Kellergröppe Raab

An enchanted hollow path, shaded by tall trees and lined with 26 cellars carved into the sandy marl: this is the Raaber Kellergröppe.
Once you've been here, it's hard to resist the charm of the place.
The existence of this cellar alley can be traced back to 1620, but it is likely that earth stables were dug into the compact sandy soil here as early as the Middle Ages. When there were no refrigeration facilities, the cellars kept fruit, vegetables, cider and above all beer from spoiling. Over the course of time, a total of 26 cellars were dug into the so-called "Enzenkirchner Sande". In both summer and winter, the temperature here is around eight degrees centigrade; in addition, there is a high level of humidity, which makes the cellars ideal storage rooms. In order to keep the beer from the three former Raab breweries well through the summer, the cellars were also stocked with ice from streams and ponds at the end of winter.

The cellars are lined up along a kind of hollow path, the "Gröppe", whose name is also specific to the Innviertel region. According to a common theory, the Gröppe was created by heavy carts, wagons and draught animals that left their depressions in the soft sandy soil. Heavy downpours ensured that the loosened soil was carved deeper and deeper, creating V-shaped ditches - the Gröppen.
The Raaber Kellergröppe has been a listed building since 1997.

Today, two cellars are still freely accessible, the rest are used by tree nurseries as winter storage for plants or by private owners as earth cellars.
The publicly accessible cellars, which are around 50 metres deep, are home to the Beer Sand Cellar Museum and an ice cellar, which shows how cooling with blocks of ice once worked.

In 2020, Kellergröppe Raab, with its unique flair and centuries-old sand cellars, featured in the Austria-wide final of the well-known ORF television programme "9 Plätze - 9 Schätze".