Hop goes the Wiezenbier
Five weeks ago I heading to Germany with book, taste buds, high hopes, and no prier knowledge of beer. As I travel around I learned a few things about beer. I learned how to taste beer, German beer culture, and somethings that about the process.
The book Tasting beer: An insider’s guide to the world’s greatest drink by Randy Mosher was a great resource. Mosher’s book walked me step by step on how to properly taste beer and the things that need to happen before and during the tasting like: smell, look, sip, taste with your nose, and analyze. Mosher’s also talked about the flavor profile of beer and why they differ. “To get into your sip of beer, water sometimes has to travel incredible distances over long time spans. Along the way, it has come in contact with soils, sands, rocks, and other matter. Because water is an unparalleled solvent, it dissolves various minerals on its journey.” (Mosher 2009, 39)
I’ve been here for sometime now and German beer culture still shocks me. Coming from the states people didn’t openly drink at 10 A.M. People definitely couldn’t drink while walking down the street, sitting on a subway, and leave a restaurant with the drink. Beer gardens are plentiful. Going to a beer garden is a family activity. The kids would ever go and get the beer for their parents. The beer sizes at beer gardens and festivals range from .5 liters to 1 liter, after about 30 minutes people ordered another one. Beer is consumed like water, because at one point it was what they lived off of. Water wasn’t safe to drink so they made beer.
I really wanted to learn more about brewing. I had a brewing book that I referenced but it wasn’t much help. The brewery tours weren’t much help either, because most of them were falsely advertised. Every tour I signed up for said “offered in English”. I emailed each tour before getting there and told them I only understand a little bit of German, they all said it wouldn’t be a problem it’s in English. What I got out of the tour was seeing the equipment and a bunch of hand gestures. The experience was still good and a little educational.
