Austria

Hangovers, Hazy IPAs and the High Alps

One man’s mission to survive Innsbruck’s beer, schnitzel and snow.

I’m dragging my hungover carcass through the medieval alleyways of Innsbruck. This is a city where baroque opulence collides with snow-covered adrenaline. Did I mention the hangover? The kind of hangover that only comes from partying with Austrians during the Downhill World Championships in Saalbach the night before. Austrians plus snow plus a world-class event equals real partying. We’re talking schnapps-fuelled, lederhosen-wearing, après-ski mayhem that makes Ibiza look like a book club.

I’m extremely thankful for the warmth of an early check-in at the Hotel Schwarzer Adler, a hotel 400 years older than my own country. I wonder if Mozart himself ever wandered the hallways. I check in and collect my Ski Plus City Pass. This little card is the golden ticket to Tyrolean fun, giving me access not just to ski lifts in nearby Kühtai, but also to city attractions, public transport, museums, and even Swarovski’s shimmering fever dream of a museum. I do what any responsible journalist would do: go find some crystals.

Tradition and position at the Schwarzer Adler. Click to view gallery

Swarovski Kristallwelten is like falling headfirst into a glittering fantasy land. The entrance is a grass-covered giant’s head with crystals for eyes. It’s actually more like a Bond lair than a museum. Inside, rooms explode in light, mirrors, and existential sparkle.

One gallery casually displays the number of Swarovski crystals embedded in celebrity costumes over the decades, which is frankly obscene. Elton John, unsurprisingly, leads the charge. His outfits shimmering with enough bling to light a runway you can see from space. There’s a mechanical birdcage, a silent snowstorm that never ends, and a room of music-playing crystals that feels like Brian Eno went on an acid bender at a jewellery store. The highlight is a walkway with a roof of hundreds of crystal speakers, each one speaking to you as you walk underneath; languages from all over the world. It’s truly surreal.

I go full Austrian for dinner with a hearty plate of Tiroler Gröstl and a schnapps at Weisses Rössl, one of Innsbruck’s most traditional inns. It’s all low timber beams, candlelit corners, and centuries of Alpine gemütlichkeit (that’s friendliness). The waitstaff wear dirndls like they mean it, and the menu reads like a greatest hits of Austrian comfort food. I ordered the schnitzel, because you have to. What arrives is a golden, perfectly crisp, pan-fried miracle roughly the size of a snowboard. It crackles under the knife and melts like butter in the mouth. It is easily the greatest schnitzel I’ve ever eaten.

After dinner, I wander slowly and bloated through the backstreets in the moody glow of gaslights and gothic arches. It’s here, happily lost in the old town of Innsbruck, that I stumble upon Tribaun.

It doesn’t look like much. Just a door. But down the steps is a den of hops-fuelled sin. Craft beer from all over Europe, tattooed bartenders with opinions, and a crowd that looks like they argue about fermentation methods for fun. I fall in with some locals who pull me into a "shout", an endless cycle of buying and consuming increasingly aggressive beers. One hazy IPA hits like a freight train of citrus, pine, and regret. I think I’m winning until I try to stand up.

Morning. Kühtai. A yodelling demon pounds timpani drums in my skull. My ski instructor sizes me up like a butcher choosing which bit to cut first. I’m pale, I’m trembling, but I’m committed.

Kühtai is Austria’s highest ski village, perched at over 2,000 metres, which means snow is pretty much guaranteed. The drive up from Innsbruck is a leisurely forty minutes with increasingly stunning views as you wind up through villages and into Kuhtai. The slopes here are a glorious patchwork of wide cruisers and narrow chutes, flanked by rugged peaks. There’s something for everyone here, easy-going blues that lull you into confidence, and then out of nowhere, sneaky reds and aggressive blacks that demand respect (and functioning knees).

I start with a gentle run to test the structural integrity of my head. It’s going well until I hit an icy patch, and I’m suddenly skiing backwards. Still, my instructor is encouraging, or at least I think that’s what he’s saying in thick Tyrolean dialect while trying not to laugh. We traverse tree-lined paths, open powder bowls, and even flirt with a mogul field. The stunning views make it hard to concentrate on the snow in front of me. The snow is perfect, the air is merciless, and gravity is no longer my friend. I wobble, I slide, I survive. Just.

Lunch saves me. At Kühtaier DorfStadl, out on the deck, I devour a heaving plate of Käsespätzle (think cheese, pasta, bacon, delishessness) and a crisp pilsner, and I’m back! I emerge from my hangover cocoon, part man, part dairy product, but ready to return to the slopes.

Back in Innsbruck, the Old Town waits like a storybook villain: pretty, polished, and probably dangerous. I wander past Rococo buildings, duck into the Hofburg Palace for a hit of imperial delusion, then lose myself in AUDIOVERSUM, a science museum about sound where my battered ears get one last chance at redemption.

The magical streets of Innsbruck. Click to view gallery

Dinner at Wilderin is everything you want a final supper to be. This place is uber local, seasonal and paired with just enough wine to forget the hangover but remember the fondue. I sit up at the bar and befriend the owner, Michael, whose passion for sustainable cuisine is remarkable. He convinces me to try the Austrian specialty, Beuschel. He refuses to disclose the ingredients, and I trust him. It’s delicious. And even after Michael explains that it is a traditional Austrian “grandmother” specialty stew of lung, spleen and heart, I mop up the stringy bits with bread. It’s that good.

On my last day, I head up to Nordkette. It’s three cable cars to the top, each one peeling back layers of the city until all that remains is air, snow, and ego. At the final stop, Hafelekar, I lace up my boots and take the short, snowy hike toward the famed peak, the Top of Innsbruck. It’s not a long walk, but every step carries the weight of 2,300 metres of altitude and the kind of drop-offs that inspire awkward laughter and sweaty palms. One small slip here and I genuinely believe I could slide all the way into Germany, passport-free, face-first, and screaming.

The view is outrageous. On one side, Innsbruck spreads out like a gingerbread model city: spires, pastel facades, and neatly squared-off streets framed by the Inn River. Spin around and you’re staring into the raw, jagged Alps and beyond, the valleys of Bavaria. It’s like standing on the edge of two countries, one foot in Austria, the other dangling temptingly toward a bratwurst-fuelled future. The wind bites, but the scenery punches harder. It’s the kind of panorama that makes you whisper-swear in amazement.

Innsbruck sprawling below, mountains all around. “Fark.”

At lunch, I toast the Tyrol with a glass of something cold, stare into the endless white, and feel like I’ve survived something.

Then, of course, there’s time for one last hurrah. With my train departing in the early evening, I have just enough time for one last visit to Tribaun. The bartender gives me a knowing look and pours another hazy IPA. I raise my glass to Innsbruck, the city that broke me, rebuilt me, and broke me again.

Prost.