The claim
Wedged into a narrow lane beneath Bamberg's cathedral hill, Schlenkerla is the city's most famous brewery tavern and the standard-bearer for Rauchbier, the smoky lager poured straight from wooden casks. Dark panelled rooms, a Gothic vaulted parlour and a courtyard garden fill daily with locals and beer pilgrims drawn to a family business now in its sixth generation.
What the records show
The 1405 record is a property matter: the house Zum Blauen Löwen was finally separated from Unter den Störchen and Fritz Vernbach appears as its owner. The brewery's own chronicle places the first documentary mention of the brewhouse as a business in its own right, with its own brewing and serving rights, in 1677/78, and admits the first landlord is disputed — the cupbearer Martin Bachalt or Jakob Schneider; by 1685 the cooper Pankraz Kratzer holds the tavern and brewhouse. The 1410 item often quoted is the coopers' guild oath book, a rule binding the whole trade about hanging out sign boards, not a record of this house. German Wikipedia's 1538 date is the year the cooper Asmus Schneider bought the neighbouring property.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1405 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| 1678 | First record of a drinking house here | Bayerische Denkmalliste |
What to look for inside
- Home of Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, served from wooden casks
- Name comes from 19th-century brewer Andreas Graser's swinging gait
- The monument list dates the half-timbered front to the mid-17th century
- A chapel of about 1400 in the Haus unter den Störchen next door
- Inside Bamberg's UNESCO World Heritage old town
Visiting
Schlenkerla is in Bamberg, Germany, at Dominikanerstraße 6, 96049 Bamberg. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlenkerla
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlenkerla
- www.schlenkerla.de/
- www.schlenkerla.de/schlenkerla/chronik/chronik.html
- www.geodaten.bayern.de/denkmal_static_data/externe_denkmalliste/pdf/denkmalliste_merge_461000.pdf
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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