German Beer

Beer

I really enjoyed the German, Czech, Belgian, and other beers while I was living in Europe. I'll try most anything once, although the Belgian beers are more of a dessert beer to me (too sweet for continuous consumption), and a love of the German wheat beer (Weizenbier) never blossomed. I guess I'm more of a traditionalist - give me a pils or a lager any day!

I've collected a few beer labels and deckels (the cardboard coasters they put under your beer glass). Here are some color scans of some of them, along with a few words about each brewery and/or brew. I've collected quite a few beer steins, too, but I haven't figured out how to post them on the web, yet....

	*CALWER ECK BRÄU, STUTTGART* (22,338 byte inline JPEG file and 15,304 byte inline WAV file) A local microbrewery in downtown Stuttgart (on Calwer Straße, on the corner, the "Eck"). They have a number of different kinds of beer, and even beer schnapps. Their regular fare is a bit cloudy, and about as fresh-tasting as you can find - because it is! They pump it up from the cellar into your glass . . . . .
	*FAT ØL, OSLO* (15,032 byte inline JPEG file and 11,644 byte inline WAV file) Ya gotta love a beer named FAT ØL! I got this label off a bottle while I was up in Oslo Norway on business. Norwegian beer is graded by its alcohol content; the higher the alcohol content, the higher the class; the higher the class, the greater the tax. FAT ØL is a class 2 beer (you can read it off the label) - medium high alcohol content . . . . .
	*BUDVAR, CESKÉ BUDÉJOVICE* (2 inline graphics files totaling 63,057 bytes, plus a 24,320 byte inline WAV file) There are two Budweiser Brewing Companies in the world. One is the one we all know, and the other is a local brewery in the Czech Republic. This page has two color scans of logos, and a rather long verbal description of a Beer Pilgrimage we took to Ceské Budéjovice, the ancestral home of the real Budweiser . . . . . Flash! Budvar is now imported to the United States under a different name - Czechvar! The Czechvar web site has a hilarious explanation of the copyright fights they've been battling, but the bottom line is - it's HERE!! If you live near the Family TreeHouse, Giles Liquors (Cambridge Road, on the Woburn-Winchester line in the Horn Pond Plaza) sells it!!
	*PILSNER URQUELL, PLZEN* (28,638 byte inline GIF file and 21,842 byte inline WAV file) On the way home from Ceské Budéjovice, we had a train stopover in Plzen, Czech Republic, so we stuffed our bags in a locker at the train station and sprinted out into the Czech sunshine to get to the Pilsner Urquell brewery, just a short walk (trot? sprint?) from the train station. This Bohemian brew is imported to the States, but the stuff in the bottle bears no resemblance whatsoever to the stuff sold at the brewery . . . . .
	*DINKELACKER, STUTTGART* (17,003 byte inline GIF file and 8,432 byte inline WAV file) My all-time favorite beer is brewed right in Stuttgart. One of three major breweries in the city (Schwaban Bräu and Stuttgarter Hofbräu being the other two), Dinkelacker CD-Pils has a light and foamy consistency (well, light by German standards), and has that distinctive slightly bitter after-taste that keeps your tongue happy well after the swallow disappears . . . . .
	*SEADOG, CAMDEN MAINE* (24,268 byte inline JPEG file and 22,269 byte inline WAV file) "What's this one doing here??" you might well ask. Well . . . . .