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Kulmbach
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KULMBACH
, which lies 22km northwest of Bayreuth on the banks of the Weisser (White) Main, just west of the point where it joins the Roter (Red) Main to form the River Main proper, is best-known for its
beer
, holding as it does two national records - the largest output per head of population and the strongest brew in regular production (
EKU 28
). Although the town was the capital of a Hohenzollern principality from 1398 until the court moved to Bayreuth in 1603, it preserves very few reminders of its medieval origins. The blame for this lies squarely with Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, a megalomaniacal and unprincipled ruler who hoped to turn the great sixteenth-century religious divide to his own advantage by establishing control over the whole of the old Franconian duchy. Instead, he succeeded in uniting the Protestant city-state of NA?rnberg and the Catholic prince-bishoprics of Bamberg and WA?rzburg in common cause against him, and in 1553, after a long siege, their combined forces captured the town and laid it to waste. The following year, the same fate befell the huge feudal fortress high above the eastern side of Kulmbach, whereupon Albrecht was deposed and forced into exile while a largely new town arose from the ashes of the old. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Germany,
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