It would actually have been the classic: Niedertraubling, a village in the Upper Palatinate, 700 inhabitants, church, volunteer fire brigade, rifle club – and no more inn. But then something unusual happened there: a tavern opened, and a brand new one at that.
Niedertraubling is a church village that belongs to the municipality of Obertraubling. All around are fields. There’s a seed breeder, horticultural businesses, the auto wrench club. A small cemetery with old tombstones on which the professions of the deceased are still engraved: master baker, master butcher, innkeeper. But there is no longer a baker here and you have to get in the car for every gram of cold cuts.
In the economy, the “Old Castle” you can walk again for a few weeks. “It’s a blessing that this inn was built,” says Rudolf Graß, Mayor of Obertraubling. He has known the old “Altes Schloss” since his youth. “We had parties in the hall upstairs, while the village saints played cards downstairs. That was something special.”
For three years they had to do without parties and cartels, without regulars’ tables and community meetings. “The bock beer tapping was the last thing that took place in the old inn,” recalls Martin Sperger, head of the Kneitinger brewery in Regensburg, which owns the “Old Castle”. The host family stopped, that was in October 2018, they couldn’t find any more staff. A new concession from the district office would also have been needed, a lot would have had to be done: on fire protection, on the building fabric, on the spatial division. A renovation would have cost huge sums of money. The house was not listed as a monument.
Martin Sperger is the head of the Kneitinger brewery: “We are always asked to save inns.”
(Photo: Deniz Aykanat)
So they locked up first, and that’s when the rumor spread, says Sperger: “The village inn is going away!” In the village there was concern that the dying of the inn had now reached them. “There were a few Gscheidhaferl on the way,” Graß remembers. Kneitinger just wanted to sell the land and pocket the money. The brewery and inns belong to a foundation. The goal is to keep them alive. Kneitinger donates everything that goes beyond that to a children’s home and a retirement home in Regensburg. “Every half for a good cause” is written on the beer felts.
Kneitinger has gradually renovated and opened inns over the past few years. In addition to the main house on Regensburg’s Arnulfsplatz, there are seven other inns in the city area and, more recently, three village inns: in Köfering, Ramspau and now in Niedertraubling. “We are also repeatedly asked to save a tavern. Recently there was an inquiry from the North Upper Palatinate,” says Sperger. But that was too far away for them.
Center of the village: This is what the “Old Castle” used to look like. The name comes from a moated castle.
(Photo: Albert Meier)
And they just had to reinvent the village inn in Niedertraubling. “We have researched all over Germany: There is simply no such thing as a completely new village inn being built somewhere,” says architect Florian Gebauer. Together with his colleagues Thomas Wittmann and Alexander Wegerer, he looked for role models. It shouldn’t be a new building made to look old. Michael Nadler from the House of Bavarian History in Regensburg, who organized the exhibition “Dying away in pubs? Living in pubs!” nothing comparable is known. “What they did in Neutraubling is unique.” And then also in the district of Regensburg, where the oldest inn in the world is located in Röhrl. “Perhaps this is the newest village inn in Bavaria,” says Gebauer.
The “Old Castle” was a typical village inn: small, cramped, very dark, the hall on the first floor, the shooting range under the roof. Albert Meier, second shooting champion of the Niedertraubling firecrackers, would have liked to keep it that way. “Of course, it’s no longer a traditional Bavarian economy,” he says. The new tavern is bright, with a glass front that offers a view of the beer garden with the large trees. It was built with regional materials, limestone from the Altmühltal for example, the granite for the water trough in front of the terrace comes from the Bavarian Forest. Hops were planted to climb up the pergola.
The architects wanted to create a cozy inn, but not one that was made to look outdated.
(Photo: Deniz Aykanat)
The walls inside are paneled with wood, typical of a tavern, but with modern slats. There is an alcove with a corner seat for the regulars’ table, and copper lamps hanging from the ceiling, reminiscent of brew kettles. The house also has a pitched roof again, a bit steeper now. “We had to prove that the economy is not higher than the church,” says Gebauer. So much humility before the old must be.
The waves have smoothed at the latest with the opening. Also with Meier. His shooters have just signed a lease for the new shooting range in the basement of the inn – for the next 25 years. “The clubs belong in the tavern, that’s their home,” says Mayor Graß. “A place without a club and inn, the lights go out there.” The years without a Christmas party, a town meeting or a meeting place for the elderly were tough for Niedertraubling.
Albert Meier, second shooting champion of the Niedertraubling firecrackers, was very attached to the old “Old Castle”, but has now also made friends with the new building.
(Photo: private)
When you drive out of Regensburg, you see many old signs pointing the way to times past: to barricaded country inns or taverns where the dusty blinds are drawn down – often next to the also orphaned butcher’s shop. Here and there you can see display cases in which the yellowed menus from twenty years ago are still hanging with beer prices that you can read carefully again.
“In general, things are going downhill,” says Nadler. Between 2018 and 2019, for example, the number of pubs in Bavaria fell from 6,500 to 4,500. How the corona pandemic affected the taverns has not yet been statistically recorded. “But the downward trend started way before that.” The causes are well known: excessive bureaucracy, clubs that have their own homes or have closed down completely, a lack of waiters and hostesses, perhaps also the smoking ban. The real regulars’ table has become a virtual one on the Internet, after-work beer is no longer drunk in the bar, but on the couch in front of the television.
In East Bavaria there is another reason why village inns in particular have died out in recent decades. “The bypass roads,” says Nadler. “Many of these were built in the Upper Palatinate and Lower Bavaria.” They bring peace to the place – on the one hand. “But it’s bad for the trade if the traffic no longer rolls through the town.” And where there are fewer walk-in customers, the locals are all the more important.
The new one: Landlord Stefan Seifert. He always dreamed of running his own inn.
(Photo: Deniz Aykanat)
The new landlord is now trying to win them over. First step: He lives directly in the inn, as befits a village innkeeper. The architects have planned extra apartments for the host family and employees. Stefan Seifert, the new one, trained in Regensburg, then he moved to Tyrol, where he was head chef of award-winning restaurants. Why does someone like that want to go to Niedertraubling? “I’ve always dreamed of running my own house.” From the christening ceremony to the funeral feast, you go to the “Altes Schloss” to the Seifert – that’s what the new landlord wants.
Even Schütze Meier, who still struggles a bit with the interior, is almost a regular guest. “I’m through with half the menu. Stefan cooks really well.” And when the new shooting range is in the basement in six months, that’s something too. Mayor Graß also makes his contribution. “I come as often as possible,” he says. “Sometimes I just can’t make it, but I’m there at least three times a week.”