Four more beers!

It’s been an inspiring few weeks for beer lovers. Whenever I’ve turned on the TV I don’t have (which, to be fair, wasn’t that often), read a newspaper or surfed the internet, I’ve been completely swamped by reports pouring in from a big country far, far away. The citizens of this country have, according to a Japanese news report I stumbled upon, just had a big erection. This sounds intriguing in its own right, but what I found even more interesting was images of crowds tens of thousands strong chanting “four more beers” whilst waving posters with logos for what I presume must have been various local breweries. I find such footage very stirring, and in my emotionally hoisted state I found myself drawn to my fridge. The rest is, as they say, a history I intend to share with anyone who can be bothered to read on.

Note that even the beer glass is right

The first beer I could lay my grubby mitts on was a fairly local one, in fact one that a colleague of my wife very kindly gave me a few weeks ago: a “Schwarzes Wäldle” brewed by Lammbrauerei from Weilheim, a small village tucked away behind some other equally obscure villages in the south-west of Germany. According to the Internet, this village has, together with its neighbouring village of Rietheim, a grand total of 2637 inhabitants – and one brewery making about 800,000 litres of beer per year. This corresponds to about one litre of beer per day per inhabitant, which sounds about right. I have tried both the pilsner and the “Schwarzes” (black beer, though it's not that black as you can see from the picture above) from this brewery, and in keeping with the output from almost all such small breweries around Germany, the beers are very good without being truly memorable.

A couple of weeks earlier, my wife and I decided to celebrate the unexpected arrival of winter by running a race in southern Bavaria, not far from Munich. After pounding through about 7km of mud with the snow whipping around our whiskers, it was a great relief to discover that the neighbouring hamlet, which boasted a total of 23 houses, had a very nice little brewery called Rössle-Bräu, with a pub attached. Therefore, after collecting a terrific toothbrush as the race prize, we made a beeline for the bar and begged for beer. The lady behind the bar obligingly started to pour me one, but then thoughtfully decided to change the barrel, which meant that I had the privilege, for the first time in my life, to drink the very first beer drawn from a completely fresh cask brewed less than 20 metres away from where I was sitting. Needless to say, this was a special occasion, and the beer did not disappoint: like all good Bavarian house beers it was copper-coloured, malty and beautifully balanced on the palate.

A copper-coloured blogger and ditto beer

The next day brought the opportunity to visit another two local breweries. First up was the Lövenbräu in Bad Wörishofen, a little spa town close, but not too close, to the motorway that goes through Germany. The brewery was classic Bavarian, essentially a brewpub except that unlike its many modern counterparts it’s been brewing for more than 100 years, serving the local population with tasty brews throughout this turbulent time in European history. I had the Export, which again was wonderfully fresh and malty even though it was just after 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Finally, we made a brief stop at the Storchenbräu in Pfaffenhausen, which is situated conveniently a little further from the motorway. Sadly, the brewery pub had closed there, so we had to find the nearest outlet that served their beer, which was a whopping 120 metres away. They actually had a very good black beer, which I tried, but since I’ve forgotten what was nice about it I shan’t try to describe its lovely roasted coffee and dark chocolate notes.

No prizes for guessing what "storch" means

All in all, these four breweries illustrate very nicely what makes Germany such a great country to drink in. Most breweries are small, traditional, family-owned enterprises that serve up very good beer for the local population, and are happy to just do what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years without desperately needing to expand to foreign markets or employ fancy marketing tricks to appeal to new customer groups. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for innovation and new ideas when it comes to beer, but to balance this out it’s also great to have these old breweries where the only change happens every 30 years or so when the next generation takes over.

Anyway, I just heard someone say “oh bummer” on the radio, so perhaps this erection is finally over. Someone mentioned that it’s been the longest and most expensive one in history, so I hope it was worth it. Speaking for myself, the beers I had were certainly worth their malt and my time, and I look forward to yet another four more beers very soon. In the meantime, drink smart and have fun!

Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit!

In my last blog post, I had a little go at the lack of German beer culture and the fact that whilst most people may regard the Oktoberfest in Munich as a beer festival, this is exactly what it emphatically is not. It is a festival of fun and drunkenness fuelled by beer, as I experienced myself last week together with three of my best friends from Norway. Since I survided to tell the tale, even if I can't remember all of it, I will try to give you an impression of what it was like to drink part in the mayhem.

Although the Oktoberfest in Munich has spawned countless copycat events around the world, the original remains by far the biggest, the maddest and the most frustrating/fun party in the world. The festival area, known locally as the “Wies’n”, is massive and so are the 15 or so festival “tents”, each of which can keep several thousand drinkers dry, warm and lubricated. Arriving on the Saturday when the event opened, we were immediately struck by two things: rain, and the overwhelming number of people trying to get into one of these tents. There where queues everywhere, though none of them seemed to lead anywhere, at least not somewhere dry, warm and beery. In the end, all four of us tried to find some shelter under a disintegrating umbrella and a piece of wood, and before anyone could say “brrrr” a waiter came over and offered us a litre glass of ice-cold beer each, as long as we were prepared to fork out almost 10 euros for each of them – ridiculously expensive by German standards, but still a bargain seen with our blue-ish Norwegian eyes. Any sensible person would have left the area and headed for an uncrowded and cozy bar somewhere else, but the Oktoberfest is not the place for such clever thoughts so we gratefully accepted and started drinking.

The entrance to the Wies'n

This was hardly an auspicious start to the fun, so things could only improve. Unfortunately, they didn’t. We had another litre, got lost, lost each other, discovered that mobile phones don't necessarily work all the time, accidentally found each other again, drank too many wheat beers whilst still being rained on and, finally, gave up and left. At no point did we even get a sniff of being inside one of these hallowed tents. Rejected and wet, we cursed in several languages and headed for the suburbs where we successfully located both our hotel and a nice brewery.

We hadn’t travelled for hundreds and thousands of kilometres to give up so easily, though, so the next day we turned up bright and early at 10am, expecting to yet again be rejected at the door. However, to our immense surprise we found that not only were we allowed in, we also found a table without any problems. With such startling early success, we decided to simply settle down for the day – and finally, the spirit of the Oktoberfest descended upon us. One litre was magically replaced by another as soon as it had mysteriously disappeared, we were joined by one jolly crowd of people after another, we made several sets of lifelong friends that were immediately forgotten when they left, and in the end we got thrown out for tipping the waitress too much. Well, that’s the only thing we could remember doing wrong, anyway.

Opening parade - with one of the "tents" in the background

The tent we were in was the amusingly fish-themed tent known as “Fischer Vroni”, and the beer we enjoyed was from the only remaining independent, privately owned brewery in Munich, namely Augustiner. The beer was good, both in terms of taste and in terms of generating Gemütlichkeit – a German word that encapsulates nicely the feeling of immense happiness combined with an urge to sing jolly songs in German and dance on the benches together with a few thousand newly found friends of all ages. Generally, Oktoberfest beer is quite strong – just shy of 6% is the norm –and quite malty. Naturally, the breweries put emphasis on drinkability, so the taste isn’t exactly memorable, but it certainly isn’t bland either.

Now having been to the Oktoberfest twice, I consider myself somewhat of a veteran. I will therefore issue the following survival tips. First and foremost, do not bother turning up on the opening day of the festival unless you have tremendous amounts of luck or a very cunning plan indeed. Instead, aim for a weekday or at least a Sunday, and get there early – unless you prefer rollercoasters to beer, it is best to be inside one of the tents. Once at a table, have a beer or five, sing along even if you don’t know the songs and make some friends. You won’t regret it, at least not until you try to leave and find that your muscles for some strange reason don’t work the way they usually do anymore. In fact, it is not a bad idea to leave a bit before closing time anyway, since the crowds tend to thin out a bit towards the end, leaving only those who are too drunk to realize that they should have left long ago.

