The alcoholic drink of choice in Germany is beer. That probably comes as no surprise, since even in North America people are familiar with the idea of German Oktoberfest, a festival centered around drinking copious quantities of beer.  So I want to talk  a bit about beer today. But I am definitely not a connoisseur by any means. Indeed, I will confess that I’m not a huge beer fan in general, really.

However, for someone like me who doesn’t typically order a beer if there’s a reasonably good alternative available, I must say that beers here in Germany are truly very good. They are extremely flavourful and satisfying, not at all like an American Budweiser beer, for example which I have never liked.

BTW, years ago I wrote about the Czech Budweiser beer, which a totally different drink from the American variety by the same name. When I wrote that post, Chris and I had not yet had the opportunity to try the Czech one. We did finally find it in a restaurant in Bolzano, however, and so had a chance to sample it. it turned out to be really good – and one we ordered frequently, well at least on the rare occasions we didn’t order wine in Italy.  I’d say that German beers on the whole tend to be just as good, and maybe in some cases even a bit better, even to me.

One thing that’s interesting about the way German beers are sold in bars and restaurants is that the beer companies will have exclusive contracts with places that serve their beer. A restaurant owner in Munich once explained to us that the contract with the beer company was with the building, not with the restaurant that was in the building. So, if a restaurant went out of business and then a new restaurant went in the same space, the new restaurant was contractually obligated to carry the same kind of beer. Regardless of the type of restaurant. This was explained to us by a guy who was trying to make a go of it with a restaurant serving African food. The German beer didn’t really go well with the food, but he was obligated to sell a quota of that beer to fulfil the beer company contract that was forced on him by renting the restaurant space. If he didn’t sell enough beer, he had to pay out of his pocket to make up the difference for what he owed the company each month. Interesting system. I don’t know if there’s anything like that with beverage companies in the U.S., although it has always struck me that restaurants typically either carry either PepsiCo products, or Coca-cola products, but not both. I’ve always assumed that was in their contracts, and not a personal decision by the restaurant owner.

Anyway, here in Tübingen, as around the rest of Germany, restaurants tend to carry mostly beers by one company, at least for the stuff on tap. I tend not to pay attention to the brands of beers I’m drinking as a result, since it’s not like you have a choice of beer companies to choose from in any one restaurant. Instead, what you choose is what style of beer you want to drink.

If I’m having a beer, I’ll typically choose a drink I’ve never seen offered in other countries: a Hefeweizen dunkel, a “dark wheat beer”. Now, a regular Hefeweizen is a typical beer carried in many places in the U.S. beer. The name translates as “wheat beer”, and it usually lighter in color than a regular beer. Plus, it is most often served with a slice of lemon.

A Hefeweizen dunkel, on the other hand, is dark beer, with a strong and heavy flavor. I like it a lot (well, as much as I like any beer). But you can’t often get it in the full range of smaller sizes that many beers on tap come in. You see, beers  in Germany, if they are on tap, are often available in 0.2L, 0.3L, or 0.5L liter glasses. That’s roughly the equivalent of 6 oz, 8 oz or 16 oz glasses of beer. The Hefeweizen dunkel is often only available in the 0.5L (16 oz, i.e. Pint) size. That’s a lot of beer for me, even if I do like the flavor of it.

BTW, you can also get a glass with a full 1 liter serving – that’s what all those barmaids in dirndls are typically clutching 3-to-a-hand and serving up in those photos from  Oktoberfest. Way too much beer for me, but Germans do really like and appreciate their beer, I guess.

That’s not to say, though, that Germans don’t sometimes do odd things with their beers. We saw an ad on TV last night for a bottled brew that’s a mix of tequila and beer. Yes, I know, people in the U.S. might drink a shot of tequila with a beer as a chaser, but this ad was for a drink where the two things are already mixed together in the bottle for your convenience. Seems odd to me.  But then, here in Germany they do  routinely offer several other beer combinations, too.

As an example, now that it’s hot out, when we go to a restaurant I will often order a refreshing sort-of lemony drink called a Radler. The word Radler in German means “cyclist”, and there’s a great — if apocryphal — story about the origin of the Radler drink. As the story goes, there was a huge group of people out cycling one summer, who got very thirsty, and they descended en masse on a small beer garden out in the countryside. Before they arrived, the beer garden owner had realized that he was probably going to be out of beer before the end of the day. So, when this group of bike riders showed up he was at first overjoyed at all the customers. But, he didn’t really have beer enough to go around to serve them all. What to do? As he frantically scanned his inventory to decide on a plan, his gaze suddenly fell on a huge supply of Limonade.

