Heading to Germany

Firstly, thank for you all of your posts/reports. I knew that it took quite some time and effort to put them together. I greatly enjoyed reading all of them!

“The Schlösser Alt was sweet and had diacetyl.” Do you think the brewers intended for the diacetyl to be present or was it just a ‘bad’ batch?

Cheers!

 

Right, Schlösser belongs to Radeberger and isn't even brewed in Düsseldorf anymore, but at the DAB-brewery in Dortmund.

 

I think you explained exactly why I think Schlüssel Alt is my favorite in the city.

I've never had this one... your description sounds good enough for me to put it on my next itinerary.

That they're more "modern" without being too snobby sounds like a winning strategy for attracting Germans to the place. All the other "traditional" atmosphere places tend to turn off lots of the 20-somethings. So this is a good thing for the continuation of Alt in the world.

I speak German, so this word doesn't seem too difficult, but it's a decently long word, making it challenging for a non-native speaker to pick out the syllables. What was your error?

Thank you for your reports and the wonderful pictures, too. I enjoyed the way you added humor. Keep up the great work.

 

I'd also like to thank you @spartan1979 for the fine trip reports. I'm glad you could squeeze in Köln and Düsseldorf as well as some other small, unknown to tourist spots. Very courageous of you! The Germans, as you discovered, are pretty laid back about foreigners trying to speak German. They're always patient and many younger Germans are happy to switch to English if it gets to be too much.

I'm not surprised Schlösser didn't measure up. I've had a number of the macro Alts and they never seem quite right.

Cheers! Hope you get to come back soon!

 

I think you picked up on the main reason for the decline of the German beer industry. Yes, the mass produced stuff is either horribly forgettably bland or just horrible, but the absolute main problem with the German beer industry is demographics, and as the Republicans in the USA will find out eventually to their horror, you can't fight demographics. Beer has lost it's place with the younger crowd as a cool thing to drink, replaced by vodka-Red Bull or vodka-fruit juice concoctions. Unless the beer industry radically changes its image and comes out with products that have actual taste, yet don't pander to this demographic by simply mixing fruit juice with beer-similar products, which has been their only strategy to date, it will become an extinct industry when the 40+ crowd lose their ability to spend, or simply die off.

Yes, you and other Touries love the old-timid German feeling, but it's "blah blah, boring" to the younger crowd. You and the Touries could never support an entire beer industry of a country, except only in minor, localized settings. In Bayern, the locals, young and old support their locals more, especially in small towns/cities, but that's a 0.1% part of German population, tops. If you look at the people who came to BrauKunstLive or Festival der Bierkulturen, both celebrations of NON-German beer styles, the interesting part was it was mixed age-wise and lots of the young crowd totally excited by beer for the first time in their lives.

This is also what Germany needs. It seems from reports from Berlin that "craft beer (new American and traditional German styles) bars" are gaining traction in Berlin and München, even if it's by having a more modern atmosphere. What you call an "American" style bar is really just a normal, modern bar here. Just because it's not traditional German, doesn't make it American. To me, and "American" style bar is a sports bar here. Again, thanks for the report; your insights will greatly help me plan my future trips within Germany.

 

Wow, @boddhitree , a very elaborate assessment of the current state of things in Germany concerning the demographic problem the German beer industry faces. As you said, their only uninspired answer yet has been to put out mixed juice&beer-beverages.
I've been to the big Bierhalls in Düsseldorf, München and Köln myself. They usually attract a middle to older-aged crowd, but I understand that. I guess, they don't even want the young people there: too much trouble, not enough business. Those places are just about beer and traditional food, why would a group of teenagers spend their Saturday night there? The youngest folks you see there are usually mid-twens on weekends using these locations as a starter to a night out in the clubs. Or touries.
I wouldn't set the border at 40+ though, rather at 30+. At least for me and the people I know. Although of course, there are still a lot of people today in their middle or late 30s who still act like teenagers.

P.S.: Is it just me, or is BA horribly slow these days? Something wrong?

 

@boddhitree I feel like this is a bit of a Sky Is Falling approach. My guess is that those kids drinking mixers now will grow up and start taking pride in the local product (they are German, after all ). Or perhaps the next wave will laugh at the old folks drinking mixers while they go have their beer. You say the Touries can't support the city, but Uerige alone goes through some 1 million liters of beer at their brewpub alone for a city of only...what... 600,000? (not sure of my source on either of those numbers but I think I'm remembering correctly). That's 4 million little glasses per year that get poured at Zum Uerige. It can't all be old folks and retirees.

