From Pelsmin: Beer Cannon

The story.

Pelsmin's reason for sending it: "This is just the thing for the semi-immobile guy who needs to chase down his oxycodone with a frosty Bud Light." Yes, yes it is.

Legend or Not....

A "fish story" or not, this is quite amusing....

Excerpt:

All at once, Bruce got a big run on his line. This thing went all around the boat and took more than twenty minutes to bring up to the surface. When they got it up to the surface, they could not tell what it was. It looked prehistoric.

Steve Jr. put a gaff in it and the two men dragged it aboard the 33 foot boat. As soon the big creature hit the deck, it went crazy, attacking them. It was an eel over 6 feet long, weighing close to 100 pounds. It had a mouth full of sharp teeth and was extremely pissed off...In the midst of thrashing around, the creature fell down below onto the floor between the two sleeping men, Erik and Ken. When they heard the thud and turned on the light, the eel raised its head right above Ken’s face. Erik rolled over and grabbed his 9 mm pistol. Steve Jr. started yelling. “Don’t shoot the gun in the boat! We’re 120 miles from land!” Next thing you know, all four fishermen were on the deck and the gigantic eel had sole possession of the bottom of the boat.

[snip, involving beer and squealing and running around] Then they hatched a new battle plan. Steve Jr. went out on the deck to get the beast’s attention. The eel attacked and Steve Jr. climbed up on top of the captain’s chair. Ken threw a blanket on top of the giant eel while Erik and Bruce beat the hell out of it with a steel gaff and a large ice chest lid. After the creature was finally subdued, they put it into a large ice chest, and closed the lid on it.

The four brave sailors all got themselves a beer and were laughing at the situation when the lid of the ice chest was suddenly knocked off and the eel sprang out onto the deck and resumed his attack.. Bruce stated that the eel was clearly out for vengeance. The four men each picked up something and the fight was on. After beating the creature with gaffs, ice chest lids and fire extinguishers again, they once more subdued the massive carnivore and put it back into the ice chest. This time, they tied the lid down and put another ice chest on top of that one. Eighteen hours later they returned to the dock and started unloading the boat. None of them was anxious to open the lid to the ice chest, in fact, they did “rock, paper, scissors” to determine who would pop the lid!

(Nod to GameBill)

TMIMITW

The Most Interesting Man in the World.... "He's been known to cure narcolepsy just by walking into a room. His organ donation card also lists his beard. He's a lover, not a fighter, but he's also a fighter, so don't get any ideas."

Craig Newmark links to this amusing roundup.

American Efforts at Weisse Bier

On this trip to the beach, I tried three varieties of American weissbier.

The tale o' the tape:

Surprisingly good, in fact excellent: Sierra Nevada "Kellerweis" Hefeweizen. Much, much better than I expected. Looks and tastes just like wiessbier, in fact. Well done. My new favorite, #1 American beer.

Surprisingly good, because it is not horrible: Michelob Dunkel Weiss. Again, much, much better than I expected. Not actually great, just better than I expected. If you are stuck, this beer will in some ways remind you of a real dunkel. For an An-Busch product, outstanding, though.

Surprisingly bad, bordering on terrible: Sam Adams Weiss. Awful. Appalling. Why did they even try? Tastes like a generic beer, no head, clear amber appearance. Supposedly "retired" (i.e., discontinued to end the sucking), but still available.

I want to ride my bicycle.....

Freddy Mercury would have been very very pleased with this:



Plus for a few Euros more you can add..... KARAOKE!!!

Ending racism, one drink at a time

Wow, I didn't think that President O was really serious about his "lets talk about it over a few beers" offer to Gates & Crowley, but apparently that is actually happening today.

People, I am pretty sure that, over the course of history, beer has caused a lot more racial incidents than it has defused. I am also pretty sure that President O is not really a beer man.

As always, the Wall St. Journal gets right to the heart of the issue with a hard-hitting piece on what beers are going to be served. President O is opting for Bud Light (thus proving my conjecture from the previous paragraph).

The scandal here is that none of the beers being served are truly "American" (Anseuser Busch is now "foreign owned"):

"We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.

Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."

Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."

Holy Crap!!

The Rain in Vienna Falls Mainly on the Food

When I visited GameBill in Vienna, on the first night we feasted on pork. Schweizerhaus Stelze, in fact. Grilled pig leg. A big hit. To your arteries.

On the second day, it rained. But we feasted on Sacher Torte, and later a giant 2 meter long wurst at Centimeter, along of course with a maß bier. (Even I was full, after biting THAT big one.)

On the third day, it was beautiful, and we rode bikes, rented at these "Citybike" kiosks. We had a nice break for a bottle of Grüner Veltliner. (Note the label. I just can't IMAGINE where the whole "Bruno" stereotype comes from. Not that that is BAD thing, anyway. Vienna is just a free-thinking sort of place....)

HIghs and Lows of Food in Munich

I have mentioned before the food requirements of the Lovely Ms. Mungowitz. So, while we were in Munich recently, we despaired of finding a decent place to have a salad that was devoid of things such as cucumbers, peppers, cheese, dressing, or croutons. The only solution? Subway Sandwich Shop. No, I am not kidding. In Munich, we went to the Subway for lunch.

