The Daily Procrastinator

Munich is awesome. Or, perhaps, Munich is killing me by slowly destroying my liver. I haven’t decided which yet.

For the sake of brevity, my stay in Munich will be broken into two parts, each encompassing three days of my trip.

I should probably explain that beer is so prevalent here that even in convenience stores a simple bottle of lukewarm water can cost upwards of €1, Coke costs about the same, and a cold beer can be had for €0,69. Is it any wonder why I’m drinking beer by the half-liter? Also, please understand that all of these beers put even my favorite American microbrews to shame, and even if I tell you that they’re not the best of the best, they’re all pretty darned good.

My long-held ideal of beer perfection.

I arrived in Munich on Wednesday night, and immediately returned to a cafe where I’d had dinner about five years earlier, not far from Marienplatz. The beer of choice: half a liter of Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse. Now, I consider a fresh Franziskaner to be pretty much the top of the line in the Munich hefeweizen department. For the uninitiated, hefeweizens tend to be light in color, sweet with no bitterness, and with distinct undertones of banana, clove, vanilla and sometimes even a vaguely bubblegum flavor. This one was just as good as I remembered.

On Thursday, I opted to branch out. At lunch at Viktualienmarkt, the Munich farmer’s market, I had bratwurst and Hochzeits Weisse. These people have been brewing beer since Columbus was wandering around the Caribbean looking for India. Good beer, crisp and clean, but without the fruitiness and depth that I get from the Franziskaner. I also had the most interesting sauerkraut at this little cafe, made with caraway seeds, juniper berries and bay leaves, but that’s another story for another time, when and if I ever find a recipe for it.

Thursday night’s dinner was Krombacher Weisen. This was a good beer, excellent flavor and that hint of clove that I’ve come to expect. But it also had a bit of a bite to it, and not the characteristic smoothness that I tend to expect from a hefeweizen.

Friday brought with it a side trip to Salzburg, Austria. I had lunch while sitting at an outdoor cafe that’s built into Hohensalzburg Castle, high above the city and overlooking the stark Austrian mountains. It was there that I had the Stiegl Weizen Gold Dunkel. Stiegl has been brewing beer since 1492, and they know their stuff. Similar to a hefeweizen, the dunkelweizen gets its color from roasted or caramelized malts, giving it a deeper, roasted flavor.

Friday dinner was a two-part event: I began with the Hacker-Pschorr Hefe-Weisse, which may actually rival my beloved Franziskaner for top spot on my Bavarian beer list. These folks have been brewing beer since the early 1400s, and the effort is nothing short of spectacular. If I could get away with it, I’d dump the contents of my suitcase and fill it with nothing but this. Smooth, drinkable, refreshing and flavorful, it’s everything you could want in a beer.

Part two was a mistake. At a colleague’s recommendation, I tried a Monschof Kellerbier. It’s really well-reviewed, which just goes to show why there are a billion different kinds of beer out there. Personally, I hated it and didn’t even finish it. Too malty and bitter for my liking, or perhaps it was just the fact that it was coming on the heels of one of my favorite beers, and couldn’t live up to it.

Stay tuned for part 4, the continuation and conclusion of my Munich adventure.

If you’re joining us late, please read my reviews for the first part of my trip here.

On to Berlin and the seemingly blinding array of choices that confronted me at my local biergarten. It appears that as the main city in Germany, Berlin has adopted every regional beer and put them on the largest beer menus I’ve ever been faced with. Every meal was a daunting challenge.

The beer was a lot like the label: classic, but uninspired.

At dinner in Potsdamer Platz, I opted for a Schofferhofer hefeweizen. I’m a big fan of hefeweisen, but this one didn’t really inspire like some others that I’ve tried. The aroma of clove and banana was there, but there was an underlying almost bread-like heaviness to the wheat.

As a side note, I feel that it’s my public duty to share instructions on the proper hefeweisen pour. What makes a hefe a hefe is the yeast in the bottle, which of course must be transferred to the glass. To achieve a proper pour, tip the glass and gently pour about 2/3 of the bottle in, minimizing the head. Stop. Swizzle the bottle around to capture all of the yeast. Pour about half of the remaining beer into the glass. Repeat the swizzle and pour. There you will have the perfect hefeweisen. You’re welcome.

On my second night in Berlin, I was encouraged to have dinner at a tiny burrito shop near Alexanderplatz, one that was surprisingly good, given the distance from Mexico. Yet the beer selections were abysmal. I was in Germany. Did they seriously expect me to drink Dos Equis or Corona? The answer, sadly, was yes. And then I discovered a lone Tannenzaepfle in the case. German beer for the win!

Stay tuned as I move on to Munich where my favorite beer awaits: Franziskaner Weissbier.

Don't call her TallGirl . . . Call her BEER GIRL!

Dear Internet, I am hereby preparing you for a future event.  In six weeks I’ll be departing for Germany for two weeks of sightseeing and, of course, beer.

It is my heartfelt desire that you can share in this experience with me.  How?  I, TallGirl, will take it upon myself to sample as many German beers as I possibly can and report these results back to you, our loyal readers.

