, and yes they mean the mythic past, not your actual grandmother’s time which whether British or German probably involved post-war rationing. The downstairs though is a nice pub full of wood, ‘found items’ and memorabilia, and complete with a Stammtisch – a table set aside only for locals. 

Anno 1900

The food was good the last time I was there, and so was the beer – which for a change involves darker beers as well as Pils. Aktien Landbier Fränkisch Dunkel is a regular on tap, and so are (or were) Aktien Zwick'l Kellerbier, Grevensteiner Original and Barre Alt. 

None of which are local, of course, and you’ll have a hard time finding much that is – unless you count maybe Ratsherrn and the various Holsten/Carlsberg brands, which are from Hamburg. There are a few more brewpubs and nanobreweries in outlying villages, but with only limited distribution. 

And while most larger supermarkets keep a range of national brands plus some Bavarians, sadly the pandemic and other factors have hammered the availability of modern German microbrewed beer. The town’s only specialist beer shop closed a few years back, and others have drastically cut back. For instance, I used to recommend Avenir café-deli for speciality brews, but now it has little beyond a few bottles from Kehrwieder Kreativbrauerei – although that said, these are well worth trying, and the coffee is still good! (They sometimes have Wildwuchs beers too, but in my experience these vary a lot in quality, as do those of local brand LüneBräu which you might find in other shops.)

Franconia in Sand Passage

Easier to find, and worth a visit despite also having cut back is Sand Passage, ake Edeka Tschorn, back on Am Sande. Sadly most of the smaller brewery stuff has gone but there’s still a few (eg. Wendlandbräu is based in a nearby village and is pretty reliable), plus a selection of Franconian and Bavarian bottles, some of which can be hard to find up north. Most of these aren't on the main beer aisle though – head towards the deli counter where there’s an extra rack (see photo). 

Well, that’s about it. To be honest, if you have time and transport then the beer range is far better in Hamburg, which has several specialist shops. But you can still find something good to drink in Lüneburg, even if it’s not brewed especially locally. 

*East Prussia went to Poland after WW2, with its German population mostly exiled, which is why you'll find this museum of East Prussian and Baltic German history here in Lower Saxony instead.