I found surprising Birmingham bakery in top-rated bar overflowing with pastries

A top-rated Birmingham bar known as a 'German beer palace' has a lesser-known double life as a bakery every morning. Albert's Schloss bakers start from 3am each day and sometimes even cross over with bar staff, clocking off from a raucous night at the city centre nightspot.

But it's not just its famous pretzels that chefs are baking but fine quality pastries and extravagant breakfasts at the beerhall and restaurant in Birmingham city centre. Freshly-baked bread made for diners can also be bought to takeaway by locals at the bar, where Paradise meets Chamberlain Square.

It's no ordinary bread either but loaves ranging from sourdough to goats cheese and beetroot or red onion and Stilton. They all cost £4 each.

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French pastry chef Sebastian is responsible for the continental buttery croissants, doughnuts and cakes in this alternative to a coffee shop. Diners can sit by the circular bar famous for its German beers but while eating delicate patisserie favourites and coffee instead.

The pastry table changes regularly but on the day I visited there were lemon meringue doughnuts, strawberry and cream croissants, coffee and milk chocolate brioche and pain au chocolates made with biscoff cream instead. They all cost £4 each, fresh from its cookhaus - or kitchen to you and me.

Mike Lacey, senior chef and head of preparation at Albert's Schloss in Birmingham, said: "All our bread, pastries, pretzels and burger buns are made in-house by our team of bakers. We have huge bakers ovens.

"They start work at 3am to 4am every morning, so there are times after a Friday and Saturday night that our bar team is leaving as the bakers are coming in to start work. It's a 24-7 operation we're running here and breakfasts and the bakery are a big thing for us, we're not just an evening bar.

"The pastries are always changing and sometimes the bakers tie the flavours in with our cocktails, so there may be one with mint and lime puree that is similar to a Mojito.

"Our pretzels are unique too and use a unique recipe. It's all about our products being authentic and beer and a pretzel is very much what they have in Germany."

I can attest to that with large, crispy, buttery pretzel flavours available. Flavours range from original to the spicier jalapeno or bacon and cheese. See more photos of the bakery items and inside Birmingham's Albert's Schloss in the photo gallery above.

Ingredients for the bakery are often very local with honey used from bee hives neighbouring Birmingham city centre plot where there is also a herb garden on the Paradise estate. They are used across other breakfast items like pancakes, priced at £9 or mushroom hash for £8.

The Bavarian-themed beerhall's version of an English Breakfast comes with Cumberland sausages, smoked back bacon, black pudding, an egg, portobello mushrooms, roast tomatoes, a potato rosti and pain de mine toast for £13.

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Along with regular breakfasts from Monday to Friday, Albert's Schloss is now holding Rise and Shine brunches on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am at weekends. It features a DJ providing a soundtrack.

Queues waiting to get into Albert's Schloss is a common sight at weekends but normally into the evening. The breakfasts and brunches are making the bar more of a must-visit in the daytime too.

The bar has attracted rave Google and Tripadvisor reviews online. Andy commented on how good the bread was saying: "Good food and great beers. The three house breads had their own whipped butter which was great."

Sindu Rajan added: "Amazing food, amazing service, amazing vibe. What more can you ask for? If you’re visiting Birmingham, definitely visit this restaurant. It gets busy, so make sure you book a table for larger groups."

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