I left the purple cabbage on the counter for a couple days before I made the kraut, and it got a bit dried out. After I made it, I noticed the salt wasn’t drawing out as much water as normal. The brine never reached the top of the container, and the top of the cabbage ended up spoiling.
So I found a juicy-looking cabbage and tried again. This time, the brine has covered the top of the cabbage, so I think we’re all set.
This cabbage was delightful.
Now we wait.
“Salt and pepper, no Ketchup. No, no ketchup! For every drop of ketchup I find, I will kill you.”
Sometimes I miss my morning New York egg-on-a-roll breakfast. I’m going to need to find a source for sourdough rolls.
Riedenburger Ur-Helles
Another organic beer. Forgettable.
I’ve been keeping photos of all the new beers I’ve tried, and have been posting them roughly in order of consumption. This beer brings us up to date with June 5th, 2012. Eleven weeks ago.
Man, time flies.
Löffel’s Mühlen Gold
This wasn’t good.
Löffel’s Mühlen Gold Export
Why are organic beers so bad?
Edit: One of the bullet points from the philosophy page on their website: “Quality management according to DIN ISO 9001:2008”. Not the best catchphrase to bring up at a bar.
Altenmünster Brauer Bier Hopfig Herb
Boring.
I really hoped “hopfig herb” meant “interesting”, but that was not the case.
Köstritzer Schwarzbier
This was probably the first dark beer I tried. I’m going to have to try it again, because the Internet reviews of this beer are different from what I remember. I remember a fairly bland beer, with practically no redeeming qualities. But I think I was judging it back before my mouth realized it was going to have to change. So I’ll give it another shot.
But for now, I’ll say it was an oddly light-tasting beer, with a weird, burnt flavor.
Stuttgarter Hofbräu Malteser Weissbier Kristall
This may have been the second Kristall weisbier I’ve tried. I don’t really remember the beer, but I do know it was just “okay”. Stuttgarter Hofbräu is a very large brewery around here, and most of their beers are “okay”.
It has a monk on the front though. Everybody loves a good monk picture.
Our plan was to take the train out to a park area along the Neckar River, and enjoy summer. Walk around. Enjoy the sunshine. But plans changed. We walked off the train, and directly into a southern USA country fair.
What’s Stuttgarter Hofbrau doing in Texas?
We were a bit astonished. Spare ribs and country music in Germany! Tons of people in cowboy hats and boots! Fantastic! But our love for these people was just getting started.
I lived in Houston a few years ago. One night, a few of us went to a country-western club and danced. And drank. And danced. We didn’t have to know what we were doing. Line dancing is still fun, even if you sometimes collide with the person beside you. So imagine my delight when we see Germans line-dancing! They knew the steps! But the completely hilarious thing was the way they danced. They were totally serious. No smiles. I wish I had a video.
Then we dug into the ribs. Ten Euro for all-you-can-eat.
Served with Louisiana Hot Sauce!
They were really good, and that’s saying a lot because restaurants don’t always get ribs right even in the United States. But then, the Germans are good at meat, so maybe I should have expected it. The sauce was well done too; it wasn’t quite classic, but it would not be out of place in Houston. And as an added bonus, they served Louisiana hot sauce on the side! And it was good hot sauce! It may have been Texas Pete, but I don’t know Louisiana sauces as well as I probably should.
Look at his hat decoration. Awesome.
Halfway through our all-you-can-eat rib meal, the band took a break, and the siren on the highway patrol car went off. Yes, that’s right. I said “highway patrol”. They had an older Texas highway patrol car parked out front.
What is this crazy car from the West??
Honestly, we walked by this twice, and didn’t even notice. It wasn’t more than 10 meters from our table, but it didn’t even register to me. As far as I was concerned, some cop had parked his car outside, and was enjoying some ribs. It wasn’t until the siren went off, that I thought “Hey, maybe someone is getting arrested”, and looked up.
Nope! Just part of the show. People were yelling “Woooooo!” as the siren went off. Two Harley Davidson bikes were started, and revved louder and louder, to cheers. I thought the bikes were there simply because someone rode them there. Now, they seemed like props.
It was a surreal scene. We spent a good part of our day just watching. These people were really into it!
Just like a real bull!
The weather was pretty windy, so we finished stuffing ourselves with ribs, and walked back to the train. To the young man who told me where I should return our plates before he left in a hurry, I’m sorry. I have no idea what you said. I hope you said something to the effect of “just leave them on the table and someone will pick them up”. I further hope that leaving them on the table wasn’t a sign to others, causing our two plates to grow into a stack.
Well, it was fun. As a one-time-lived-in-Texas American person, I give you all a stamp of approval.
Except you line dancers. You guys need to smile.
Hilsenbeck`s Brunnenbier naturtrüb
It’s a little difficult to figure out what the name of this beer is. The website uses all the words above, plus “Gruibinger”. But it doesn’t matter. Skip this one.
I had high hopes, because the bottle and label look nice. But it was boring.
We drank it in a bar located inside the climbing gym. Pretty great, right? You can see the climbing holds in the background.