Just stumbled on some stuff I'd kept from the 1980's. Happy days. Also found one of the first pieces I ever wrote about beer.
What, Schmitt top fermented? Very interesting. I love the old labels. And sadly I wasn't around back then, but from what I heard from older people from the DDR,it sounds kinda exciting. I heard from several people that "Helles" was rarely served draught, it was the cheap stuff you got in bottles. Can you confirm that? I would have loved to try real Pilsator, east german brewed Weisse and Gose,Porter and yes,also some cheap Helles..
I remember Helles as the everyday bottled beer. Was it on draught, too? I can't really remember. Pilsators were top-class stuff. Up with the best Czech Lagers. The Berliner Weisse was better than in the West and the Porter was pretty nice.
LOL! Oh man, yer killin' me you pup. I grew up in a time when we saw TV commercials on Saturday mornings for Radio Free Europe broadcasting across the Iron Curtain (that was an image that still sticks in my head -- lotta tall chain mail). I never thought I'd see The Wall come down in my lifetime. I made my first trip to Germany less than a year after it actually happened and vividly remember the drive my friends and I made from Munich to Berlin -- amazing history to experience.
Just some uncredited research: Pilsator is the name for a Pilsner first in the Bohemian Brewery Berlin-Friedrichshain. The name originated as the result of a competition in 1908. After the Second World War the name was naturalized in East Germany. Unlike normal Pilsner beer it is bitter in taste, and more hops are used (16 g / hl instead of 11.5 g / hl at Pilsen, stated in "g effective bitters" - TGL 7764). From export it differs due to the lower use of malt . On the day the wall came down, 9 November 1989 Pilsator drank one of the first beers directly on the wall.* Not really sure what the last sentence really means, but I'm guessing they're saying it was a beer enjoyed at the wall.
I was fortunate enough to travel through Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and of course the DDR, due to the fact that my German uncle had a special visa (he bought and sold bottling equipment to VEBs) and that I have relatives in Leipzig. In any event, I remember the beer being quite good and very bad, not a lot in between. For the most part, I remember seeing bottles predominantly. Of course, most of the major international hotels in large cities (Interconti) had draft, but I know the selection was never large, maybe one pilsner line. I do remember being out in the countryside hunting and we ended up "chilling" the beer in the bathtub. They had no problem drinking beer at 60-70 degrees, but it wasn't very enjoyable as I recall. Quite a crazy world, people look at you funny when you tell them the stories of how things actually worked and mostly, didn't work.
They weren't all Pilsator, for the most part just pilsners. As I recall, they machinery was all very old, which doesn't mean bad beer, but can lead to it. It's possible they were cutting corners at the time too in order to keep prices (way) down. Beer & schnapps = opium für das Volk. The Eastern Europeans always seemed to drink in excess.
Well that is all relative, right? The Eastern Europeans might say that we Westerners do not drink enough! Cheers!
The beer in Thuringia was mostly pretty good. The brewery in Gotha - now owned by Oettinger - being one exception. The shelflife was very short, something like 10 days after bottling. There was plenty of draught beer in the towns I went to in Thuringia. Berlin beer was also pretty good. With the exception of Berliner Weisse, which was out of this world.
The thing is also, what is left? I mean, Schmitt is very good, but also some of the other Thuringian breweries still produce worthwhile stuff, esp. dark beers and bocks, even sometimes there are Rauchbiers- all in all, it reminds me sometimes a lot of franconia, though there is off course not as much diversity. Still,most regional brewers still have a big Lager lineup with Pils,Helles and Spezial and the odd Bock or two. But with the other beers mentioned- -a beer called Pilsator is nowadays brewed by Frankfurter Brauhaus in Frankfurt,Oder, and is very,very cheap and nasty, even aviable in cans and plastic bottles, and often cheaper than water... -Berliner Weisse is now aviable, besides the dreadfull Kindl stuff, by some new,wild Berlin brewers as well as a few places outside of Berlin, see Potsdam, and also tasty, but compared to the rise of IPAs and american inspired stuff in Berlin, it is still very rare and obscure.
It's been too long since I visited for me to comment on the current state of Thuringian beer. Franconia looks physically very similar to Franconia. Not so odd, as they aren't that far from each other.
