During our European trip in the summer of 2008 we spent a lot of time in the southeastern Austrian state of Styria. Most of our time was spent in the rural area around Stainz which is a town south of the city of Graz and surrounded by a scenic, hilly countryside.
While staying with our friends in Stainz we were introduced to several good beers; unfortunately I don't remember them all. The ones I do remember were a Marzen from Gosser which was an OK lager beer, and a zwickle also from Gosser which was quite enjoyable with its unfiltered, hazy goodness. The other beer I encountered was Puntigamer which was the local blue-color light lager beer, and was pretty unremarkable other than being popular.
After our stay in and around Stainz we moved and hour north to stay with our friend Nicholas in Austria's second largest city of Graz. In Graz we were introduced to another local beer called Murauer which is named after the Mur river which flows through Graz. Murauer was a very drinkable beer that the locals took pride in making it even more enjoyable to drink with them.
After Graz we spent some time in Vienna. Our time there was limited and dominated by a very busy sight seeing schedule, so we didn't get to sample any beers that I can recall. However, we did get a photo of a Budweiser Budvar sign over the entrance of a Weiner bar (somewhat obscured by the building's shadow). Note, the complete lack of the color red!
All told our encouters with the locally popular beers of Styria were pleasant. None of these beers blew my mind, but several of them- the Zwickl and the Murauer- were quite enjoyable especially given good company and good times!
This blog is about beer but its definitely worth mentioning that Styria produces some very quility wine- mostly whites, but some good reds too. The wine is largely produced in the Styrian areas south near the Slovenian border. There are a number of family-run wineries that serve up the local vintage along with deliciously simple, cold, finger foods in a relaxed setting known as a "buschenschanks". Here's some food and wine at a buschenschank:
The fellow we were staying with referred to the southern Styrian wine area as the "Austrain Tuscany". Having never been to Tuscany I'll have to take his word on it, but the place was pretty picturesque... so here's a picture of a rainbow over the Styrian wine country:
