Hirschgarten - Munich

This cold, wintry weather here in New England is making think of sunnier times, sitting in a pleasant beer garden, and watching the world go by in total relaxation with not a care in the world.

There aren't many better places in the world to do just that than the Hirschgarten in Munich.  Aptly named since there is a deer park right next to the beer garden.  It's the biggest beer garden in Munich and by extension perhaps the biggest in the world.  It seats up to 8,000 people.  When we first arrived one sunny day in October it was fairly empty and you could barely see one end of it to the other.  It's that big.  But early afternoon there had to be a couple of thousand people there at least.  You can go self serve and fetch your own liter mug out of a closet and rinse it yourself before purchasing beer at a stand or sit near the main building and have waiter service.  They've got Augustiner Helles out of the barrel as well as other Augustiner beers and beers from Tegernsee.  The food is excellent.  I had a really nice pumpkin soup and some kind of radish plate.  But mainly it was just a really relaxing day.  As good a vacation day as I can ask for.

http://www.hirschgarten.com/

This picture was taking early afternoon when the place filled quite a bit.  There is a large beer and food stand to the right.

We sat near the main building.  It looked quite nice inside.  Serves as a good restaurant and beer hall when the weather is not so good.

Ingmar trying to decide what to eat.  Two beautiful liters of Bavarian Helles bier on the table.

The Great Dorff was pleased!  My wife loves a good Helles bier.

I can't wait to spend a lazy afternoon in the Hirschgarten again!

Uerige - Dusseldorf Altstadt

I would say my second favorite place in the world to drink beer, after Bamberg of course, is the Dusseldorf Altstadt where one can enjoy one of the world's greatest pub crawls.  In the Altstadt are four old and traditional brewpubs brewing and serving the beer that Dusseldorf is known for.  Altbier.  Altbier is and old style (hence the Alt) and is a top fermented lager.  In other words it's a beer that is made with the top fermented yeast but unlike ales the beer is lagered.

My favorite brewery of the lot is Uerige http://www.uerige.de/en/start/.  The Uerige Altbier I think is the hoppiest of the the four but its the sort of hoppiness that makes the beer lively and very drinkable as opposed to overly bitter. 

Both times I've been were in July and most of the drinking was done outside.  I popped inside only to take pictures of the oak barrels they were pouring the beer from.  This too is done the traditional way.  Gravity poured from the barrel. 

Uerige is a great place to stand outside and people watch.  The Dusseldorf Altstadt is party central and the Uerige brewpub is right in the mix. 

The Uerige sign at the front entrance:

Ingmar, Severin, and Dave hanging around outside Uerige enjoying the Altbier and the scenery.

Just a photo inside of the oak barrels and the  blue-clad Köbes that serve the beer.  You don't have to work to get a beer at this place.  Just stand there and one of these guys will bring it to you and won't stop until you cover your glass with a coaster.

Scottish Ale and CCLAMS

Today's blot post is totally homebrewing related.  A couple of things happening this week.  Firstly racked a Scottish Ale to the secondary carboy on Tuesday.  I guess you'd call it a 80 or 90 Schilling Scottish Ale.  It's just a notch below what would be consider the heavier Scotch Ale (as opposed to Scottish Ale).  I used:

10lbs of Simpson's Golden Promise Barley malt (a Barley variety grown in Scotland)
2 ounces of Roasted Barley to give it a little color
Fuggles hops - 1 oz at 60 minute and 1 oz at 30 minutes
Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast.

Simple yet tastes good and has a nice somewhat sweet malty flavor to it with a hint of peat character.

Should be ready to pop in the kegerator in about 2-3 weeks.

On a more interesting note, I finally attended the local homebrew club's montly meeting for the first time last night.  The club is called CCLAMS (Cape Cod Lager and Ale Makers).  The word Brewer would have been better but CCLAMS sounds more Cape Coddish than CCLABS so there it is.

I wasn't really sure what to expect out of it.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I figured it would be a small crowd of maybe 10 people max and kind of quiet discussion type of gather.  I was wrong,  It was more like 25 and it was a really good time.  The meetings are held on the shop floor of the Cape Cod Beer brewery.  I think this makes an ideal setting for homebrew club meetings.  Let's face nothing gets you into the mood like having big 30 barrel fermentors in the background. 

I give major kudos to the owners of Cape Cod Beer for letting a local homebrew club use it's facility for their meetings.  First of all it is pretty damn good foresight to realize these people are not just homebrewers they are some of your best and most loyal customers.  Secondly it's just a really cool thing to do. 

So basically it was just a good sized group of local Cape Codders and a couple of people from Plymouth just hanging around swapping home brews, talking beer, having some dinner, and tasting samples that people brought.  Some of the beers were really good.  There were quite a few brewers there that have been doing longer than I have and all grain brew and keg their beers like me.  It was a good mix.  Young and old and in between.  Veteran brewers, new brewers, and even a new guy that has yet to brew a batch.  In addition to the monthly hangout at the brewery they do occasional competitions and brew days as well.  I look forward to going in February.  Well I can't miss it since I volunteered to help provide dinner (what a maroon I am!).

Irseer Klosterbrau

Here is a place I had been wanting to check out for a few years and finally did in October.  On our trip to Italy we used Munich as our base to fly in and out of.  We took the train south into Italy but getting back was a different story.  Best option I found was a Ryanair flight from Pisa back to the Allgau Airport just outside of Memmingen.  Problem is it is about 1.5 hours away from the Munich Airport and the flight didn't arrive until 5:30pm (actually 6:30pm since there was a 1 hour delay thanks to the air traffic controller strike in France). 

So I thought the best plan of action would be to stay somewhere in the Allgau region near the Memmingen airport and drive to the Munich airport in the morning.  This presented the perfect opportunity to visit and stay at Irseer Klosterbrau:

http://www.irsee.com/

The place is a former monestary/brauerei that has been converted into a brewpub, inn, brewing museum, and conference center.  The place clearly has had a lot of money invested in it.  While it is a fairly modern accomodation it has a very traditional and cozy look and feel to it. 

It's too bad it was dark when we made the 45 minute drive because a good part of it was through lovely Bavarian countryside and it seems there is really nothing in Irsee except for this complex.  We were really feeling rundown from our trip and the crappy Ryanair flight with delays from Pisa.  So what we needed was good food, good beer, a shower, and a comfortable place to stay.  This place fit the bill perfectly.  Similar to many Brauerei Gasthofe establishments in Bavaria there is lots and lots of wood, plenty of tables to sit at, a warm fire, good beer on tap, and piles of comfort food to enjoy.  Best shower I've seen at a hotel as well.  Big shower head mounted in the ceiling and a monsoon for water pressure. 

Okay enough of the minor, unimportant details.  What about the beer?  I'm not going to say it was the best I've ever had but it was easily up to the standards I expect for that part of the world.  They've got a Helles, Dunkel, and a Starkbier (Starkbier means strong beer for those wondering).  I tried all of the above but especially liked the Starkbier which I had a few of and helped put me to sleep.  Dorff liked the Helles of course.

I didn't take any pictures of the inside but here are a couple from the outside before we left for the airport.