In conclusion – unless you hate beer or people or both, you should probably try the Oktoberfest at least once. I realize it’s not everyone’s pint of beer, but one of the lasting impressions is just how many different nationalities and age groups find their way to this event. It is not unusual to see young people drinking beer with their grandparents, or Japanese tourists dancing on the benches with Australians whilst singing German drinking songs. So head for Munich, it’s still a few days left of this year’s festival and just over 50 weeks until the next one. Have a great time!

What beer culture?

Last night I went to a party here in Germany where most of the people were around 30 years old, in other words a year or two younger than I am. It was great fun – everyone was eating, drinking, chatting and dancing and the mood was relaxed and friendly. All in all very civilised, except for one thing: the beer selection.

It is quite common for the person hosting a party in Germany to also provide drinks – typically wine, a bit of bubbly, beer and various soft drinks. The worrying thing is that young Germans, despite being brought up with some of the best beer and greatest beer traditions in the world, seem to regard beer as just ordinary plonk, to be bought in bulk and required only to taste as little or as awful as possible. Quite often, the beer of choice is Beck’s, a beer which originates from Bremen in the far north of Germany, but which nowadays is owned by the world’s biggest brewing behemoth, namely AB InBev, or whatever they’re called this month after the latest round of mergers and acquisitions.

Beck’s is well-known for its pilsner, which is sold worldwide in small green bottles at ridiculous prices, but in Germany Beck’s also sells numerous other beer concoctions, including Beck’s Gold which is Germany’s attempt to emulate the tasteless big-selling brands from the USA, and some diabolical mixtures such as Beck’s Lime. The latter tastes so awful I wouldn’t even want to flush it down my toilet, since I think my toilet deserves better.

This saddens me a little bit. Germans are very conscious about environmental issues, and are in general a very illuminated lot who ought to know better. There are approximately 834 breweries in Germany that are closer to Konstanz than Beck’s, and although not all of these beers can easily be bought at the local supermarket, there are a few good local ones that are readily available. Why, then, is Beck’s so bloody popular down here in the south despite having travelled the best part of 1000km to get here?

I think the answer is twofold: first, there’s the ever-important marketing aspect and second, there’s the fact that despite Germany’s strong beer traditions there’s a distinct lack of beer culture, at least in this particular part of Germany. Beer remains an integral part of daily life here, but it’s a bit like a staple such as milk or bread – you buy a crate of beers which taste like beer and you drink it without thinking much about its taste and aroma, nor its heritage or whether it comes from a local family-run brewery or a big industrial plant outside Düsseldorf.

A typical local brewery making excellent beers

This is also reflected in the fact that Germany has a strange lack of beer festivals and associations that concern themselves with the preservation of beer traditions and styles. In Britain, for example, there’s the national CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) group with more than 130,000 members which has been phenomenally successful in first saving and then steadily increasing the popularity of the traditional British ales. CAMRA also runs the Great British Beer Festival as well as hundreds of local beer festivals where the focus is to showcase the range and variety of British beer on a local and national level. Germany, on the other hand, has the Octoberfest – certainly the most famous and biggest event in the world that is associated with beer. However, the focus is not the beer itself, but the drinking of it whilst slapping your thighs and singing drunken songs together with about five thousand other people in an enormous tent. In fact, only the six big traditional Munich breweries (three of which have merged anyway) are allowed to sell their beer at the festival, and they all taste more or less the same. It can be great fun to take part in this, but it is not a beer festival.

So what’s the conclusion? Germans are, I think, a little complacent. They still have a phenomenal variety of interesting beers and some of the best breweries in the world, but my impression is that this is just taken for granted. Meanwhile, many medium-sized local breweries that for centuries have served their local villages, towns and cities are giving up because of increasing costs and decreasing sales – not least, I think, because young Germans buy the trendy beer brands with added lime or grapefruit rather than the boring, local beers that their parents used to buy before they started drinking wine instead.

