The Hanseatic city offers a lot of homemade products from manufactories and traditional businesses. And often they have settled in special neighborhoods. A tour.
The maritime Gastromeile with its restaurants and bars is located in the heart of the city and directly on the Weser. Especially in summer, you should plan a leisurely stroll there - and stop in one of the beer gardens. Beer has long played an important role in Bremen. In addition to the famous Beck's also a plethora of craft beers from craft breweries, such as the revived Free Brewing Union Bremen or the Bremen Brewerywhose hops for Ale No. 2 were planted on the vegetable yard in the middle of Bremen. Also the Schüttinger pub breweryBremen's oldest brewery, has a particular specialty - a drinkable, bottom-fermented and naturally cloudy beer without preservatives or stabilizers. The brewery offers rustic food and conviviality at long wooden tables. By the way, the Schlachte is also home to the "Alexander von Humboldt", the ship from the beer commercials. The old barque was renovated and rebuilt, now has a restaurant on board and also accommodates overnight guests in 14 cabins.
Coffee is the second favorite drink of the Hanseatic city next to beer. And the people of Bremen have even invented their own term for "drinking coffee and eating cake" - Kaffeesieren. The home of the coffee trade is traditionally Bremen's Überseestadt. Here, for example, the factory of Kaffee HAG still stands, with its magnificent marble hall. In the meantime, this has become part of the Lloyd Coffee Ltd. and can be visited as part of a guided tour. You can experience traditional coffee roasting in the Roastery Munchausen or in the Johann Jacobs Coffee Academy the parent company of the world-famous Jacobs coffee. And also Cross Coffee roasts sustainably and transparently traded beans. You can find out why coffee packets have a small valve and other know-how about coffee at the factory sale on Saturday or directly here:
Bremen's town hall shines not only with its magnificent, world-famous facade. In the vaulted cellar of the UNESCO World Heritage Site is the Bremer Ratskeller restaurant, famous for its fine wines and the largest collection of German wines in the world. A particularly old one: the Rüdesheim cask wine from 1653. At a Council cellar visit you can take a look at the treasure chamber and the Rose and Apostle Cellars. Wines of more recent origin are served in the Bremer Ratskeller restaurant, accompanied by North German classics.
And Bremen has another culinary speciality: Since 1545, the so-called Schaffermahlzeit has been held annually in the upper hall of the town hall. Traditionally, this is a gathering of merchants and sailors to which one must somehow have earned admission. A six-course menu is served, and the dishes also follow tradition, one of them being the Bremen specialty Kale with spelt. When it gets colder outside, cabbage is served indoors. The people of Bremen work up an appetite for their sumptuous meals in the fresh air at so-called "cabbage parties. Cabbage Tours.
And here in the video you can learn how to prepare kale:
A bit crooked, a bit lopsided, decidedly colorful and, above all, very cozy: Bremen's oldest district, the Schnoor, has a particularly large number of small houses and stores. The buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries catapult visitors directly into another time and another world. Because the Schnoor is home to art, culture and culinary delights. Here you come to a virtual city tour through the Schnoor.
In Schnoor you will find a colorful mix of original stores, cafes, restaurants and manufactories - for example, for the typical Bremen sweets: Bremer Klaben (a stollen-like cake), Schnoorkuller (nut meringue balls filled with nougat and topped with chocolate and brittle), Kluten (mint fondant with chocolate), coffee bread (white bread sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon and butter and baked a second time) and, of course, candies. Especially colorful it goes in the Bremen candy manufactory in the craftsmen's courtyard on Böttcherstraße. Making candy is an almost forgotten craft that has only been revived in recent years. Through a large window overlooking the courtyard, you can watch the candy makers at work. The sweet creations are called "Schwarzer Roland," "Digge Mülch" or "Quarkbüdel," and owner Sabine Marquardt reveals here how they taste especially delicious:
What happens in the Market Hall Eight counts is simply genuine taste. The market hall is a covered food mile that invites you to feast on products from the region and a sustainable concept through the world cultures - by the way, very close to the city hall. Arabic, Turkish, Syrian, Mediterranean or Vietnamese: the market hall sends the palate around the globe. The focus is on fresh ingredients combined with local added value - in an authentic, transparent and trustworthy manner. Does that sound a bit cerebral? Maybe, but that can't matter to the palate. In addition to a variety of delicacies, Markthalle Acht also has a number of colorful stories to tell. Like that of an architect who became a pop (corn) star:
The aroma of exotic spices is almost as much a part of big ports as the scent of the wide world. After all, without overseas trade, many of our delicacies would not even exist - gingerbread, for example. Consequently, the Gingerbread factory Manke & Coldewey located in the Überseestadt. Here elises are baked from almonds, nuts, honey, oriental spices - completely without flour and without artificial additives. This makes the gingerbread especially juicy! The manufactory actually started out as an ice cream manufacturer - but since the winters were always so dark and boring, the family rethought and brought the gingerbread to the north. In the glass manufactory you can sniff the spice scent and watch the production. Or you can have a look here:
How to get to Bremen by train: Plan arrival.
Cover photo: Yes, they are made in Bremen: Dark North Sea Elise from the Manke & Coldewey manufactory © Stefanie Bomhoff / druckarte
