In Search of Germany’s Best Pickles by Bike

The first thing you notice is the smell. Sharp, oaky, vinegary. It smacks you before you’ve even fully awake. But when you’ve spent the night curled up inside a gigantic wooden pickle barrel hotel in Brandenburg, Germany, perhaps that’s to be expected.

The Spreewald—a UNESCO biosphere reserve an hour south of Berlin—contains some 970 miles of waterways that tread through dense black alder forest and meadows like a cracked sheet of ice. It is known as “The Garden of Berlin” thanks to its fertile grounds. It’s a stronghold of Sorbian culture, one of Europe’s smallest and least-known indigenous minorities. It is also the undisputed pickle capital of Germany and, arguably, the world.

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Around 40,000 metric tons of cucumbers are grown and processed here each year, and the famous Spreewald gherkins carry a European Protected Geographical Indication, akin to Champagne in France or Parma ham in Italy. It is the lifeblood of the region. Unfortunately, the industry is now struggling.

To see how the Spreewald is coping, I embarked on a Tour de Pickle across the region on the Gurkenradweg (“pickle cycling trail” because, of course there’s a German word for it) in search of not only the best pickle but the future of the Spreewälder Gurken.

Origins of the Spreewald pickle

Pickling cucumbers have been around for over 4,000 years. Ancient Mesopotamians were soaking the vegetable in acidic brines. Pickles were part of Cleopatra’s beauty regimen. Aristotle praised their healing abilities. And Julius Caesar fed them to his soldiers for extra strength.

In the Spreewald, though, the story begins with the Sorbs, a Slavic minority who brought cucumbers over from the Carpathians in the seventh century and found that the swampy land was perfect for cultivation.

In the town of Lübben, a quiet village with a primrose castle, intersecting canals, and cucumber fields, Gisela Christl is known as the "Godmother of the Gherkin." She’s been lecturing about the vegetable’s thousand-year history in the region for decades and is one of the few-thousand remaining Sorbian speakers.

While the Sorbs may have started the pickling tradition in the Spreewald, the region’s reputation as a pickling powerhouse came later. Dutch settlers arrived in the 14th century and began mass cultivation, using the canals to ship pickles to Berlin and as far as Warsaw. Then in the 19th century, Theodor Fontaine immortalized the Spreewald gherkin in his travelogue Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, cementing its cult status in the capital. Even under the GDR, when the state-owned Spreewaldkonserve Golßen controlled production, the pickle remained a prized commodity, and its reputation has well-outlasted the Berlin Wall.

Christl demonstrates how to make the quintessential Spreewald pickle, by peeling, slicing, and seasoning the cucumber with “a lot of fresh dill, tarragon, thyme, lemon basil, peppercorns, horseradish slices, allspice, a bay leaf, and an onion.” She tosses it together with vinegar, sugar, and salt and says to let it sit overnight.

She offers me a sample. The snap is clean and firm, and the brine is deeply savory and faintly mineral. They’re much more sour than your standard bread-and-butter iteration you’d get at a supermarket, but it’s enlivened with a heavy hand of herbs, specifically dill.

Christl grabs her accordion and croons a Sorbian toast with a shot of punchy herbal liqueur. I hop on my bike with a now-briny backpack and follow the signposts seven miles to Lübbenau, the capital of the Spreewald.

Making the perfect pickle

There is arguably no town in the world as pickle-obsessed as Lübbenau. You’ve got a pickle train, pickle boat tours, a pickle museum, restaurants with pickle tasting menus, and that’s before getting into the pickle beers, pickle schnapps, and pickle graffiti. There’s also the famous “Pickle Mile,” where farmers set up stands along the river and sell their homemade gherkins for a mere 50 cents.

It’s not even noon, and I’ve arrived at Spreewald Rabe (located on the outskirts of Lübbenau), where a hundred pickle-starved customers are gawking at eight-foot tall fermentation barrels and centuries-old cucumber washers. Spreewald Rabe is legendary across Germany for its famous brines, and Heidemarie Belaschk is the fourth-generation at the helm. She has been working here nearly 50 years and has seen it all—with stories about pickling under communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, adapting to West German taste-buds, and dealing with today’s more adventurous eaters.

I start with a simple question. What makes the perfect Spreewald pickle? She chuckles, “That’s impossible to answer.”

