Franconian Beer Message Board
OT again:Berlin |
| Posted by Fred Waltman on 2013-07-17 05:31:48 |
| It's been 10 years since I was at the Bier Meile -- I do want to go back (that was an epic summer: GBBF, AnnaFest and Bier Meile) When people asked me about it my snarky answer was "Good News: 1700 beers. Bad news: 1200 of them are uninteresting." This is all based on a 10 year old experience so things may have changed. It is not like any "beer festival" I've been to in the US or UK. For a mile along Karl Marx Allee there are independent beer and food stands. Most of the beer stands those brewery trailers you see at events all over Germany. Occasionally they are a bit more elaborate -- especially if it is a larger brewery. There is a festival glass (.25 l) which some stands would fill (with some beers) for at the time €1. I see from the website it is now .2l for €1.50. If the stand wasn't part of the program then you got the brewery's regular glass -- for which you had to pay a deposit. This meant you had to stay at that stand to drink the beer (couldn't wander). There were three of us so in those cases we'd just split the beer into our festival glasses and return the brewery glass. So having a group is a good thing. The fest is along three stops on the U5. It got very crowded in the evening. Since there was no actual festival "place" there was no way to restrict anybody so at times it was literally a solid mass of people and very hard move around. So we tended to go early and leave when it started to get full. There will some beer friends there, if you want me to have them get in touch with you to meet up. |