Beer in the Germany's Wine country?

Munich and Bavaria would be my first stop in Germany, if it was my first time in the country. It's a hub for great day trips in all directions--Salzburg and Hallstadt to the east, Innsbruck and the Austrian Alps to the south, Fuessen to the southwest and Rothenburg to the northeast. The city also has great palaces, Hapsburg museums, the Deutsch Museum, BMW Experience and Dachau (must see).

If you don't make it to Bavaria, there is one really fine brewery beside the Rhine River just south of Koblenz. It's Konisbacher. They have a restaurant/beer hall inside the brewery and a beer garden outside overlooking the Rhine River when the weather's good. It's one of my favorite beers.

Cologne is perhaps an understated city to have a really good time in. We've stopped there a couple of times on the way to Bacharach for the night. Bacharach is a rather quiet little town alongside the river, but a good place to spend the night.

Have a great time.

There is great beer all over Germany, and there are beer gardens or wine gardens all over the country. Festivals and garden cafes will always have beer.

The scenery and landscapes can be stunning in other places in Germany. Have a look at the Rhine, the Taunus mountains, the Odenwald, the Harz mountain areas. Cologne and Dusseldorf are famous for their beers. Even Frankfurt has some small breweries that make a great beer.

http://www.uncommon-travel-germany.com/harz.html
http://www.erzgebirge-tourismus.de/en/
http://www.mygermancity.com/taunus

Here is a list of all the breweries in Germany
http://www.german-breweries.com/all_breweries.htm

How wonderful! Thank you both so much! We've got hotels and flights already, so I was hoping we wouldn't have to completely reschedule. We are so excited to try out your suggestions!!

The rule of thumb with beer gardens is that they open whenever the weather is pleasent. You see them everywhere. However, what you don't find nearly as often outside of Bavaria are the very large gardens with live music and cafeteria-style food service. What you might see in the Rhineland is more along the lines of an outdoor annex of a restaurant. And wine is just as likely to be served as beer.

I'm not sure if their distribution network goes as far north as the Mittelrhein (apart from a handful of companies with national coverage, most German breweries don't ship their wares very far from their origin), but if you see it, try some of the beers from Schmucker. Look for the label with the old gentleman wearing a tricorn hat, it's unmistakeable. Although I've rarely tried a bad German beer, the conservatism of the beer market means that most of the breweries produce pretty interchangeable wares. Schmucker is one of the exceptions among regional breweries. Their product line that goes well beyond the usual Pils and Hefeweissen.

Yes, Munich does have some great Beer Gardens and Beer Halls featuring liters of great beer, but you should be able to find great beer anywhere.

If you make it to Cologne, then a number of beer restaurants/halls feature Kolsch, the town beer style, best as a summer beer, served in small flutes, best ordered in multiples, you really will not find the same beer anywhere else.

Many of the towns along the Mosel, and some on the Rhine had similar gardens, mainly for wine, but serving good beer and other drinks.

In Berlin, you should find a good array of beers from across Germany, plus they do have some Beer Halls and Gardens, and their own beer style, Berliner weisse, a lighter beer with a tang.

I don't know what "hardened professional" has to do with it.

In Denver, Weißbier (wheat beer) sells for more than regular beer, but in Germany it is usually the least expensive beer on the menu. When I'm in Germany, I enjoy a lot of Weißbier, but somehow it doesn't travel well. By the time it gets here, it somehow tastes different, not as good. Here I prefer a Munich lager.

Although I enjoy the local biers in Germany, when I was on the Rhein and Mosel, I drank and enjoyed mostly wine. The Mosel around Bernkastel is ground zero for Riesling wine, and all the Rieslings I had in Germany were superb.

I am totally flummoxed by that statement from Phil. Curious as to what this is based on.

The alcohol content in the wheat beers or Weissen Beers isn't any higher than in a Pils or Export. They taste better too, smoother and not as bitter as a Pils. There are 3 kinds, Kristall which is clear, Hefe Weissen which is a bit cloudy, and Dunkel which is dark.

If you are "taking a train down to Lake Constance for one full day and two half days to see Meersburg and Lindau before flying up to Berlin", then you will probably have the late afternoon and evening on Day 1 on Lake Constance - the train trip from Koblenz to Lindau takes 5.5 hours or so. And it sounds like Day 2 will be on Lake Constance as well - both towns are right on the lake.

"As of now, we hadn't planned on going into Bavaria..."
Lindau is in Bavaria, actually.

"Are there beer gardens along our current route..."
You could stop over somewhere, drop bags in a locker, and find a place. Ulm is a nice city where you must change trains anyway on the way to Lindau, if coming from the Rhine. I haven't been to the Schlössle brewery-restaurant in Neu-Ulm myself - but it looks pretty fine and gets good marks on Tripadvisor. Its Biergarten has been voted the area favorite.
Schlössle 1
Schlössle 2
Schlössle Biergarten

The Barfüsser in Ulm is closer Ulm's main station and also gets good marks. Photos:
Barfüsser

No one should stay away from the Weizenbier. And Lee is right - it doesn't travel well, so do NOT miss out on the fresh stuff in Germany. There's nothing better.

If you do decide to take some Weissen Beer home, watch a bartender here in Germany to learn how to pour it. It isn't like other beer and needs to be poured correctly. Maybe this is why it hasn't tasted the same when you brought it home?

The film is pretty good, but I would leave a bit than a fingers width of beer in the bottle to swirl around. Some bartenders will simply lay the bottle down and roll it before pouring the rest of it into the glass. What ever works the best for you, but important is swirling that yeast around in the bottle because otherwise it is left on the bottom of the bottle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcsJ82ksgOE

Count me among those who is baffled over the Weizenbier comment. The only justification might be that while I've never had a bad Pils in Germany, I have encountered some nasty Hefeweizen. But this is rare.

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to call out JG on the "beer is better in Bavaria" comment. Beer in Germany, apart from a few regional specialties (Bamberger Rauchbier, Berliner Weisse, etc), is fairly consistent across the country. You have some of regional breweries here and there that rise above the crowd, but a standard Pils from a typical Bavarian brewery doesn't usually taste that much different from one made in Nordrhein-Westfalen or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, for example. There's a lot more available in the Rhineland than just Bitburger.

Add me to the list of perplexed folks! I love Hefewiezen's and Dunkel's. Mayhaps he will return & 'splain.

Sorry, I don't care what an English-language beer aggregator says. They'll rate mostly the unrepresentative sample that's available in the US, and the few nationally available brands they may encounter on ocassional trips to Germany. I'll go on what I've encountered in my own experience throughout the country over the past few years, buying from supermarkets and restaurants from both the German macros and small regional brewers. I repeat, the majority of the hundreds of breweries throughout the country are largely comparable, there's little regional difference besides a few of the styles I mentioned.

Bavarian breweries get first dibs while the rest of the states fight for what's leftover. Umm.... no. It's sold on the open market, and if you can read German, you can follow the commodities price fluctuations in the business section of the larger German newspapers. If it were true that Bavarian breweries had first dibs on the hops, then any brewery not privy to such insider deals would have an easy day in court. Germany has some VERY robust anti-trust laws.