Berlin and Munich

Travelling between Berlin and Munich has brought many new revelations about the differences between the North and South of Germany.  Like the United States, there are many cultural differences between the distinctive regions of the country.  Berlin was a very cosmopolitan city that mixed the old with much of the new.  This was quite obvious in the architecture throughout the city.  There were many old buildings that represent and remind Berliners of the past, but there were many new buildings that are indicators of the future and innovation.  Berliners also have a keen awareness of there recent past and the unification of East and West Berlin.  The dividing line is still clear on city maps of Berlin and is often drawn in so people can see where the wall existed.  The message of the wall and what it symbolizes is present in the minds of Berliners and seems to influence their perspective of the world and the way they go about their business.  Though they do not dwell on the past, they are aware of the historical happenings within their own city and they continue to look to the future and build upwards and forwards.  Their forward thinking is clear in the innovative architecture of the Sony Center as well as the many new government buildings.  Instead of keeping the buildings of the old government or from the Nazi regime, the people of Berlin chose to build modern and creative new buildings.  This could symbolize a fresh start and the beginning of a new era in Germany.

The Berliner perspective sharply contrasts the Münchner view of the world.  In Munich there is an intense desire to preserve and restore the past and remember their history.  People from Munich have a deep pride in their heritage and their past and distinctly enjoy being Bavarian.  They have held onto the past and their traditions in many ways.  The people of München have put forth the image of traditional German traditions such as lederhosen and dirndls.  This is the image that I most expected when I first got here.  The majority of the buildings throughout the city are old buildings that have been restored or renovated to their former glory.  And more modern architecture is often viewed as ugly or out of place.  Bavarians value their rich past and value the fact that they are from a city that housed royalty.  This is clear in the continued tradition of the celebration of Oktoberfest.  Even though it has turned into a tourist attraction, it still represents the celebration of the royal wedding.  The place where Oktoberfest was originally held is still the site for the celebration.  The map of München also reveals a great deal about the city and its history because much of the city center is still intact.  I learned more about this in the München Stadtmuseum, which had paintings and images of the city center since the original construction of the city.  The Marienplatz or central square has been around since the founding of the city.  The only aspect that has changed is some of the buildings and the more modern stores that have developed throughout the city center.

Berlin and Munich share some similarities in their histories that relate to the presence and absence of different buildings within their city walls.  Both cities have places within their city limits that represent the Nazi influence on their history.  Some of these places remain as a reminder of World War II, but many have been destroyed and replaced with other buildings or fields.  This may seem like an attempt to erase the past, but I think that it is part of the grieving process and an attempt to look forward.

Both Munich and Berlin are densely populated cities that also have major waterways surrounding them or travelling within city limits.  These waterways can be seen on the city maps of each of these cities as well.  As we have learned over the course of this class, water is extremely important for the brewing process.  However, it is also pertinent for a city to develop and thrive.  The waterways present in Berlin and Munich provide the necessary water for daily life as well as the growth and prosperity of the city.  These waterways allow trade routes to develop between different German cities and helped to expand the industry, imports and exports.  This trade has helped the Berlin and Munich to support their growing populations and helped them to be able to obtain goods that they could not produce within their city walls.  The presence of these waterways also helped the development of the brewing industry.  The hard water in both of these cities is ideal for the types of beers that the Berliners and Müchners were trying to produce.  Once the beer was produced, it was another type of good that could be exported or traded throughout the country.

This trip has been an eye opening experience, and I have learned a great deal about German culture as well as the history of the country as a whole and the cities of Berlin and Munich.

Englischer Garten and Alte Pinakotek

Sunday was also a busy day full of adventures.  Mallory, Keith and I went to Englischer Garten in the early afternoon after a small lunch at Schneider Weisse.  Englischer Garten is a large park in the middle of Munich that is the size of Central Park in New York City if not a little bit larger.  It was a beautiful day and we were able to see some pretty cool things at the park including a Japanese tea garden and house, a Chinese tower, Monopteros, and a man-made wave.  Unfortunately, the Japanese tea garden and house was not open when we were in the park.  However, a tranquil pond with ducks and swans swimming in it surrounded the garden.  The whole scene was quite picturesque.  We also stumbled upon the Monopteros, which is a roman style structure that is situated on a small hill in the park.  The structure was composed of a dome shaped roof held up by roman columns.  The Monopteros was decorated with ornate pictograms and the ceiling was beautiful.  We found a Chinese tower in one of the main areas of the park.  The tower structure is unique and cannot be found elsewhere in the city.  The Chinese tower has been rebuilt several times after being burnt down and it is continually restored to its original form.  This sense of connection to history and older architecture seems to be a common theme throughout Munich.  Many of the older historical buildings and churches are constantly being renovated and restored to their original beauty.