“You can prepare a cucumber with vinegar, sugar, and spices. Or, there’s the sour pickle, which is washed, salted, and then fermented—no vinegar, no sugar, nothing,” she says. “But what makes the pickles here special is the freshness—fresh dill, basil, lemon basil, and fennel. It’s the be-all, end-all of a good gherkin.”

Beyond the award-winning classics, Belaschk has also perfected pepper pickles, garlic pickles, bread-and-butter pickles, curry pickles, chili-spiced pickles, and mustard pickles. Her personal favorite is the “DDR Gherkin”—Rabe’s old GDR recipe, sharper and more sour than today’s standard.

The biggest challenge, though, is less about innovating and more about staying relevant. Where there were once dozens of small mom-and-pop producers, only seven certified pickle manufacturers remain in the Spreewald. “In the past, the pickle was a winter staple. Nowadays, you get fresh cucumbers and vegetables year round. We’re still struggling with that.”

But she’s not too worried yet. She just hopes more people in the future follow her nightly routine: “I don’t eat chocolate or chips while watching TV, but I grab gherkins.”

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The last cucumber farmers

“If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, the cucumbers are growing,” says Gregor Knösels, a farmer and head of the family-run Knösels Vegetables in Kasel-Golzig. Knösels is one of the largest producers in the Spreewald, farming on some 40 hectares of pumpkins, zucchini, beetroot, carrots, and, of course, cucumbers—some of which reach an astounding 10 pounds. “More cucumber is more cucumber,” he jokes.

Knösels is part of a handful of farmers whose families relocated from West Germany to help re-establish the region’s agricultural industry and identity after reunification. Today, his farm is one of only eight farms producing Spreewald-certified cucumbers.

“The entire microclimate is perfect for growing,” says Knösels. “The soil is rich in humus, and the water is high in iron oxides—especially great for growing cucumbers.”

But for how long will this last? Germany’s cucumber industry is currently struggling. Prices continue to rise. Climate change is affecting the Spreewald’s mineral-rich waters. And German eating habits have changed. “In the past, a dinner in Germany meant bread, cheese, and a cucumber or pickle were always on the table. That’s becoming less and less common.”

“Will we still be able to produce Spreewald cucumbers in 20 years,” asks Knösels. He’s unsure. “It seems likely the Spreewald pickle may become a delicacy that sits on gourmet shelves rather than every kitchen table.

Protecting the pickle

From Lübbenau, I take in the spectacular setting, winding through marshy flatlands, past cucumber farms, wooden pickle stands, centuries-old windmills, verdant thatched houses with stone snakes on the roofs—a Sorbian symbol for good luck.

“We need to support the sustainable development of the villages and small towns here in the region,” says Melanie Kossatz, managing director of the Spreewald Association, a local-nonprofit dedicated to preserving the culture and traditions of the Spreewald. “With the Spreewald pickle carrying a protected designation, we want people to know they’re not only getting an exceptional product but they’re supporting an entire region.”

Tourism is also increasingly part of that equation. The Spreewald draws around three million visitors a year, and many of them are drawn specifically by the lure of the pickle. There are also initiatives like the Gurkenradweg, the kayaking tours, the Pickle Mile, the tasting menus, the barrel hotels. Every jar bought. Every farm tour. Every cyclist, hiker, or kayaker feeds back into the farmers and producers keeping the tradition alive. For a region with only eight certified cucumber growers remaining, visitors are also stakeholders.

I stop in Lehde to refuel with a beer and some gherkins, watch gondolas float across the canals, and then push through river-lined forests toward Leipe. I cart my bike over canals in Burg and marvel at a castle tower dedicated to the first German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, before continuing toward the town of Cottbus, the easternmost outpost of the Spreewald.

With each pedal during these miles, I find myself thinking about Gisela and her accordion. Gregor’s cucumber fields. Heidemarie and her DDR gherkins. The farmers lined up at the Pickle Mile. I remember, moreover, their pride. The Spreewald’s cheesy souvenirs and the bicycle-riding-gherkin signposts may seem kitsch, but the Spreewald pickle symbolizes something unexpectedly real, a region that’s held onto its identity through occupation, division, and reunification. And it intends to keep holding on.

“The name Spreewald has always meant something,” says Knösels. “So whatever happens, we will still be here.”

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