@danfue slow for me tonight, too. So many people so little beer bandwidth!

 

I think that the "other guys" (spirits & energy drink) have been able to make their products sexier than grandpa's beer, which is one reason why the youth is looking for new things rather than hugging their beer to death.

Short anecdote: A German friend of mine (who is a beer drinker) posted on his FB page tonight a picture of "Ficken" schnapps (I kid you not) that they were drinking at a disco. You may brush this off as "who cares", but 4 30-something chaps drank this garbage instead of beer, which they normally would do. The aging industry is melting one beer at a time.

 

You may have a point, but I really doubt I'm not that far off the mark. I teach a lot of Abiturienten, 17 or 18 year olds who need to write English better in order to pass their Abitur, and almost all of them, in my discussions of what they like to do in their free time with friends, mention almost only vodka-Red Bull, etc, and turn their nose at beer. For them, beer is uncool, the epitome of old-fat-fart's drink, and a case of beer's too heavy to carry around compared to a bottle of vodka and juice. I'm not the only one to have noticed the trend, as many articles in German media have attested. The problem is that during one's formative years, one's habits are formed for lifetime. That's the scary part for brewers: losing upcoming customers to replace the older generation. When older, I doubt they'll go to beer, wine maybe, more sophisticated cocktails, yes, too.

Anecdotally, I see this all the time, weekends, evenings on the subway, where to kids are carrying vodka-juice or whatever around to drink while on the go. The regular old Pils won't cut it for them, and if that's all they're being offered, which is either bad or bland beer, then I don't blame them for not wanting anything to do with it.
The only thing that will bring them back to beer, IMO, is a craft revolution similar to what happened in the USA. Now, Scott herrburgess, before you fly off the handle and rail at the U.S. beer-hipster scene, I seriously doubt Germany will go to the extremes Americans have gone to. Germans are too measured and reasonable. What happened in America will not replicate itself exactly in Germany, but I know... if the beer industry doesn't offer the a product with more authentic tastes, for Germany novel flavors like C-hops, it's doomed to shrink a lot more than it has already. That's my prediction, but like America, it will require education and time. Even if it's like Kürzer, putting an old beer style in a modern, less anachronistic setting, that's for Germany progress.

 

They would've had Jägermeister in earlier years. The real problem is that that disco probably has 62 kinds of Becks and no real beer. And why do they do that ? Because the owner of the disco makes more money that way and that is all that counts in that kind of business.

 

It's also much cheaper. We used to call this the "Preis-Rausch-Verhältniss" back when we mainly used to drink to get hammered cheap and quick.

 

Only met a brother and sister and Barnikel. Very nice peiople. The brother gave us a lift to another village to catch a bus.

 

Maybe so, but tastes change. They kids will put down the Mixery beers eventually and start looking for places to go that are a little quieter than the disco.

 

You say that like Jägermeister is bad or something.

 

I'm saying it was (and in some places is) a huge trend to drink that stuff.

 

Very cool term!
I still grew up mainly with beer, the Preis-Rausch-Verhältnis often made for cheap and industrial beers back in those days. And this despite two big factors: 1) the mixed beer-drinks were already on the rise, as well as some light and ice beers that were tried and failed by some breweries at that time. 2) I grew up in a traditional wine-region. But wine is nothing for teenagers, and it's too expensive.

I'm with MJT on this one. I think, most people (surely not all) won't drink Vodka-Red Bull and the likes forever. Lives change a lot, you get married, you settle down, you get children. Most people won't pour themselves a Vodka-Red Bull when they get home after their working day. Some will turn for wine, others for beer. But those who turn for beer will turn for the industrial crap first. The focus shouldn't be on if somebody drinks beer, but what beer does he drink.

 

I think it's unrealistic to predict a collapse of the German beer industry, I would think that it is heading for a contraction and even more consolidation, but that it will stabilize at a level where it is in harmony with the new market conditions (people drinking less beer, less often, on average). Beer industries in other countries exist despite a per capita consumption which is considerably lower than that of Germany, only there's alot fewer breweries to serve the market. With consolidations, brewery closures and brands being discontinued, I don't see why some of the brewery groups couldn't survive in their current size, and still be profitable, in a smaller market.

Of course, this would not be a scenario which would appeal to people on this forum, but I offer this up as a counterargument to the idea that German beer is headed for the scrapheap of history due to (currently) flailing demand.

 

If you want some tough German pronunciation, check out