“Weisse Taube” – A new beer for Bamberg

Christian Klemenz (left) and Georg Rittmayer at the site of the resistance monument in Bamberg's Harmoniegarten.

A master brewer from Hallerndorf and the founder of the Bamberger Bierothek are helping an old beer brand regain its former glory. The wheat beer “Weisse Taube” is back on the market after many decades. The first tapping took place on November 25th in Bamberg.

Around 1818, the “Zur weisse Taube” brewery was the largest brewery in the cathedral city. With 1,379 buckets of full beer and 689 buckets of secondary beer (which together corresponds to almost 1,400 hectoliters of annual production), Georg Rittmayer was at the top of the Bamberg brewers, followed by the breweries “Zum Mondschein”, “Zum Storchenpeter” and “Zum Specht”. What all four companies have in common is that they no longer exist today. But when Georg Rittmayer from Hallerndorf recently learned that his namesake was the market leader in the cathedral city 200 years ago, the master brewer researched his ancestral gallery. It turned out that the Bamberg brewer at the time originally came from the Forchheim area and that there were probably common roots many centuries ago for the historic Rittmayer brewery in the world heritage city and Rittmayer's current brewery in Hallerndorf. In his attic he even found a mug from the old Bamberg brewery with the name “Georg Rittmayer” inscribed on it. Reason enough for him to revive the historic wheat beer from the “Zur Weißen Taube” brewery. In Christian Klemenz from the Bierothek, Rittmayer found a partner in the cathedral city and so together they created the new old wheat beer “Weisse Taube”, which is now available again in Bamberg.

The new old wheat beer “Weisse Taube” is brewed according to the historical recipe and old production methods.

Closely linked to the history of the “Zur Weissen Taube” brewery, which had to close its doors in 1917, is the fate of Bamberg’s Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime. The old brewery with its huge beer garden, where the Bamberg Theatergassen now stands, served the Jewish community as a meeting place and municipal administration. Even the Jewish elementary school was housed in the premises. After 1933 and especially the Kristallnacht, in which the Bamberg synagogue burned, the Jewish families were forcibly quartered in the former inn. It functioned as the last “Jewish house” in Bamberg before all of its Jewish citizens were deported to the extermination camps. Georg Rittmayer and Christian Klemenz are aware of the historical responsibility associated with the name of their reanimated beer. That's why they will donate part of the sales proceeds to, on the one hand, support projects of the Bamberg Jewish community and, on the other hand, to support the laying of further stumbling blocks in Bamberg and Hallerndorf by the Willy Aron Society.

Klemenz and Rittmayer presented their wheat beer “Weisse Taube” on Saturday, November 25th, in the Bamberg beer shop. Around 30 spontaneous and invited guests were the first to taste the new wheat and were thrilled. Because it follows the historical description exactly: mild, soft, round and particularly digestible thanks to the rich carbon dioxide. According to Rittmayer, the secret behind the recipe is the special malt mixture together with the unique fermentation method, which is based on the historical production method. The “Weisse Taube” is now available in the Bamberg beer shop and at the Rittmayer brewery in Hallerndorf.

Beer sommelier Markus Raupach (far right) was also invited to the tap and was happy about another Bamberg beer.

Text and images: Markus Raupach