The story
Erlangen Bergkirchweih in Erlangen
The Erlangen Bergkirchweih has run every Whitsun since 1775 on the sandstone Burgberg hill, whose slopes have housed beer cellars since at least 1675, making the festival fifty-five years older than Munich's Oktoberfest by organisers' account. Rather than a flat fairground, the festival spreads across individual hillside beer cellars connected by paths climbing the hill, each with its own character and beer selection.
Erlangen's Burgberg, a sandstone hill rising over the city, has stored beer in cellars dug into its slopes since at least 1675, part of a wider Franconian tradition of using cool, stable sandstone tunnels for lagering beer at a near-constant temperature before refrigeration existed.