What local dishes should I try in Germany, and where should I look for them?

German brewing is regulated rather than merely traditional. The regulation implementing the Provisional Beer Act restricts brewers to the materials permitted under section 9 of that Act, with limited exceptions. The detail that surprises visitors is how the rule differs by fermentation: malt for top-fermented beer may be made from grains other than barley, while rice, maize and dari are not counted as grain for this purpose at all. Colouring beer, Farbebier, has its own prescribed recipe of barley malt, hops, bottom-fermenting yeast and water. That is why German wheat beer and German pilsner are both lawful under the same framework, and why neither contains the adjuncts common elsewhere.

Food names work through the EU register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications, which carries German entries including Nürnberger Rostbratwürste, Thüringer Rostbratwurst, Schwarzwälder Schinken, Lübecker Marzipan and Bayerisches Bier. Each ties the name to a defined area and a filed specification. Nuremberg's small grilled sausages and Lübeck's marzipan are therefore place-specific in law, not just in reputation.

Which gives a clean rule for where to look. Eat the designation in the town that holds it: the Rostbratwurst in Nuremberg or Thuringia, the smoked ham in the Black Forest, the marzipan in Lübeck, within sight of the Holstentor and the old salt warehouses that financed the trade in the first place.

A protected designation and a brewing statute do different jobs, and conflating them leads people astray. The beer rules say what may go into the liquid anywhere in Germany; the geographical indications say where a named product must be made. So a beer brewed in Hamburg can be entirely compliant with the ingredient rules while having no claim to the Bayerisches Bier indication — and a marzipan made to the same recipe outside Lübeck cannot use the Lübeck name regardless of quality.

• Beer — Ask whether it is top- or bottom-fermented; the permitted grains differ between the two.
• Sausage — Look for Nürnberger or Thüringer by name, which are registered indications rather than styles.
• Sweet — Buy marzipan in Lübeck, where the protected name originates.

The US Department of State advises travelers to exercise increased caution in Germany due to terrorism, which is worth reading before a trip built around town-center markets and festivals. The CDC also lists Germany under its Global Measles notice at Level 1, practice usual precautions, and its Global Polio notice at Level 2, practice enhanced precautions — both vaccination questions to settle in advance. One more thing about the Nuremberg and Thuringia sausages: holding the registered name tells you the butcher is inside the protected area and working to the filed specification, which is a floor and not a verdict.

The Germany places-and-experiences answer in this group explains why Lübeck is worth the detour north; the Germany trip-planning answer covers the entry rules and the Schengen day count.