Trip Report: Berlin

I'm not buying it. As much as Stahl hates the big city of Munich, I'm just happy as can be sitting at the Hirschau drinking local Spaten beer as I know I would be sitting in Regensburg or Heidelberg drinking the local brew. Maybe you've just become complacent about beer -- even good stuff is tasting mundane.

For gosh sake - don't try any US macro brew these days! It's bound to hospitalize you! Hell, I think it would me too!

 

And why would you want to, eh?

Notice I had said good, not great. To me, just about everything I had in Germany was good -- many were great, others were nectar. I just didn't find anything as awful as some of the swill you find over here.

Thankfully, choices have changed for the better over here, but I still hold a warm spot in my heart for the beer culture that Germany has nurtured.

 

How did I end up in this discuission ?!?

And while I'm on record, I don't really hate München, I just hate when they are passed off as the epicenter of Bavarian beer culture when in fact München has been dominated by industrial conglomerates for decades. The Oktoberfest is nothing else than a beer-themed amusement park and how anyone on a serious discussion board can mistake it for anything else than a flashy tourist trap is completely beyond me.

I know most of you are secretly agreeing with me, you just go anyways because to a non Bavarian a beer themed amusement park is still kinda unique and awesome while to me all this cuts way too close to bone and I get all zealous about it

 

Wait, so no one is addressing the "no beer in Paris" statement? Seriously. Brandon... Knock this guy around a bit please.

Man, I have had many many international travels... And been treated VERY well by BAs... Edinburgh, auckland, and Paris... Yes Paris. Cavee bulles is a great great shop in Paris... Sounds like you didn't get a chance to stop in. I'm sure brandon will chime in here... As he is the American beer geek in Paris... Sorry you missed him. He makes Paris worth while with regards to beer. But saying there is nothing there is insulting.

 

I don't think anyone said you couldn't, but let me put it another way -- I'm not visiting San Diego or Portland, OR and asking for a Goose Island at the bar. Just my way of experiencing beer at its source, is all.

In fact, I did it in Penn with Yuengling. Wasn't happy about it, but I did it.

 

LOL! Nooo, that isn't hate.

For all of the fun-poking back and forth, just seeing Regensburg in film and pictures, hearing your praise of the breweries, and just enjoying Germany in general, I'm sure I'd probably want to spend more time there than Munich myself. But Munich is still an old favorite of mine and probably always will be. It was my first stop on my first trip to Europe, the first foreign city I wandered on my own -- fond memories for me in the epicenter of Bavarian beer culture --

 

I think that's it in a nutshell. I also imagine it's probably difficult knowing that you can drive in any direction and find something different to try -- that would be my weekend plan every week!

 

Bummer you didn't have time for any beer while in Paris, you missed out...maybe next time! If you do plan on going back for a visit, let me know and I'd be happy to help point you in the right direction.

 

It would be great if someone set up a brewery in Munich and brewed a proper Salvator. Not like the Paulaner travesty.

Personally, I'd go for a big, thick, chewy 19th-century version.

 

Flüssiges Brot, as it was meant to be. Mmmmmmmmmmm....can I get some Leberkäse with that? And an Obatzta? And a Bretzl as big as my head?

 

Considering the property prices and the shallowness of big city folk you are much more likely to find that kind of thing out in the country. There's Bock in November and again in May and hardly any brewery let's that pass without a festival where they serve their own version.