Quick aside – the first time I heard this story, I thought that Limonade meant “lemonade” in German. However, after living in Germany, i have since realized that it actually means just “lemon-lime soda”. I.e., it’s the same kind of soda as the Sprite or 7-Up brands are in the U.S.

Back to our story. Catching sight of all that Limonade, our intrepid beer garden owner had a flash of inspiration. Taking the Limonade in hand, he picked up some beer and mixed them together. Taking pitchers of the mixed drink (as it were) to the thirsty cyclists waiting at the tables in his beer garden, the owner proudly proclaimed that he had made a special drink that he was naming in the cyclists honor.

And thus was the Radler drink born.

Well, it’s a good story. It’s debatable whether or not it’s actually a true story, of course, but I’m sure Mark Twain would agree that facts should not stand in the way of our retelling it today. Whatever the origin, a Radler is indeed it is a fun and thirst-quenching beverage that people swear by on hot summer days all over German-speaking parts of Europe.

But while I find it a tasty drink, it also strikes me as an odd one when you consider that it combines a sweet soda with a beer. But since a Hefeweizen beer is served with a slice of lemon in it, I can almost see a certain kind of logic in mixing a lemon-lime soda with beer.

But the similar-in-spirit beer/soda combination that stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it on a menu, though, was the Colaweizen. That’s a beer and Coca-cola mix. Don’t ask me why, but it had absolutely NO appeal as something to try when I first learned of it.

And it’s not that I’m generally averse to trying odd drinks that combine unexpected things with beer. On the contrary. When Chris and I were in Mali many years ago, we traveled for hours via a 4-wheel drive jeep through the sands of the desert to get to a far-off town where one of Chris’ friends lived. I called the journey going to the middle-of-nowhere, and then continuing a good 50 miles beyond that. Out in that remote corner of the world the locals would brew a local beer made of millet. It was then served warm, with shot of Pernod — a licorice-flavored liquor — added to each cup before serving. I would never have thought that beer and Pernod would be palatable, but it was surprising good. And it was even better when we tried the combination back in the U.S. using a cold beer – it even gave some flavor to that watery American style beer that I never developed a taste for.

So, I do try hard to keep an open mind about using beer as a mixer, since you can get unexpectedly interesting results.  But for whatever reason, my reaction to the idea of coke mixed with beer has been “No way am I trying that stuff.”

However, because I am committed to doing proper research for this blog, Chris and I went to a local cafe the other evening, and Chris bought me a Colaweizen to try. It wasn’t a proper German beer garden, unfortunately, and the waitresses had never even heard of the drink, despite the fact that it’s quite common in most places in these parts. However, we explained the idea, and the bartender came up with his version. It’s a drink that’s half coke, half beer; really, it’s not that complicated a recipe.

So, how was it? It tasted like a sweet, yet oddly watered down coke, with no real beer flavor at all. Now, I’ll grant you that perhaps this wasn’t the best place to try it. So, I  suppose that perhaps at an actual German beer garden things could be different. I’ll let you know if I’m ever motivated to try it again. But, like those Schorle concoctions I mentioned the other day, I’m less likely to have a yen for it anytime soon.

But the mention of the Schorle reminds me, there’s one more beer drink I forgot to mention. In fact, when I said a moment ago that a Radler is the name of the drink with the beer and the Limonade soda, I actually used the short form of the name. The full name, which appears on some menus, is Süß Radler, “sweet Radler.” That makes sense, of course, since the soda is sweet, and adds a sweetness to the beer.

However, if you spot that name on a menu, the same place will invariable also offer a Sauer Radler, “sour Radler”.  Chris was curious about this at some point a while back,  and ordered it without knowing just what it was. We wondered what kind of “sour” drink was added to the beer. Perhaps bitters? Perhaps pickle juice? Perhaps sauerkraut?

Alas, nothing that interesting.

It turns out that what’s added to the beer to create a Sauer Radler is that most ubiquitous of mixers.

Yes, you guessed it, a Sauer Radler is nothing more than beer watered down with Mineralwasser. My guess it that this drink was invented by that same beer garden owner who invented the (Süß) Radler. Imagine, if you will, that scene in the beer garden when there was one cyclist who didn’t appreciate the genius of the Süß Radler creation. Annoyed, the owner took some beer, poured in some Mineralwasser, and then served it up, naming it — as a joke — after the cyclist with the sour personality, i.e. the Sauer Radler. OK, I just made that story up, but that’s the only reason I can think of why that drink is called a Sauer Radler, since there’s nothing about that watery mess of a drink that is sour.

But that drink does bring us full circle back to Mineralwasser, where we began our drinking journey on Monday. So there you have it: from water to beer, a complete tour of drinking in Germany in 5 posts.

I’ll drink to that.