Our resident Bavarian with his first glass of the morning. Photo Nicolette Stewart.

Beer.  Pretzels.  Sausages dipped in sweet mustard and horseradish.  Sound like fun?  Probably.  Sound like breakfast?  Probably not.  But in Bavaria weissbier or weizenbier (both names for wheat beer), weisswurst (white sausages), and bretzeln (pretzels) are a long-standing brunch tradition.  And the name of the game is Frühschoppen.

Perhaps you remember the great cheap beer taste test of 2009.  Well it turns out one night, six people, and 15 of the cheapest beers that we could find wasn’t going far enough.  It was time to go advance to the next level in German beer connoisseur-ship and tackle wheat beer, with a side of sausage and pretzels.