Keith and I visited the Alte Pinakotek as well.  This was an exhibition of seventeenth and eighteenth century art including Durer and Rembrandt.  I enjoyed working my way through each room of art and seeing the many differences and similarities between Italian, Spanish, French, Flemish and German artists during this period of time.  The paintings ranged from depictions of Jesus and Mary, to children eating food, to hunting dogs chasing down game, to taverns and peasants.  I most enjoyed finding paintings by Daniel Teniers and Adrienne Brouwers.  These were two Flemish artists that depicted tavern scenes and the beer culture during this time.  I found these paintings to be fairly representative of the beer culture here in Germany and I expect they will be accurate representations of the beer culture in Belgium.  The only thing that struck me as odd was that some of Brouwers paintings depicted violent fights in the stubbes.  These scenes in my opinion do not relate or reflect the beer culture in Germany at all.  The Alte Pinakotek was an eye opening experience and it was fabulous to see some very old paintings from famous artists.

I enjoyed every minute of this weekend.  Each day brought new adventures and old friends.  I cannot wait for tomorrow!

Prost 

Oktoberfest and Coopers' Dance

On Saturday we went on a walking tour throughout the city.  The walking tour of Munich was great because we were able to see all of the important places in the center of the city.  The tour guide had many great stories to share with us about each location that we visited and culture in Bavaria.  First, she gave us a history lesson about the celebration of Oktoberfest.  The celebration first began as a marriage ceremony in the early 1800’s.  This was an important celebration because many people from the neighboring towns and cities came to celebrate the marriage.  This was an important historical event that has developed into a larger festival that celebrates the long brewing tradition in Bavaria.  Though Oktoberfest has developed into a tourist attraction in Munich, it is still an important celebration of beer and culture.

We visited several different Catholic churches throughout the city during this tour as well.  It was very interesting to see the differences between the baroque and neo-gothic styles in the churches.  The baroque style is often very ornate and sometimes gaudy.  During this period the Catholic Church sought to draw people into the church by creating these elaborate sculptures of saints and paintings of various scenes in the bible.   The use of images was important because most of the services were given in Latin, so the German laypeople could not understand the bible readings.  The people were able to understand what the important stories and messages from the bible through the images that they were able to see.  I also thought it was interesting to see the different levels within the baroque style church.  There was a clear distinction between the first level, which is where the laypeople and the priest sit, the middle level where the saints reside, and the upper level where God and the angels reside.  These visual levels depict the transition from the earth to the heavens.  The neo-gothic style Catholic Church was very different from the baroque style church.  This is a much simpler style that focuses on high arches and ceilings as well as beautiful stained glass.  The church we visited was unique because it had some of the original stained glass from when the church was initially built.  The glass was removed and stored before the war so it was not destroyed when the church was bombed.  The two Catholic churches we visited were beautiful and in sharp contrast to many of the Protestant churches we saw in Berlin.

 

During the tour we also visited the opera house.  This building has been rebuilt several times due to stage fires.  The most interesting part of this building is that it is maintained with the money collected from a beer tax in Munich.  This beer tax was developed as a means to support the arts within the city and it continues today.  This is a great representation of how beer and culture are integrated in Munich.

The final part of our tour was to watch the Coopers’ dance.  This dance is performed every seven years and is a celebration of the end of the Black Plague.  Munich was devastated by the plague, and it cause people everywhere to lock themselves in their houses for fear of catching the plague.  Once the plague was over people were still scared to leave their houses.  That is, until the coopers, the men who make the barrels that beer is stored in, decided to dance in the street.  They decorated the barrel rods with flowers and foliage and danced around in the street to let everyone know that they plague was over and it was safe to leave the house.  This dance is a very jubilant dance that celebrates the good health of the people of Munich.  The Coopers’ dance has been performed every seven years since the end of the Black Plague.  We were lucky to be able to see this performance and once again beer is integrated with Bavarian culture.

This tour was fantastic because we have been able to see many important historical sights as well as the integration of beer with Bavarian culture.

Prost!

Comparing Helles Beers

Listed below are my observations about two different Muncher Helles beers.  This style of beer was developed in Munich, Germany.  The lager style beer is a bottom-fermented beer meaning that the yeast acts to ferment the beer at the bottom of the fermentation tank.  This type of fermentation occurs at lower temperature than top fermenting beers.