I'd imagine. Thuringia probably looks physically very similar to Thuringia, too. (sorry -- couldn't pass up the chance)
Not overly bier-centric, but here are my DDR memories.... It's 1986.... Alewife and I were married in April, and spent June-October criss-crossing the continent... It's August, and we leave Hannover by train bound for West Berlin.... I recall the desolate expanse of the no-mans land as we crossed the border from West to East Germany.... Passing slowly through abandoned stations in the east, with long grass and weeds growing on the platforms... Having our passports stamped with a transit visa by the East German authorities before arriving at the Berlin Zoo bahnhof.... Spent 4 days there, seeing lots of WWII and cold-war sites.... We ventured into East Berlin on one of those days. Went through Checkpoint Charlie, where we got our East day-visas and each exchanged 25DM for 25 Ostmarks.... and had our bags searched... I had a small bag with my camera, lenses and about 8 rolls of film... Guard says "open zis one, zis one, und, ummm, zis one..." Yup, all just film; thnx Bro! No sooner do we get out into the city when a couple straight out of Woodstock '69 approaches us... "Are you from the West?" they asked, in great english... Yes.... "Can you take this out and mail it for us?" Ummm... NO!! See ya... Walked around and saw some rebuilt churches and such, plus a bomb-damaged synagogue, left as such as a memorial.... Saw a cop stroll into the middle of a busy street and randomly point at cars to pull over, where other Polizei gave them a questioning... Found an outdoor cafe/biergarten and opted to have a few. We scored the Berlinweiss mit Schüß (raspberry). Quite tasty, especially since it was about 90°F.... Had a couple there, then toured some more... With 50 Ostmarks total, we had trouble spending it all. Had a big meal at lunch, bought bread and cheese, the biers, etc.... Later returned to the same cafe for more... Had another round and then flagged down the waiter for more. "Nichts mehr!!" he said sternly, giving us our bill. No further explanation.... Thnx, nice to do business! Had a few Ostmarks left as we headed to go through the checkpoint and back to the West. I usually save a coin from each country, and really wanted one of these. But, I had heard that they often check you for leftover money, and if you have some, you have to "deposit" it into a bank account for future use (yeah, right!). I tucked one into my sock, and the rest at the bottom of an inner pouch in my camera bag.... Sweating as we went back through, they never asked.... Phew! It was a hell of an experience, all in all.... Made us feel oh so grateful for our freedom... Prosit!! Btw, I returned to Berlin in 1990, 02-04OCT to be exact. That was when Germany was reunified. I was in the former no-mans land near the Wall at the Brandenburg gate with a can of Schultheiss Pils in hand, popping it at midnight as fireworks went off and thousands and thousands of people roared....
My friends and I drove from Munich to Berlin in September of 1990 (the wall felling 1989). We had no idea where we were going or what we might run into. I can still remember the empty watchtowers all along the stretch of Autobahn once we crossed into the former East Germany. We were so turned around by the time we entered Berlin that we weren't really sure where we were headed. We found parking spots (we were 5 people traveling in 2 cars) and began to walk toward Checkpoint Charlie where we approached a sign telling us we were "Now Entering the American Zone." Damned if we hadn't, somehow, circled around and come into Berlin from the "east" side. Bet we couldn't have easily done that a year earlier!
@patto1ro -- it appears the auto-spell-check is having a long day too! (I think I typed "fell in" and missed the space then got trumped!)
Last summer three of us did a bike ride from Jena to Rostock (we actually started in Bamberg, rode to Lichtenfels then took the train to Jena). Quite an interesting experience in many ways. But other than Wöllnitzer Weisse in Jena and the Gose in Lepzig (both of which I'd had many times) we really didn't find much in the way of interesting beer -- until we got to Rostock and went to the Störtebecker taproom (zum Alten Fritz). A few "modern" brewpubs along the way with the usual under attenuated "three colors or beer" (though the brewpub in Rostock was better than average). Now, to be fair, along the ride we didn't go out of our way for beer, just drank what they had when we stopped, or the best we could find when we overnighted. Also, only one day in Berlin and my brother wanted to be a regular tourist not a beer tourist so we passed on some opportunities there. Nothing we had was bad, just basically un-interesting -- considering we were hot and tired our standards were probably much lower than normal That being said, one particularly hot day I did enjoy a Lübzer Grapefruit -- but I wouldn't really call that beer, just mildly alcoholic (2%) grapefruit soda
