Writing about beer is a tough gig. You have to spend your evenings in bars doing research. You have to figure out what to do with the sample bottles breweries send to you. And, occasionally, you have to spin a trip you were going to take anyway into a single-minded beer odyssey made for the purpose of expanding the minds of readers.

This particular beer journey, which concluded last week, led us to Bree Louise, a pub just behind Euston Station, in London’s Camden Borough. It’s a place where they take beer seriously.

These words are being written from row 22 of a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, connecting to a widebody bound for Germany. The plan is to visit one of the world’s great brewing towns.

The destination: Bamberg. A compact, medieval-styled, eye-gougingly quaint dorf full of narrow half-timbered houses, cobbled streets, and, oh yeah, a ridiculous number of breweries for a town its size.