Founded in 1793, the Hirschenbrauerei serves just one tiny village, but for how long?

There is hope, though. Just like elsewhere in the world, new micro-breweries are opening up and starting to brew tasty and interesting beers, some even trying to resuscitate or improve traditional recipes. Sadly, there are none of these near me yet, so until one opens (or I open one myself) I will seek out the best local beers and bring them with me to parties, even if other people think I’m the biggest weirdo south of the Rhine for doing so. Well, I’m Norwegian, I’m weird, and I don’t care. At least I can enjoy a beer full of flavour and aroma, and perhaps even spark some interest amongst the other partygoers who notice my pleasurable slurps and  accompanying smile while they try to force down some god-awful mixture of beer, gunk and cauliflower invented by the marketing people in Bremen.

That’s it for now. Until next time, drink the local stuff. It might be good. Prost!

Hupp hupp hurrah! The beer blogger is bock!

Germany is a great place to drink beer. First, there’s an insane number of breweries to try, second, the beer is really cheap and third, the beer is really good. However, the level of insanity reaches really crazy proportions when you go to Bavaria. There, the number of breweries per square inch is higher than anywhere in the world, the beer is cheaper and it’s also even better than in the rest of Germany. Then, just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, you may be lucky enough to stumble upon this slightly obscure part of Bavaria called Franconia. Yes, you guessed it – the density of breweries gets even higher, the beer gets even better and the prices, for some bizarre reason, are so low that you feel dizzy. Put simply, it’s the beer drinker’s heaven on Earth.

Centred on the beautiful city of Bamberg, itself sporting no less than 9 breweries that work tirelessly to quench the thirst of the 70,000 or so inhabitants, the region has more than 200 breweries that invariably brew really high quality beer. Add this to the fact that the region is very picturesque and easy to get around on the beer lover’s best mode of transport, namely the bike, and you have a great recipe for a very long holiday.

Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to go there for several years now, so I was extremely grateful when a friend and loyal follower of this blog did the second best thing to bringing me to Franconia  – he brought Franconia to me. In fact, he brought back 4 lovely bottles from the Huppendorfer brewery in Huppendorf, a village so small it could fit comfortably onto a beer mat.

A huppy pils

To stretch the enjoyment, I have been drinking the beers one at the time, and I shall follow this strategy of enjoyment prolongation by reporting on them one at the time. First out was the Pils. This is a beer the Germans seldom get spectacularly wrong (unlike most of the rest of the world), but conversely it’s also one that is seldom very memorable. I was therefore not surprised, but nevertheless strangely pleased, to find that this beer was good, but not fantastic. It had a decent amount of hop character, a good balance and contained plenty of refreshment. In summary, a promising start.

A fantastic vollbier

Next out was the Vollbier. Now those who have experienced Franconia will nod knowingly at this point, because the Vollbier is in many ways the region’s specialty. It’s a medium dark and quite malty, and beautifully balanced with the hops to create a beer that satisfies every conceivable organ in your body and probably a few you didn’t even know existed. It’s not a beer I want to drink all the time, but whenever I get one it leaves me with exactly the same feeling I imagine art lovers get when they visit Florence for the first time.

A zippy zwickl

Then it was time for the Zwickl. For those unfamiliar with this style, it’s normally an unfiltered beer that is otherwise not dissimilar to a pils or a helles. I like Zwickl quite a lot for the same reason I like to throw herbs and spices into all the food I cook – it’s tasty. The unfilteredness of the beer means that a lot of taste, which the world’s big brewers spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of, gets left in the beer and it ends up tasting the opposite of bland, which is dnalb. So, basically a bit like the Pils but with more hoppy spiciness on the palate.