I’ve found a list to get me started, but let’s be honest: these beers were probably reviewed by beer aficionados.  These are the kind of people, like wine people, who can detect notes of clove or banana or the mint plant on a neighboring farm.  I am not one of these people.  My reviews will be much simpler, highlighting drinkability and enjoyment.

So keep your eyes open starting August 1 for this valuable public service, only from The Daily Procrastinator.

When it comes to travel, I’m an old pro.  Granted, I don’t travel as much as I once did, and elite status currently eludes me.  After all, the life of the blogger doesn’t afford the same fantastic opportunities as some of my former corporate gigs, the kind where I got to fly on luxurious weather-delayed jaunts from California to Buffalo — in February, no less — to stay at the world’s oldest Fairfield Inn.  No, I’m not that kind of worldly jet setter anymore, but I still thought that I’d seen it all.

Recently, I flew back east to Philadelphia to meet with two clients.  On the four flight segments to and from Philly, I encountered some of the more memorable travel scenes in my recent memory.

SJC-IAH: The peril of losing one’s elite status is that you’re relegated to boarding with the masses, the casual travelers who don’t know the routine.  Such was the case with the family of four that boarded in front of me.  They managed to somehow make it through security with a startling amount of carry-on baggage in an obvious attempt to elude the checked bag fees.  This collection of miscellany not only included a cat carrier, but also a large package containing an eight-piece king-sized comforter set.  This is beyond the level of the travelers who come with their bed pillow.  These people somehow felt the need to tote along a comforter, bedskirt, four shams and two decorative pillows in their original plastic packaging, which was roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island.  The package had to be fully dismantled and distributed into no fewer than three overhead compartments in order to fit.

IAH-PHL: While grabbing a bottle of water in the newsstand, I glanced at the purchases of the man next to me, and realized something that had previously been hiding in plain view: they sell Playboy in the airport.  Oh sure, you say, he’s reading it for the articles.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.  But would you really open up a Playboy on a plane?  The whole situation was just begging for a joke about why they no longer provide blankets on planes.

PHL-IAH: What are the odds of having three unrelated church choir directors on the same plane, seated within three rows of each other?  Furthermore, what are the odds that all three would be reading the same book about directing choirs?  Director #1 spotted #2 and #3 on his way to the restroom, which resulted in all three congregating in the aisle next to my left shoulder for more than an hour, discussing their favorite hymn arrangements and occasionally bursting into song.

And if that wasn’t entertaining enough, the in-flight movie was High School Musical 3.  Nothing more needs to be said.

IAH-SJC: The couple behind me wanted our flight to be delayed so that they could straighten out their duty free purchase.  For reasons that still remain unexplained, the duty free shop allowed them to buy liquor and “a very cute little koala bear” (she was far more upset about the koala than the liquor) in spite of the fact that they weren’t traveling internationally.  They seriously wanted to be permitted to go back out to the shop to get their purchase price refunded while the remainder of us waited on board.  I am eternally grateful to Continental’s crew for being very diplomatic with these people, but being very clear with them that the customer is not always right.

I can’t wait until my next flight to see what kind of oddities await me.

I have always made it a point to be nice to tourists, and hope that others would extend the same courtesy to me. This isn’t always the case. I recently had an experience where I didn’t speak the language, and the natives quickly lost patience.

The other day, I was forced by circumstance to meet a professional acquaintance at a coffee shop. It was a nice, sunny day, and I thought that an iced tea would be much more refreshing than my usual cup of coffee.

I patiently waited in line behind people with complicated orders, and was immediately behind a woman who ordered a “venti four-pump double-shot low-fat half-whip mocha frappuccino,” which seemed to me to be an absurd combination of words, but it was met with happy chatter from the guy behind the counter. Finally, it was my turn.

“I’d like a large iced tea, please,” I said.

The skinny barista with a pierced eyebrow and tattoos from wrist to ears glared at me, black Sharpie marker halted midair. “You would like a venti?” he asked.

My mind reeled momentarily because I can never remember which of the random words that they use for sizes really means large. Is it “tall” which implies that it’s the tallest? Or “grande” which sounds bigger than tall? Which one is a “venti”? I quickly tried to scan the menu to help me find the answer.

He began to speak louder. “You want a venti iced tea?” he said with an air of superiority. “An iced tea. You do realize that this is an establishment that sells coffee?”

And that was when it dawned on me. There is an entire subculture here that I am not a part of, a subculture that requires trained beverage professionals to mix ice, whipped cream, flavor syrups, and caffeine to create expensive and elaborate 500-calorie coffee drinks that I simply don’t understand. And what’s more, this is what an entire generation thinks of when they hear the word “coffee.” Not simple black liquid poured from a pot. Fluffy drinks with whipped cream and straws the size of sewer pipes. From now on, I’ll be meeting my contacts at the shop near my house, one where words like “coffee” and “tea” still result in identifiable beverages.

In the meantime, I beg you: be nice to the tourists. All they want is a simple cold drink on a sunny day, even if they can’t speak the language.