Monthly Archives: September 2012

Radeburger Pils und Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen und Schofferhofer Dunkel

After changing my clothes and leaving the hotel, I walked up the road toward a place marked “Alte Brauhaus” on the sign. Naturally, when you find a sign that says “Old Brew House”, you don’t just sit in your hotel.

I first checked the hours. According to the sign on the front, the place closed almost an hour before I arrived. But I was so heartbroken, I walked up to the door and poked my head inside anyway. Several guys were standing at the bar, so I walked in and hovered for a few seconds.

“Can I help you?”, the bartender asked, in German. I’m just guessing. She may have said “Get the hell out, we’re closed”. Nobody knows.

“Yes, a beer please!”, I responded, and it worked.

In Germany, they understand that “beer” means “Pils”. So she poured me a pils. It was fantastic. Cold, malty, and somehow tasted thick and luxurious. I dunno if it was because it was a fresh tap, or if Radeburger Pils is the best beer in the world (it’s not), or if I was just tired and wanted a beer. But it was good. I considered taking a photo, but I was sorrounded by hard-working men who just gotten off work and were drinking a beer and talking about soccer. I was not about to take out my cell phone to take a picture of the glass. “HEY GUYS! THIS IS BEER! I’M TAKING A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY BEER GLASS! HA HA HA! THIS IS GREAT! DID YOU KNOW I AM NOT FROM AROUND THIS AREA??! I MISS MY WIFE.”

No. The phone stayed under the table. Here’s a photo of my shoes.

Alte Brauhaus Shoes

Oh please god, don’t let the flash go off.

For my second beer, I had a Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen. It was all banana-ey and delicious. It was around this time, that the bartender and neighboring hard-working-men started asking questions. They asked basic questions, like “Are you from Denmark?” and “Where do you work?”. As an almost-native-German-speaker, I responded with fluent German.

“Hi! My name is James! I am 32 years old!”

I’m kidding. It went very well. When I didn’t understand, I said “Slow please!” and otherwise I think I understood. Once, I even asked “was that your question?” because I truly just guessed what the question was (I guessed right). Eventually, we started talking about beer. I asked if they had any other beer than the two on tap. They did! A dunkel, from a bottle hidden under the counter. Someone beside me asked if it was as good as the normal weizen beer, and I said “No, I think the other one is better”, and someone else noted that the other one was on tap, which of course makes all the difference.

I was just thrilled that I understood what was going on. And that’s really the whole point of this post. I understood what was going on.

Usually. Sometimes I had no idea. “We’re taking about soccer” the bartender would say. Ah. Okay. You guys changed the topic, and I didn’t notice. Fine.

Ha ha! Something funny happened! I wish I knew why we are laughing.

Adventure: Phase Two

I start my new job on Monday!

I don’t want to post all sorts of work related things on the blog, so I’ll keep this short. The company is a fair-sized company that designs a lot of linear motion, CNC, and automation equipment. My job will be primarily to develop embedded firmware to control linear motion equipment, and try to modernize some of their back-end tech. I will ultimately work about an hour’s train ride from Stuttgart, but the next few months will require that I travel to their main headquarters for training. That means I’ll be living out of a hotel for a of couple weeks. It’s not ideal, but it’ll hopefully be totally worth it.

I’m not sure how Alissa’s going to survive. I’ve been doing all the house duties for so long, she’s likely forgotten how to do the basics. For example, does she know about the five food groups? I plan to return to Stuttgart on the weekends to go grocery shopping and prepare lunches. I taught her the basics of the washing machine, so nothing gets shrunk. And I’m optimistic that the recycling will be taken out on the proper day.

The plants, however, are going to die. There’s nothing we can do about that.

 

Schönbuch Brauhaus

Sometimes we take wandering walks through the city, and sometimes, we run into awesome things. Like this brewery, for example. Two weekends ago, we finally found the time to go.

Schönbuch Outside

Pretty awesome copper kettle.

They have four beers; Schönbuch Ur-Edel, Hefeweizen hell, Naturtrüb, and of course a Pils.

Schönbuch Pils, Hefeweizen, Naturtrüb

Schönbuch Pils, Hefeweizen, Naturtrüb

Alissa got the Ur-Edel, but I didn’t take a photo for some reason. It looks just like the Pils, and I think it tastes similar. One of them was slightly more bitter. Anyway, the real winner here was the Naturtrüb. Really delicious. Fresh and banana and … well, delicious. The Hefeweizen was really good too; no metallic flavors at all.

The Pils and the Ur-Edel were not good, however. This was the second time we’ve had the Pils. The first was out of a bottle at a bar, and we both agreed the brewery wasn’t worth perusing. It’s a good thing we gave them a second chance.

The food was amazing. Alissa got the flammkuchen.

Schönbuch Flammkuchen

Schönbuch Flammkuchen

I got the best pork steaks I’ve ever had.

Schönbuch Saftiger, zarter Schweinebraten

Schönbuch Saftiger, Zarter Schweinebraten

Juicy, tender roast pork. Good god, my mouth is watering. It’s 10 in the morning, and I want to go back and eat delicious tender roast pork. And a Naturtrüb 0.5 liter beer. Amgslbisvcm am nam nam nam. Oh, did I mention the sauce is “beer sauce”? It’s beer sauce.

Did I eat breakfast? I don’t think I ate breakfast.

I forgot what I was going to write.

Darguner Schloss Export

Darguner Schloss Export

Darguner Schloss Export

“Fein würzig” translates to “mildly spicy”. Ha ha ha!

Yuck.

Darguner Schloss Premium Pils

Darguner Schloss Premium Pils

Darguner Schloss Premium Pils

Ha ha! No. This one came from a gas station. Don’t buy this.

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier

I think this one was pretty good. Since I drank this back in early June, there’s really no way to tell.