Franconian Beer Message Board

OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT
Posted by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on 2019-08-31 05:33:20
Made you roll your eyes though, that's getting worked up to me. And I would have likely suggested ***I*** would avoid the day back before I went looney or whatever everyone thinks happened to me a couple of years ago. I became tired of the drunkenness the last year or so I was in that lovely city you can't stand. I don't require that everyone on here keep track of my personal interests though.

I didn't say anyone else shouldn't enjoy it, especially the beer TOURISTS who populate this board. It's only you and me that have up and moved here, AFAIK.

Why the skepticism about my not drinking alcohol any more? It happens. Hell, I've known lots of peole working in the pub trade (for lack of a better term) that are teetotal. I myself was teetotal from age 17 til 27, during college. Best friends I've ever had were from the social circle I was in back then, Mrs excepted. Meaning, she's my best friend ever, and wasn't part of that circle.

Ironically, it's because of beer that we ended up in Europe at all. We caught the move-overseas bug from the experiences we had as tourists, but more importantly from a former homebrewing friend of mine from Seattle who moved to Enschede, NL for his first post-PhD teaching job. In English. He then moved to Plymouth a few years later, where he's been ever since. Burned through a number of women & wives in the interim, most notably a British lady cop, but that's beside the point.

The Tandleman is friends with him, and always wondered how he managed to get and lose so many women, despite being an "ugly, short bastard that's too full of himself". Well, Peter, he IS a college professor!

Anyway, I had never had a Kellerbier before hearing about it from the Portland, OR homebrewing crowd. And the only thing available to try back then was bottled St. Georgenbraeu, which is of course a bit of an outlier in its darkness and maltiness (for lack of a better word). And so I thought Kellerbier was dark and malty. I had no idea how diverse it was until the first summer we spent here, 2005, when I went tooling around the countryside on the Kinderrad (child's bike) that the Italian bike shop near our place in That Nameless City Between Bamberg & Nuernberg sold us on the cheap.

The exploration of Bockbier during the fall and winter 2004 (we landed here on 13th Sep, spent 7 weeks in a hotel flat in Herzogenaurach waiting on our household goods to arrive by container ship...not including my car, which I shipped separately) was also an eye-opener. Despite having been a massive beer (lager) geek/nerd/whatever for years, I had had no idea of the diversity of Franconian Bockbier in autumn & winter. And that so much of it was like Maibock...and then that there were dark-ish Franconian Maibock(s) as well.

It also strikes me that there has been lots of back-n-forth on here over the years about whether tourists should enjoy the "normal" beer culture, not just festivals. I imagine I've gone both ways on that myself. I have a hard time imagining any visitors to this forum being put off by one looney former drunk (presuming that's what you're implying about me above) saying he would avoid the stinky drunk fest.

I have no idea what the Oktoberfest is like. Never bothered with it.
 
Followups:
             OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by AndyH on  2019-09-10 08:29:04
             OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by Jason  on  2019-09-11 03:33:24
               OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by Jürgen Wening on  2019-09-11 05:46:39
                 OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on  2019-09-22 01:44:45
                   OT: Complaining about... by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on  2019-09-22 02:02:05
                     OT: Complaining about... by Jürgen Wening on  2019-09-23 01:26:53
                       OT: Complaining about... by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on  2019-09-23 02:13:57
               OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on  2019-09-23 02:27:15
               OT: Complaining about Life by Nick B. (formerly in Erlangen) on  2019-09-23 02:44:36
                 OT: Complaining about Zoigltag, plus, SOME BEER CONTENT by AndyH on  2019-09-23 03:36:57
                         OT: Complaining about... by Barry Taylor on  2019-09-23 06:36:45