I just spent the last week in Germany visiting my Parents. On the way to
Germany I scheduled a 12hr lay-over in Munich. I learned that a long lay-over
can be a great way to add yet another destination to a trip w/o much added
cost when I had a forced lay-over in Amsterdam a few years back:
It started out with landing in Munich on time (9 AM) and not having to
wait at the boarder control. Then I headed to Munich center to have a
Weissbier breakfast with white sausages at the Weisse Brauhaus. This
was a suggestion from folks at hobbybrauer.de. And I was glad that I
followed it.
Weisses Brauhaus is the official Brauhaus for Schneider Weisse. I
started out with a pair of white sausages, a glass of Schneider Weisse
and some Brez’n. If you don’t know white sausage, they are a Bavarian
specialty, boiled and eaten with sweet mustard. You don’t want to know
what is in them. Even I don’t want to know. As I’m ready to leave I
had to have a look at the menu. There I found Hopfenweisse, a 8.6 %
Weizendoppelbock with an aroma of lemons. And yes, it was an American
IPA done as a German Wheat. And I thought all German brewers are
traditionalists. The beer didn’t have the assertive bitterness of an
actual AIPA or the clove and fruit notes of a Weissbier. But it had
the full favor and aroma of American hops balanced buy lots of alcohol
and some sweetness. I learned later that this was the result of a
collaboration between Schneider and the Brooklyn Brewery.
So I decided to stay and have another pair of Weisswurst and Brez’n.
Those two beers set the mood of the day.
Next was finding an open wi-fi network. Apparently Germans don’t like
to leave their networks open (they are sold as password potected networks
by default). And the only place I could find was the Apple Store. At least I
found something.
Now I had a few hours to kill before the Paulaner Brewery tour. I
decided to kill them at the Deutsches Museum (German Museum). This is
a museum dedicated to technology. Unfortunately they don’t have a section
about brewing technology.
Then the Paulaner Tour. There were also 3 Americans for which I ended
up playing translator and tour guide. I did this tour before, so I knew what
to say. Later at the tasting, the beer was delicious and surprisingly close
to my own attempts at the respective styles. The only problem was that
the tour guide, a retired Paulaner brewer, was not able to eat with us
and I wasn’t able to chat him up about brewing.
Then back back to the airport to catch my flight to Leipzig.
Given that my body was still at Boston time, I wasn’t tired anymore at that
time
Kai