The fourth beer is the Weizen, which I’m saving for a sunny day. So perhaps I’ll report on that another time. For now, I am just pleased to have managed to write another blog entry, Google knows that I haven’t been doing much of that lately. I’ve got loads of ideas for new posts though, so watch this space. Meanwhile, why don’t you plan your next 3-4 summer holidays by checking out the relevant web resources for Franconia. Bamberg is a great place to start, and should be on the itinerary of any person vaguely interested in enjoying the world’s favourite drink. Then you can rent a bike and go bumming around the countryside to marvel at all the lovely barley ripening in the balmy summer wind, and whenever you come across a village that you’ve never heard of, chances are that there will be a tiny little brewery with a nice beer garden outside where you can quench your thirst whilst you think how good life is and how unbelievably more complicated this sentence would be if you had to stick the verb at the end, like Germans do. Well, nobody’s perfect.

I'm still drinking!

Dear beer fans,

This blog's been a bit silent of late. I apologize. I can assure you that it's just because I've been lazy - I have not stopped drinking my way through the world's great and not-so-great beers.

Since last time I wrote I've been skiing and to Japan, though sadly not simultaneously. I've already drafted a magnificent blog post about the beer scene in Japan, so I won't spill any beans about that.

Instead, I'll write some words about the beer I'm drinking at this very moment. It's a Polish beer which one of my local friends here (who happens to be Polish) gave me, and it's not bad. In fact, it's very drinkable indeed, especially accompanied by a pizza and the thirst generated by a long run. The beer is called "Zubr". Polish is an interesting language. Unlike the Russians, they use the familiar Latin alphabet, but they seem to have developed a strange love for weird consonant combinations such as "zcz" as in the city "Szczecin". This part of Poland used to be German until WW2 and called "Stettin". I appreciate that Polish is an entirely different language to German, but I still suspect that the Poles decided to name this city the way they did just to get some cheap laughs from the foreigners trying to pronounce it.

Back to the main issue, which that I'm sitting here drinking a bottle of Zubr. This beer is slightly darker than the normal "pilsner" style, and the taste is quite malty. Apparently, it stems from the city of Bialystok, though the letter L has a strange line through it which I'm reliably informed should be pronounced "aarrgghh", though I'm not quite sure if I trust this information 100%. The label at the back has some additional nuggets of information such as "Najwiekszy w stadzie Zubr" which clearly means "make sure you fridge is full of Zubr". Well, you could do worse.

Two empty Polish beer bottles

My Polish friend gave me another beer too, called "Tatra" (now there's a tip - if you're planning to give me a beer, why not give me a couple, and you'll get twice the number of mentions in this famous blog?). Tatra is actually a mountain chain which forms the natural boundary between Poland and Slovakia, though the beer itself is brewed by one of the biggest brewery conglomerates in Poland, namely Zywiec - which again is owned by our (surprise, surprise) Dutch friends at Heineken. This beer was also quite good, a touch less malty than the Zubr if I remember correctly, but nevertheless very drinkable. In fact, both beers clock in at a respectable 6% alcohol by volume, and they also arrive in very satisfying 650ml bottles, so a couple of these should set you up nicely for the evening (unless you're planning to drive anywhere).

Poland is apparently Europe's 3rd biggest beer producer after Germany and Britain, and there are about 70 breweries dotted around the country. Compared to Germany this isn't impressive, but overall it's not bad. I've tried around 20 different Polish beers over the years, and they tend to be quite safe - seldom very memorable for good or bad reasons, but often refreshing and quite tasty. In conclusion: Poland is a very interesting country with a history nobody is envious of - it has been erased off the map, resurrected, had its population decimated by war and had its borders shifted repeatedly westwards - and the beer scene is pretty decent though not quite up there with the great beer nations of Europe.

Well, that's it for today. Tomorrow I'm off to Austria for a week's skiing, which inevitably means "sampling" a few hectolitres of beers whilst jumping up and down together with 997 other crazy people listening to the exact same apres-ski music selection we've heard the last 10 years. It'll be tremendous fun. If I remember anything afterwards I may write a blog post about it. Auf widerskien!

Beery Christmas and a hoppy new year!

