FOREWARD
In the summer of 2003, my bicycle accompanied me to Germany, and we “beercycled” from Frankfurt to Vienna via several cycling routes, most prominently the famous Danube Cycle Path.
This beercycling journey is an undisputed highlight of my life as a card-carrying Europhile. The overview and commentary can be found here: 40 Years in Beer, which includes details about four vignettes I previously deployed as standalone blog essays.
- Schneider brewery tour (Kelheim)
- Schlenkerla brewery tours (Bamberg)
- Augustiner Bräustübel beer garden (Salzburg)
- Meaning of “Radler Tankstelle” (Bavaria)
In August of 2026, I collected the trove of 2003 receipts, maps and mementos from the banker’s box in the basement. The photos had been digitized during the pandemic. From these, the beercycling record could be pieced back together.
However, I had completely forgotten about the journal, a daily record of the sort I’d dabbled with during previous trips, though seldom as detailed as this one: an exhaustive daily summary of the 2003 trip, with a mileage chart (scroll down to the end), lodging expenditures, random bright ideas for improving the Public House, and of course, a list of 118 different beers consumed, not counting multiple quaffs (also posted at the end of this post).
Rarely before, and never since, have I expended as much effort to keep track of what happened, as written by hand in a compact spiral notebook, as though I could foresee a future juncture when posterity would tap me on the shoulder and say just one word: “Now.”
I logged into Otter and started recording the daily journal’s pages, stitching together the transcripts, correcting them, and lightly editing the finished account, which follows. It includes photos and sloppy maps, as well as the mileage table/itinerary and beer list.
Italics in red are interpretive notes from 2026; I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum. A surprising number of the businesses mentioned herein are still operational, but I did not try to compile formal statistics, so have fun Googling!
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The Complete 35 Days of Beercycling 2003 Journal (Germany, Austria) with photos
26 June 2003 Thursday, Outbound
At the airport weighing in, it was announced that my bike case hit 73 pounds, three pounds over the...Read more
