Beautiful, cultured, sophisticated Lubeck. Home to one of the best run of basic pubs since the Offerton crawl last year left Mrs RM in a state of shock.
After four nights in a Danish Youth Hostel, my good lady went upmarket with this booking as prices dropped sharply in Germany. Even so, the Phoenix Hotel looked a bit more expensive than my usual Travelodge, with chocolates on the pillow, working Wi-Fi and bits of ancient Greece in the spa bath.
Promising the boys some authentic German cuisine later, we popped out to explore the UNESCO World Heritage site. The astonishing thing is that this is the city whose targeted bombing by the RAF in 1942 led to the retaliatory Baedeker raids. You’d never know.
Beautiful or not, Mrs RM and her foot weren’t too happy about the narrow cobbled streets I’m always keen to explore, so it was a case of “closest pub now !”.
As always, the European Beer Guide is our starting point, even if it is a bit old now. Closest, and therefore first up, is the traditional one, Brauberger. An authentic non-authentic brew gastropub if ever I saw one.
You know it’s traditional, as when you stand at the bar you get fairly sharply told to sit down and wait for the waiter. It’s no wonder Germans get confused over here;
How do you know what to do ? Sometimes in Germany I’ve just sat at the bar and ordered a beer and paid for it.
The Zwickelbier (from a Hobson’s choice) is fine, served from the barrel. And we get to sit at a barrel while Mrs RM passes comment, BRAPA-like, at a stream of elderly frau coming and going.
“They’ve just had their hair done”
“Look at those matching beige cardigans”
Good observations, though sadly no translation of banter from Mrs RM. My own observation was that this was a place that older women were coming to on their own, putting it firmly into the Wetherspoons category.
We felt very young, and Mrs RM’s foot felt better, so we pressed on towards something better, and headed towards Tibia Tick, perhaps the pub name of the year.
Halfway down Doktor Julius Leber Straße it becomes apparent we’re in a special place just by looking at the stickers on lamp posts.
Lemmy’s Pub isn’t in The Guide, but you’re not going to walk past it, are you ?
It’s a German parlour pub, of sorts. To the left, a few locals are watching a German quiz show where idiots get to lose vast sums of euros they thought they’d won.
At a small bar full of tat, a long communal seat tight to the wall (below) just invites you to sit and talk Brexit (not really) to the very lovely landlady.
It is wonderful, despite our English attempt to converse in German about the Berlin Wall and just how dull Cambridge really is.
We give up and watch a German idiot being consoled by a German Chris Tarrant. No doubt one of you can identify the show from the blurred image.
Here, we ran a tab, marked on a tiny scrap of paper in pencil, rather than the beer mats our host couldn’t have reached.
Two tiny Kolsch for me, a large Furstenberg for the lady. Mrs RM is really getting into this #BeerForHer thing.
“Would you like some parika crisps ?”
Would Mrs RM like crisps. Even in a blue bowl, yes she would.
We never did find out the Lemmy connection; perhaps our landlady plays bass in a local Motorhead cover band. Nothing seems impossible in Lubeck.
Before we left her to her furious glass cleaning, she offered us some fluorescent sweets to take back to the boys. They might conceivably constitute dinner.
We paid the bill. Five euros and ten cents.
An absolute gem, with even better to come.
retiredmartin 
One thing we noticed in Germany is the number of older women in pubs. Very common it seemed to us. Almost always drinking a beer. Quite different than anywhere else we have visited.
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I agree Dave, there’s definitely something about older women in German pubs. On my first visit to Bamberg, as part of a whistle-stop coach tour, I called in at the famous Schlenkerla Tavern, in the heart of the town.
I was enjoying a few glasses of the equally famous Rauchbier, whilst chatting to a visitor from Coburg about the links between our respective Royal Families, when the peace was shattered by a group four or five, quite respectable-looking elderly ladies, who burst in and took over the area next to where we were sitting. Although they all ordered beer, they produced from their bags a selection of filled rolls, which they had obviously purchased elsewhere in the town. There was quite a bit of good-hearted banter between them and the (male) waiter, and also with my new-found friend from Coburg.
I’m aware that many German beer gardens allow customers to bring their own food along, as long as they purchase beer, but I was surprised to see this practice being allowed in a pub. (Perhaps it wasn’t, and the waiter just turned a blind eye, to avoid getting into a ruck!)
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One of my locals, also mentioned on the European Beer Guide, is called Lemmy’s – perhaps an unexpected continental chain that only wants to sell JD and coke?
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Looks as though Lubeck has been restored rather better than Exeter 😉
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Indeed. Was Gloucester bombed much. I’m back there tonight and it always looks a shabby place, Cathedral apart.
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No, the Baedeker Raids covered Exeter, Bath, Norwich, Canterbury and York.
Like many British towns and cities, postwar planners did much more damage to Gloucester than the Luftwaffe 😦
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I suspected as much. County towns round here are generally disappointing aren’t they ?
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Getting a bit off-topic, but Taunton I found particularly disappointing – a very characterless place. I’ve never been to Bedford but I believe that is similar.
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It is. They do have decent parks, but few decent pubs.
