Beer trail 10 · Düsseldorf · North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
THEAltbier Six
One city. Six house breweries. One beer nobody else makes properly.
- Distance
- ≈ 6 km including the Rhine crossing
- Driving
- Walkable in the Altstadt · a full day with the outer two
- Stops
- 6 breweries
A walking route through Düsseldorf's Altstadt and out across the Rhine, taking in all six house breweries still brewing Altbier on their own premises — four of them founded before 1865, one in a former railway station.
Best travelled Year-round — the Altstadt does not close
The history
A style that stayed in one city
Altbier is a top-fermented beer conditioned cold — old in the sense of the old way, brewed as ale was brewed before lager took Germany. Almost everywhere else, lager won. In Düsseldorf it did not.
Six houses still brew it where they serve it. Schumacher opened in 1838, Füchschen in 1848, Zum Schlüssel in 1850, Uerige in 1862 — four survivors from a single generation of the nineteenth century, all still operating as house breweries rather than brands.
Then nothing new for nearly a century and a half. Kürzer opened in the Altstadt in 2010, the first genuinely new Altbier house in living memory, and Alter Bahnhof brews across the Rhine in Oberkassel in a building that was a railway station first.
The serving matters as much as the brewing. Beer comes from wooden casks, poured by Köbes waiters who keep bringing glasses until you put your beermat on top of one. That is not a re-enactment; it is just how it is still done.
The route
Six houses, Altstadt first
Start in the Altstadt
Hausbrauerei Zum Schlüssel
Bolkerstraße, Altstadt · Düsseldorf
Founded 1850 by Jakob Schwenger, on the street where the Altstadt is at its densest. A house brewery in the literal sense — the beer is made where you drink it.
In the glassOne of the four nineteenth-century survivors. The Altstadt is sometimes called the longest bar in the world; four of its pubs brew their own.
A few minutes north
Brauerei im Füchschen
Ratinger Straße, Altstadt · Düsseldorf
1848, on Ratinger Straße. The name means little fox, and the room is usually louder than the one you just left.
In the glassTwo years older than Zum Schlüssel and a few streets away. This density is the entire reason the style survived here and nowhere else.
Deeper into the Altstadt
Uerige
Berger Straße, Altstadt · Düsseldorf
The benchmark, and the one to try if you only try one. Poured straight from wooden casks by Köbes who keep replacing your glass until you stop them.
In the glassFounded 1862. Uerige means grumpy in the local dialect — reportedly after an early landlord, and the staff have maintained the tradition ever since.
Still in the Altstadt
Brauerei Kürzer
Altstadt · Düsseldorf
The modern one. Opened 2010 in a stripped-back room that looks nothing like the other five, brewing the same beer.
In the glassA hundred and forty-eight years separate this from Uerige. That gap is the whole argument for why a style with six brewers is worth protecting.
≈ 1 km east, out of the Altstadt
Brauerei Schumacher
Oststraße · Düsseldorf
The oldest of the six — 1838, founded by Joh. Mathias Schumacher — and worth the walk out of the old town to reach it.
In the glassSchumacher predates the others by a decade and is generally credited with defining what Altbier came to mean.
Across the Rhine to Oberkassel
Hausbrauerei Alter Bahnhof / Belsen Alt
Oberkassel · Düsseldorf
The finish, and the only one on the far bank: a house brewery in the historic Alter Bahnhof at Belsenplatz.
In the glassA railway station before it was a brewery. Almost nothing in brewing is built for brewing — this archive keeps finding the same pattern in every country.
What this page does not knowThe four Altstadt stops sit within a few streets of each other and can be walked in any order; Schumacher is about a kilometre east and Alter Bahnhof is across the Rhine, so those two are the reason this is a day rather than an evening. The archive holds no street addresses for these records, and Alter Bahnhof's founding year is not established — check each brewery's own site before setting out.
Tally's Take
Why six is the number that matters
A style with one brewer is a curiosity. A style with six, in one city, poured the same way in all six, is a living tradition.
Altbier could easily have gone the way of a hundred other regional German styles that lager quietly replaced. It did not, and the reason is visible on this walk: the houses that brew it also serve it, so the beer never became a brand that could be moved, licensed or contract-brewed elsewhere.
That is a genuinely unusual arrangement in modern brewing. Most of what this archive records is production drifting away from the place on the label. Here it never left the room.
And it is still moving. Kürzer opening in 2010 after a century and a half of no new Altbier houses says the style is not being preserved in amber — someone looked at four Victorian survivors and decided there was space for a fifth.
This page is the story; the passport is the journey. Open the route there to track how much of it you have actually done.
Follow this route in your passport →Guided
Tours on this route
Nobody runs a guided version of this route yet, so it is self-drive.
If you run shuttles, guided tours or designated-driver trips in Calgary, this route is open. We list real, bookable tours here with your booking link — and never a placeholder for one that doesn't exist.
Run a tour on this route →Drink responsiblySix house breweries in one day is a lot, and Altbier is served in small glasses that a Köbes will keep replacing until you cover one with a beermat. Learn that gesture before stop one.
The Altbier Six is open for anchor stops.
Breweries on the route get a full archive profile, a scannable code, and a place in the itinerary. Tourism boards get a packaged route with the traffic tracked end to end.