My wife and I are hoping to be in Switzerland soon, if the people who issue Schengen visas can, for once, be persuaded she will not overstay her visa and become a major crime figure. Of course, I am interested in the beer.
Sadly, my real beginning as a beer drinker occurred in Switzerland when I was 16, I was on a very loosely-chaperoned trip. I spent several weeks in Lucerne with weekend trips to other countries, and for reasons that have never been explained to me, Europeans were more than happy to sell alcohol to kids. A couple of girls I drank with were 14.
The bar we like served draught Guinness and draft Eichhof, a Swiss lager. I thought Eichhof was pretty bad, so I stuck to Guinness.
I have looked around on the web, and I have seen people saying uncomplimentary things about Swiss beer. Is it true that Swiss beer is generally bad? If so, brewing must be the only thing the Swiss don’t do better than everyone else.
I don’t really trust the taste of my 16-year-old self.
When I go to Europe, I always check Ron Pattinson’s European Beer Guide. Looks like Switzerland was once a beer wasteland, but craft beer started up in the 1990s.
When I was in Lucerne about 5 years ago I had a few beers with meals and just standing across from the hotel at a corner bar. Nothing about them stands out as amazing or as bad. I don’t recall any of the names of the beers.
I can only say, it isn’t a wasteland but don’t I have any “OMG - they where SOOOO GOOD” memories either.
We did drink the little bar out of 3 different beers though so that might have something to do with my recollection too. :
Thinking about it a bit more, I do remember drinking one beer in Switzerland. I went to a small town in the country near Basel, where some distant relatives had a family restaurant. When they found out that I brewed beer they offered me their “kitchen beer”. They brewed this themselves, but it was not on the menu. It was amber, quite clear, surprisingly hoppy and very tasty.
The only Swiss brewery I’m familiar with is Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes which makes great but niche beers. Some of their beers make their way to the US.
Outer Range here in Colorado recently opened a second location in the Swiss Alps. Their beers are excellent but you might not want to travel around the world to drink beers from the US.
There are probably some threads on beer advocate recommending places in their travel sub if you haven’t already checked those out.
The trip is behind me, and I was not thrilled with Swiss beer.
When I stayed in Lucerne as a kid, I disliked the local beer, Eichhof. When I returned this year, I wondered if 1) it was actually bad or 2) the judgment of a 16-year-old was not sound. Turns out my young self was right to stick with Guinness.
I had an Ittinger amber beer at the train station in Brig. Hoppy and a little caramel. It was not bad. Pretty sure it’s Swiss, although I was nearly at the border.
There was at least one local beer that way okay. Rigi Gold lager. My impression is that the Swiss are fine with letting the Germans make the beer.
Italian beer was uniformly gross, but I expected that.