If Hunts was still a county the county town would top those !
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I went to Gloucester once, visited the Cathedral (unexpectedly spectacular), the river and the ‘spoons. I genuinely thought that the rest of the town centre had been obliterated during the war.
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That’s exactly what I thought. Like Peterborough, the cathedral is underrated, but the rest of it is a shabby disgrace (report coming up). I think anyone with money must get the train to Cheltenham, though the renovated docks are OK.
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I remember visiting the Museum of Packaging – which is no longer there – in the restored warehouses in Gloucester docks.
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Sorry I missed that !
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Closed in 2005 and moved to That London – I visited in 1991. The National Waterways Museum is still there, and well worth a visit, although I think that’s had a bit of a chequered history. I’ve actually got Gloucester down on my list of places to stay for a few nights.
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Report coming up. There’s a lot of interest and good pubs around, of course (inc some Bass !)
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It has the New Inn, of course. Never even went to Gloucester on a train trip when I was at university in Birmingham, although I did experience the dubious delights of Northampton.
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Northampton centre a bit of a gem compared to Gloucester ! New Inn has suffered similar fate to Southwarks George.
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Whilst we’re on that subject, the post-war planners didn’t do a particularly good job on Canterbury either.
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Yes, I had thought of Canterbury too – there’s a large chunk of insensitive modern development inside the walls. Given its historic significance, Canterbury as a whole is a bit underwhelming compared with some of our other cathedral cities.
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Is it hard to tell bomb damage/planning apart.
The reconstruction of Nuremberg is extraordinary.
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“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction.” (Blaise Pascal)
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Looks like a nice place. Missing the pink highlighter photos, have you not got a map of Europe, or is that tempting providence? I would have had to play cards in Lemmy’s bar, if only to make a resounding refrain every time the Ace of Spades appeared!
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Yes, a missed photo opportunity there. Could be tempted to go back !
No printed pub guides to Europe I’m aware of (anyone ?), which is why the Good Beer Guide must remain the core CAMRA activity, as the venerable Colin Valentine implied only this week.
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Venerable??? PMSL. Not a term I would use, I still remember the various members of CAMRA’s NERDs dancing on tables in the Moorings in Aberdeen at the end of an obviously very long day of debating strategy…..
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Never met Colin but I’ll stick up for a bloke who sticks up for primacy of the GBG. Some real rants on Discourse this week (not yours).
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Colin’s OK, I’ve never understood how some of the CAMRA hierarchy can put up with giving up so much of their free time for years on end.
I assume the only point in Discourse is to be a Devil’s Advocate.
Just realised you found Sion Kolsch, way outside where I would expect to find it.
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Quite an odd range of beers in Lubeck, not that I pay much attention. Jever was nicest.
Colin puts up with some rubbish.
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I went to Bedford and liked it so much i went again and also did all pubs in nearby Kempton.
I have took the wife to Cambridge twice on pub crawls and been there two other times on pub crawls,a really nice city in our opinion.
Me and the wife went to Gloucester on a pub crawl and really liked it,we had to go in Doctor Fosters in the docks area and did a few Arkells tied houses there which was a massive bonus.
I did a pub crawl round Taunton on a day pub crawl and thought it was a nice place.
Done Canterbury twice and think it is a really nice place.
I finally got round to doing Northampton last year and liked it there,i would go there again for another pub crawl.
I love English market towns and always enjoy doing pub crawls round them,either on my own of with the wife.
As the saying goes “the grass is’nt always greener on the other side”
We love the country we live in and do not see any need to go abroad again.
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The only place in England you’ve ever told me to avoid is Stapleford, Alan (oh, and Derby). 😉
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Not saying these are bad places, just that they’ve suffered from insensitive post-war redevelopment.
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In the latest Derby drinker,they have yet again claimed to be the best drinking city in Britain and go onto say if not the world,another load of total bollocks from a city that has a massive chip on its shoulders.
If you want to see some really shitty pubs apart from the Noahs Ark,
Do a small pub crawl from Scums bus station you will see the Castle & Falcon first,then the White Horse,next to that is the Noahs Ark from there walk round the corner and do the City Arms,you would see more life in those four pubs than you ever would in any Spoons.
Regarding my home town of Stapleford,
I have took my wife round pubs in Salford and on the notorious Ordsall estate,we were even asked to wait outside a pub on the Ordsall estate while some poor soul inside got his head kicked in inside the pub.
I took my wife into Larrys in Stapleford a new pub where i know quite a few regulars,once inside she said never again,so a local pub that my wife dislikes with a passion.
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This really makes me look forward even more to our visit of Lübeck. Luckily I have less than a week left to wait. The town really looks lovely on your photos. 🙂
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We visited Lemmys several years ago, a group of slightly smelly locals had been playing doms all afternoon by the look ofit. One guy was meandering toward the loos with a full glass & fell sideways using his head to break his fall on the bench seat, there was no spillage though with the beer held aloft. We’re playing at Larrys in Stabbo on Saturday.
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Ha ! Sounds like Lemmy’s. I’m not sure people in England believe there are pubs like this in smart cities in Germany.
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