If you remember our Hopfenland trip last year, you'll recall our visit to the Kuchlbauer Brewery...home of the Abensberg Weissbier Dwarves.
After our tour of the brewery, our viewing of the owner's interpretation of The Last Supper, an intro into Hundertwasser's architecture, and the singing dwarves (check out the video in the previous post, if you haven't), we next went on to climb up the Bierkunstturm (Beer-Art Tower) which is the centerpiece of the brewery.
In fact, the initial plans had the tower at twice the height it stands today. The city of Abensburg wouldn't permit it, and Kuchlbauer is today rather relieved, as the original tower plans likely would have bankrupted the brewery.
For the history of the tower, please see our previous post. This one shows you the walk up the tower.
We start form the lower level, where our tour ended, and ascend the stairs to the top. The stairs wind in and out of the tower, and each level has a theme, mostly featuring the ingredients to beer. But before we start up the tower....more weissbier dwarves!
So we started our trek up the beer-art tower.
And quickly begin to reach alcoves in each landing dedicated to key weissbier brewing ingredients. First up, Hopfen (hops):
Next we have weizen (wheat):
At certain parts, the stairs wind around the outside of the tower.
We have no idea what Hefe-Zolgl actually means...Zolgl doens't appear to be a real German word. But it relates to the yeast (hefe). Perhaps it's the yeast bubbles or something like that?
And of course the ever critical Brauwasser (brewing water):
And Gerste (barley):
After the landings with the brewing ingredients, there were several other decorated alcoves. There wasn't a plaque explaining this one, but the round base says something about the brewer.
This one had a stained glass window that seemed straight out of Dr. Seuss, and a statue of a white dwarf on a barrel in a round alcove. In here, the plaque says that, the smallest little house belonging to the "white" dwarfs of Abensberg has three windows of light. The openings of light stand for modesty, tolerance, and independence. You should stand in the light to remember these values, and to be helped to live by them. Additionally, one of the windows looks directly onto the final resting place of Leonhard Salleck, one of the brewery's ancestors.
This was a lovely room that basically was a giant kalleidoscope - a great idea with all of the colors and textures on the walls!
Here we could look down into one of the alcoves below:
Finally, we reached the top. The dome is supposed to represent Paradise (but without the dwarves!). As explained earlier in the tour, they chose the flattene ball shape to to embody the earth "which we should not destroy, since our lives would also be destroyed." Therfore, it's the symbol for our "paradise," the Earth.
In addition to the crazy mirror mosaic tree, it continually has classical music playing (Beethoven, if I remember correctly).
After paradise the final stop on the tour is in the beergarten, where your ticket stub entitles you to a pretzel and a Kuchlbauer beer of your choice.
What is there left to say? This was one of the most, um, unique tours Herr J and I have experienced.
Of course, our final activity was heading to the gift shop and getting a six-pack (one of each kind)!
For a million+1 reasons, this is a great destination on any trip to non-Munich, non-Alpine Bavaria.