The
special excursion destination in Thuringia and worth seeing German
history with Glück Auf! has been the Markt-Höhler mountain
experience in Bad Lobenstein for over 20 years. There you can find out
everything about beer storage, rocks, minerals and Lobenstein mining!
Here there is unadulterated German history with Glück Auf! with
the example of the Markt-Höhler you can really touch it. The
Markt-Höhler was once the largest beer rock cellar of the citizens
of Lobenstein and is located in the city center of Bad Lobenstein, not
far from the market square. From the year 1780 miners worked for many
years to cut a 54.45 meter long tunnel and 20 large chambers out of the
rock of the Schlossberg. There, the wort boiled in the city's breweries
was poured into the oak barrels in the dome of the rock, fermented into
beer and stored in a cool place with the ice from the city pond. Then
the beer was sold directly in the premises of the Markt-Höhler.
After the beer storage in the caves was gradually pushed back by the
mechanical cooling of the beer that was introduced at the end of the
19th century (Linde's ice machine), these rooms were used for a while
to cool food, homemade berry wine and boiled down items. In 1902 the
Markt-Höhler was then sold to private by the owner and co-owner of
the 1st Oberland steam beer brewery, Johann Adam Martin Hick from
Lobenstein. A right granted to the city of Lobenstein to use the beer
cellar with this sale expired on December 12, 1946 by mutual agreement
between the city of Lobenstein, represented by the then mayor Ludwig
Krieger, and the owner of the beer cellar system, printer owner Franz
Wirth in Lobenstein Payment of a transfer fee by the owner to the
city's cash register. During the Second World War, the
Markt-Höhler was also used as a provisional air raid shelter for a
short period of time. After the end of the war, the rooms were used for
some time to dispose of garbage, refuse, rubbish, ash and unusable coal
grit, which was illegal at the time, because there was no garbage
disposal. Since May 14th, 2000 the current owner Carsten A. Dunkel has
made the Markt-Höhler permanently visitable for guests from near
and far after extensive development as a mountain museum and mountain
experience and is open all year round. The walls of the underground
rooms with their unusual rock structures in the so-called Frauenbach
layers (480 million years old) tell of the formation of the rocks in
our area millions of years ago. In the deepest caves, a mountain museum
was set up in memory of the former iron ore mining in the old mining
district of Lobenstein-Hirschberg. Here the children of the visitors,
like the former miners, can try their hand at the historical tools like
mallets and irons on the rock. Adventure tours through the Markt
Höhler inspire young and old. In Markt Höhler you can find
out everything about the seldom encountered combination of historical
beer storage, mining skills and geology. The tour in the
Markt-Höhler takes about 75 minutes. Due to its historical
construction, the Markt-Höhler is unfortunately not suitable for
wheelchair users and guests with prams, but those with slight mobility
problems can still easily walk through the Markt-Höhler.