According to Mosher, the flavor of this style of beer is a rich, caramelly malt with a small hint of hops.  The aroma is characterized as a clean malt odor with a good dose of herbal hops.  This style of beer is supposed to score between a 4-5 SRM and has low levels of bitterness (18-25 IBU).

I have compared both of these beers in the setting of the hotel nook.  This is a fairly neutral room that does not have any distinct smells.  This is a pretty good setting to taste beers.

Augustiner Helles:

Appearance: Transparent golden color.  This beer has an SRM value of 4.  The beer has clearly been filtered because it is completely transparent.  Large, bubbly, foamy white head. 

Flavor:  The flavor of the beer is a light malty flavor with very little bitterness

Aroma:  The aroma of the beer is fairly bready with a hint of hops.  The aroma of the beer also has a hint of cooked vegetables, which is the presence of dimethyl sulfide.  According to Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), helles beers tend to have a slight cooked vegetable aroma from the presence of dimethyl sulfide.

Mouth-feel:  This is a light to medium bodied beer with moderate carbonation. 

Paulaner Original Muncher Hell:

Appearance:  This beer has a golden hue and is completely transparent.  The beer has clearly been filtered because it is completely transparent.  The head is small, but foamy and white.  This lack of head could be due to the fact that the glass being used was not completely clean.

Flavor:  The flavors of this beer do not reflect the characteristics of the helles styles.  There is very little malty flavor, and almost no presence of hops.  The most distinguishable flavor of the beer is a grassy flavor and the beer tends to dry out your tongue as you swallow.

Aroma: The aroma of the beer is malty with caramel notes.  The aroma of the hops is almost indistinguishable and there is no cooked vegetable smell.  This means that dimethyl sulfide is not present in this beer.

Mouth-feel:  This is a fairly light bodied beer with moderate carbonation.

Overall, I found that the Augustiner Helles followed the style characteristics set out by Mosher and BJCP.  I also found the Augustiner beer to be much more pleasing to the senses than the Paulaner version.  I found comparing two beers within the same style to be a challenging task.  I had the tendency to try and fit each beer to the specified characteristics set out by Mosher or the BJCP.  In the future, I will review each beer separately and then compare them to the standards set out by each of these sources in order to determine the similarities and differences.

The Brewing Process

As part of this class we have learned a great deal about the brewing process as a whole.  Below is a description of my understanding of brewing beer:

The brewing process occurs in several stages including malting, brewing and fermentation.  Each stage is important in developing the flavor, aroma and appearance of a beer.

The malting stage involves the germination of barley grains.  Adding water and heat to the barley grains initiates the germination process.  Germination is when the enzymatic proteins of the seed are activated in order to break apart the starches within the grain.  Starches are long chains of smaller sugars such as glucose or maltose.  The enzymes break the starch strand down into smaller sugars that can be used in the fermentation process.  The germination process occurs over the course of approximately one week and then the seeds are kilned and dried out to stop the germination process.  At this point, the grains can be roasted for the development of further coffee or roasted flavors.  For many home brewers the malting process can be skipped by using malted extracts.  This is concentrated syrup that has been developed from the malting process.

The brewing process involves the steeping of the malted grains in water in order to remove the sugars that were developed throughout the malting process.   The grains and water are brought to a boil for approximately an hour and hops or specialty grains can be added throughout the boil in order to develop the flavor of the beer.  This new mixture is called the wort.  After the boil, the wort is strained, often in a lauter tun, in order to remove the grains.  The wort is then quickly cooled in order to precipitate all of the unwanted proteins within the the mixture.  The wort is then transferred to fermentation tanks. during this transfer the wort is aerated.

When the wort is finally in the fermentation tank, the active yeast is added to the mixture.  This is when the fermentation process begins.  The yeast will utilize all of the sugars that were developed in the malting process in order to grow and multiply.  This growth is done both aerobically (with oxygen) and anaerobically (without oxygen).  Yeast grows aerobically first, utilizing the oxygen that was added to the wort in the aeration process.  Anaerobic growth occurs after the yeast has utilized all of the oxygen within the wort.  The byproduct of the anaerobic growth is ethanol, which makes the beverage alcoholic.  The fermentation process can last up to three weeks time in which the beverage reaches its desired alcohol by volume.  Once the beer has fermented, it is conditioned to remove the larger proteins and can be filtered in order to remove the yeast.  The beer is then either kegged or bottled, and stored.

