Dortmund: “Prost” to a Great Show
Performers at the Dortmund Konzerthaus are welcomed off stage with a cold beer and a warm smile. Raise a glass to The Cleveland Orchestra on tour.
Dortmund is synonymous with beer. The city’s association with ale goes back more than 700 years to 1266 with its first documented mention of beer in city records.
It makes sense that Dortmund Konzerthaus has been serving up post-concert brews backstage since it first opened its doors in 2002.
As the musicians of The Cleveland Orchestra came off stage from performing Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, they were greeted by two Konzerthaus staff members and a couple crates of Bergmann Bier. The two men quickly popped bottle caps and passed out beverages. Amid the sounds of instrument cases and travel trunks clicking closed, there was a gentle clinking of glass bottles. Cheers to the third concert of The Cleveland Orchestra’s 2026 European tour.
Since 2018, Bergmann has been the official beer of the post-concert toast, according to Dortmund Konzerthaus. The brewery called Dortmund home from 1796 until it shuttered in 1972. More than 30 years later, Thomas Raphael, a microbiologist, discovered an old stein and was moved to re-register the trademark of the historic brand. In its second life, Bergmann Bier was mostly small batches shared among friends until the new brewery was opened in 2017.
With the first leg of The Cleveland Orchestra’s tour well underway, full of concerts, rehearsals, and travel, there wasn’t much time to explore Dortmund. So the hoppy beer was a delightful taste of what the city has to offer while the musicians packed up their belongings to head back to the hotel for the night.
The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst performed Liszt’s Orpheus, R. Strauss’s Four Last Songs (with soprano Golda Schultz), and Brahms’s Second Symphony for an enthusiastic audience in Dortmund.
