Trip Report: Berlin

I just got back from a Paris/Berlin sightseeing two-step with some visiting family and didn't really focus on the beers (no beer at all in Paris). But nevertheless (aber trotzdem!), here is the report:

Bottled Beers: We stayed in an apartment which provided us the opportunity to refrigerate. We arrived late on a Saturday afternoon, though, and anyone who has spent any time in Germany knows that beverage stores close early on Saturday and stay closed until Monday. We were only there until Tuesday, but undaunted I ran into a Getränke Hoffman around 9:30-ish Monday morning and grabbed some things I don't see in Heidelberg...Tegernseer Spezial Helles, Bayreuther Helles, and Hofbräu's Sommer/Kellerbier. The Tegernseer was (to my tastes) pretty delicious. The apartment only had wheat beer glasses or Berliner Weisse glasses, so I drank it straight from the bottle. I wish I saw this one in Heidelberg, I'd definitely buy it again. Hofbräu's Kellerbier got the straight-from-the-bottle treatment as well, and I enjoyed that one, too. I'm a fan of the style, and normally of the brand as well. The Bayreuther Helles got packed into my suitcase for the trip home and is re-refrigerating as we speak. I also picked up a pack of Berliner Kindl Rot for the Frau and her sister, and I joined them for one. Extremely refreshing for the very hot weather we were having. I wish it wasn't so sweet, because even a 330 ml bottle can be a little much for me.

Goin' Out: We met up with some friends at the Brauhaus Georgbräu in the Nikolai Viertel near the Alexanderplatz. Needless to say we had to get around some construction first to find the restaurant. The food was OK, nothing spectacular, and the beer was decent. A fresh helles can be hard to beat sometimes. Served on tap. I didn't try the dunkel, their only other offering. I also tried the Augustiner Am Gendarmenmarkt. They serve beer from the Holzfass, but only their Edelstoff (Export) and only after 6:00 pm. Why? Because who knows, that's why. Aside from this and the fact that we differ greatly on what the "oven fresh" part of "oven fresh pretzel" means, I guess I don't have much to say about the Augustiner. All other foodstuffs were of the Döner and/or Kebap variety.

Can You Tell Me...: I have learned to take everything I hear here with a grain of salt, but as I was in the Getränke Hoffman I asked if they had Spaten. I never see Spaten around Heidelberg, and this was brought to the forefront of my brain (such as it is) when the Oktoberfest beers started being released. The sales lady told me that they don't get any at her branch, but there's a Getränke Hoffman Superstore (paraphrasing) down the street somewhere that gets them and I should go there (I didn't. No time). As we were talking, the delivery guy stops to tell me that Spaten is hard to come by. So...Can You Tell Me...is this true? I don't see any reason why it would be, and yet I never see Spaten around Heidelberg, and places that carry every other Munich Giant brand do not carry Spaten. So something tells me he's right, I just don't have any idea why.

Anyway, thanks in advance re: the Great Spaten Question and thanks for reading!

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I think the Berliner Kindl counts! Seriously though, I just grabbed what I saw that I hadn't had before. I'm open to anything, that just happens to be what I grabbed. In thinking about it more, I did have a Markischer Landmann Schwarzbier at a restaurant outside of the Hackesher Markt (12 Apostles). It was a decent schwarzbier, although I admit I don't know where it is from.

What beers did you have in mind?

 

We do get Paulaner, Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, and Franziskaner on a regular basis. In fact, the whole reason this came up in the first place was that the Munich Oktoberfest beers became available at my local shop. But no Spaten. This is what got me asking about it in Berlin - just a shot in the dark that they'd have it there while we in Heidelberg don't get it (Augustiner's Dunkel, for example, is not available here but all over Berlin).

Addendum: I went to a different store in a neighboring town. I asked the guy if they had Spaten, and his first answer was "Zu weit weg" or "too far away". I pointed out all the other Munich beers and he shifted into high-level German, all of which I didn't understand. I asked him to repeat that and he again used a bunch of words I couldn't catch (outside of "Ober-Bayern"). The frustration search continues!

 

PS - do I really need to defend myself for searching out Bavarian beer anywhere? Really?

 

That's correct.

 

Seriously, I'm all for drinking the local goodness but my last trip to Berlin was not beer-focused as I was showing family around and they could care less about beer. I ran out quickly and just grabbed a handful of whatever I never see in Heidelberg bottle shops. Some of it happened to be Bavarian. The Augustiner restaurant was chosen because I wanted to give them at least a touristy "typical German" meal and that seemed to fit the bill. It was either there or the Weihenstephaner place in the Hackesher Markt, which I've been to twice.

The Spaten thing is just a quest I'm on since in the General Forum people (i.e., in America) seem to find it no problem and yet I never see it here. I have taken to asking for it anywhere I see the other Munich beers out of morbid curiosity.

Re: Heidelberg beer, the only good "local" beer is Rothaus, and they are really a Freiburg/Black Forest brew. We have Heidelberger and Welde, neither of which are great (imo). There is also Klosterhof and maybe one other one that I'm forgetting. Mostly, though, if you want to buy a good beer at the local place it's going to be Bavarian.