The entire process lasts approximately four weeks depending on the beer style that is being brewed.  The malting process is often the main difference between the small and larger scale breweries and home brewers.  The larger scale brewers develop their own malt combinations for brewing.  On the other hand, many home-brewers choose to skip the malting process because it is easy to find malt extracts at home-brew stores.  When we brewed for this class, we used a malt extract instead of malting the grains ourselves.  We also brewed much smaller batches of beer than many of the commercial and smaller scale breweries we have seen thus far on this trip.

Munich and Ice Skating

We arrived in Munich yesterday via the ICE train.  The train reached 230 kilometers per hour.  But we were really travelling at a million smiles per hour.  We had a great deal of fun on the train ride.  When we arrived in Munich the sun was shining.  It was interesting to see the differences between Munich and Berlin.  The architecture is very different than in Berlin.  In Berlin, there was new mixed with the old.  This provided an interesting contrast which reflects the personality of the city.  In Munich, however, there are much older buildings.  It seems that this reflects the personality of this city, there seems to be more traditional elements (especially in the food).

Today, we had an almost free day which allowed us to explore the city around our hotel.  We walked around and saw some beautiful churches.  We also saw the field where Oktoberfest is held every year in Munich.  There was an interesting dispenser that sold various health care items such as vitamins and tests.  This was interesting because they were all important things that one might need while at Oktoberfest enjoying some beer.

I also was able to try some Weiss Wurst which is a white sausage.  This is a traditional German dish that you eat with sweet mustard and soft pretzels.  It was delicious!  I also had some amazing pumpkin soup for lunch.  It was life changing!  Today, the food brought me closer to German culture.

A group of us went to the outdoor ice skating rink in the center of town.  This was an awesome experience because we were skating outside while it was snowing.  It was fun to watch all of the young school aged kids skate around on the ice.  They must have had a field trip this afternoon to the skating rink.  We also had some Gluhwein :)

I enjoyed our almost free day today, I feel like I really got to see some of Munich.  I cannot wait for the walking tour tomorrow.  We will get a chance to see more of Munich and understand the differences between the North and South of Germany.

Until then,

Prost!

Leipzig and Berliner Kindl-Schulteiss Tour

I know that this seems quite repetitive, but again, the past two days have been eventful.  We have managed to pack a day trip to Leipzig and another brewery tour into a little less than 36 hours.


In Leipzig we were able to tour two different breweries.  Sternberg was a much larger brewery than we have seen over the course of this class.   During this tour we were able to see the brauhaus, fermentation tanks and the bottling plant.  The bottling plant was the most interesting part of the tour for me because we were able to see the packaging of the beer which was different than the smaller breweries we have visited thus far.  This tour was also interesting because the tour guide mentioned a great deal about the history of the plant as well as the brand and marketing of that brand.  This brewery has developed beer that is inexpensive and marketed towards college age students. We were also able to visit Bayerischer Banhof Braueri, this was a much smaller brewery that has brought back the Gose tradition in Leipzig.  This place was interesting because it was housed in an old train station in Leipzig.  The master brewer who gave us the tour also describe the styles of beers that he has developed.  They are fairly alternative in comparison to other German breweries.  I was very excited to drink the Gose beer that he developed because it incorporated the traditional elements of the Gose including salty water and dual fermentation with lactobacillus, but also a hint of coriander.  I found the beer to be light, refreshing, and slightly sour.  We ended the day trip with a visit to the town Ratskeller where we were able to try another Gose style.  This beer was much saltier and I did not enjoy it as much as the first Gose.


Today, we visited Berliner Kindl-Schulteiss Brewery in Berlin as part of our final day here.  This was a very informative tour in which we learned a great deal about the brewing process as well as marketing and development of beer in Germany over the past 100 years.  It was also interesting to see another brewery on a much larger scale, similar to Sternberg.  However, I found this brewery to be even larger and more organized.  It was clear that the brand name of Schulteiss and Berliner Kindl were much larger names.  At the end of the tour, we sat in the tasting room and tasted several beers ranging from light to dark.  I enjoyed seeing the full range of beers that the brewery produced and marketed.  My favorite was the Schwartz beer which was a darker beer that smelled of figs.

The past week has been greatly informative and an amazing learning experience.  I will be sad to leave Berlin, but I look forward to the new adventures we will have in Munich.  It will be interesting to see the cultural and brewing differences between the North and South of Germany.


Prost!