The Christmas holiday, or the festive season or whatever you like to call it, is a great time of year to knock back an extra malty beverage or two, especially if you are in Norway and have deep pockets. For it is in Norway, folks, that I have just spent a couple of weeks to celebrate with the family, and it is also Norway which happens to be the country on Earth with arguably the greatest Christmas beer traditions and the best Christmas beer. Politicians in Norway have, of course, done their best to eradicate this, and they very nearly succeeded. They raised the beer taxes for the 6.5% alcohol content, at which traditional Christmas beers are brewed, to a level which means that it is now about six times more expensive than petrol even though beer is much better for the environment. Then, to add insult to injury, they forced these beers out of normal shops and into the state-controlled “Vinmonopolet” (which translates as “the wine monopoly”), where such beers are normally allocated shelf space in a rarely-visited and dusty corner behind thousands of fine wines from all over the world.

A selection of Norway's fine Christmas beers

I am very happy to report that despite this, the Norwegian people still love their Christmas beers, known as “juleøl” in the native language, and flock to the wine monopoly to buy them before they sell out, which usually happens well before Christmas. All breweries have at least one juleøl on offer, and some have several. The major newspapers invite national or local celebrities to tasting competitions in late November, and the results, which in Norway for some unfathomable reason are communicated using what most people associate with total randomness, namely the roll of a die, are published with considerable fanfare. A beer which gets a six on the die has been judged to be excellent, and one which gets a one is terrible. Needless to say, the beers that sell out first tend to be the ones that have rolled sixes, regardless of whether this is because of knowledgeable judges or complete chance.

The taster glass

A few years ago I decided that I was old and rich enough to host my very own Christmas beer competition. I invited a few friends, bought a bunch of beer, and off we drank. This was excellent fun, so it immediately became a tradition, and a couple of weeks ago we were gathered again for the 5^th time. It is a blind taste, so we taste one at a time, which we rate between 1 and 10, and we also try to guess which beer it actually is from the list of the ones that participate. The winning contestant is the one who gets the most beers right, whereas the winning beer is the one that gets the highest compound score.

Of course, this taking place in Drammen, there’s a considerable element of patriotism towards our local Aass Brewery, and despite the fact that we don’t know which beer is which, we usually manage to secure a first place for a beer from Aass. Additionally, since I like to think that I know more than most people about beer, I also sharpen my taste buds enough to secure a victory for myself. Sadly, both of these traditions were to be broken this year.

We had ten different beers on offer, nine of which were Norwegian and one which was a Christmas beer from my local Ruppaner brewery here in Konstanz, Germany. The winning beer was the Ringnes Julebokk, which at 9% is actually stronger than what is traditional, but it sure was delicious, packed with Christmas flavours such as presents, trees and nuts. A very close second was the equally delicious Aass Premium Juleøl, packed with similar flavours though perhaps slightly less expensive presents. Dead last came the beer from Germany – it tasted like a slightly malty version of an ordinary pilsner, and the panel agreed that – for once – the Germans were barking up the wrong Christmas tree. The biggest shock, however, was the winner of the beer-identification competition: not me. One of my friends actually managed to correctly identify all ten beers, whereas I could only get eight. I blame lack of training on my part, and next year I will invest in much more training time, perhaps a month or so at some high-altitude brewery.

The sheet for tasting notes, etc.

All in all, I was mightily impressed with the choice and quality on offer in Norway this year. I drank an Aass Premium instead of red wine with a superb grilled steak on New Year’s Eve, and I think it was a much better pairing. Why wine is almost always preferred with fine food is beyond me – surely, at least in a country like Norway where wine has to travel thousands of kilometres and beer is brewed around the corner, it makes sense to at least try beer, especially the delicious varieties available at Christmas time.

Well, I’ll round off this post by wishing everyone a very prosperous 2012, and let’s make sure that we raise our glasses at all available opportunities to toast whatever makes us happy and to wish everyone, including the people we don’t like that much, a happy new beer.