The YYM saved the day, however, by ordering potato chips. Unexpectedly, a truly genius move. Here are two of the types of potato chips available at the Munich Subway Sandwich Shop:
The first, inexplicably, is "Ready Salted." Is this "ALReady Salted," in disguise, or something else? The second is "Prawn Cocktail." We ordered those, of course. And we disappointed, since there was no noticeable flavor of prawns on the chips. (That's "crisps" for you, Tommy). Or maybe we were happy. I don't remember.

Because then we got some real food. A nice dunkel and a big-ass brezel. The YYM was pleased.

Bergkirchweih: "You don't think, you drink,"

I have written a bit before about the Berg, here in Erlangen. (Here is a three year old article with some good background, and descriptions). Let me just give some quick hit visual impressions, after 3 full days of watching...

1. A couple sitting on a bench, talking softly. Suddenly, she turns and slaps him, hard. His glasses fly off. She stares at him. She gets up, gets his glasses, hands them to him, he puts glasses in pocket. She sits back down. He puts his arm around her, and she snuggles up against him. Another story we'll never know the end of.

2. Two guys standing on a pretty sharp downslope (the "Berg" is not really a mountain, but is a considerable hill, which means not level). Uphill guy is talking pretty animatedly. Downhill guy is looking at him, nodding. Then DH guy quite calmly and placidly leans over and starts puking like a fountain, right on the UH guy's shoes. Except that the UH guy, showing amazing cat-like agility, jumps straight up. The problem with jumping straight up, of course, is that physics requires that you come straight down. UH guy, in mid-air, tries to become the anti-cat, and NOT land on his feet. Except that that means he lands on his butt, in the goo. And slides downhill, taking out DH guy, who is still puking. They start to fight, in a kind of half hearted way. Polizei come over, and separate them, in an even MORE half-hearted way, since both UH and DH guy are puke-covered. They stand up, with their arms out to their sides. The crowd (including me) gives them a rousing ovation, with raucous cheers. This was a much better show than a lot of the stuff people on the midway were paying 1 Euro, or more, to see. Excellent entertainment.

3. Families walking toward the Berg site, little kids overexcited. These carnivals are never as much fun as you hope when you are a little kid. Too expensive, too crowded, and the rides are short and you have to stand in line. But the heartbreak and disappointment have not yet set in, and the little kids are still fired up. One family, dad walking in front with a five year old, mom in back with double stroller, with an infant in the covered part and walking holding hands with a three year old (I'm guessing, but that's pretty close, on age). Dad lets go of five year old's hand, turns to say something to mom, pointing at a ride or something. Five year old, just like the Light Brigade, didn't stop to think that someone had blundered. Walked in a straight line, and runs face first into a telephone pole. No swerving, no avoidance, orders are orders. Kid loses his cute little cap, falls on back, starts screaming. Mom runs up, picks up kid, and starts reaming poor dad a new one. (Angry German women are terrifying. As are angry women of every other human nationality or ethnicity.) All the men walking by shrink back, in terror. All the women walking by are clearly prepared to help out, beating the dad with sticks or rocks, if necessary. And the poor dad is just staring, thinking, "My kid, looking straight ahead, just walked directly into a pole, without trying to avoid it. I wonder if that is really my kid? I guess my uncle Wilhelm was like that, but only when he was drunk." Or something like that. I'm sure that's what he was thinking.

4. People walking toward the Berg, huge rivers of humanity, from DB Banhoff to the entrance, solid. Laughing, talking, pointing. People walking back from the Berg, surly, tired, drunk, pissed off that they didn't have as much fun as they think they should have, and edgy because of the crowds. Yelling stuff at anyone going the opposite direction (as I always seemed to be), cursing. Broken glass absolutely everywhere, as well as puke pockmarks, blast radii of nasty fair food and much too much beer. The problem is that most people can drink 2 liters of beer, and almost no one can drink 3 liters of beer, without puking. Clearly lots of 3 literians in this crowd. A pretty ugly feeling, if you walk around after about 9 pm. So, of course, that is precisely when I spent most of my time walking around, from 9 pm to midnight. On the plus side, I can't complain that no one was talking to each other. The out of town drunk frat boy types were talking to everyone, and even to no one. I saw one skinhead wannabe having an extremely intense conversation with a large tree, about ten meters off the sidewalk. I think he was kidding around, but there was no audience except me, and I left pretty quickly. Better the tree than me.

Turnabout: A German Restaurant in NC

So, I took some pretty abusive comments for my surprise at the non-Mexican Mexican food here in Erlangen.

I figured turnabout was fair play, so when the Lovely Ms. Mungowitz and I were in Wilmington, NC, and we espied the following sign, we knew it was kismet: You gotta admit; that has CONSIDERABLE culinary tragicomic potential. Not "Die Münchener" (Americans wouldn't know that meant "German"), or "Villy's" (I'm trying to keep with the Chilli's theme). A generic name: The German Cafe.

We go in. Beautiful old place (old for North Carolina, about 175 years for the main building, though it was a port facility until the 1930s) in the Cotton Exchange. Playing Beethoven (6th or 7th symphony, I don't know them well enough to distinguish) on a nice stereo system. (Technically, Beethoven only lived in Germany until he was 22, when he moved to Vienna. But Austrian music is better than "The Most Horrible Hits from the 70s, 80s, and Today" you hear in REAL German restaurants.)

I'm a little scared. The building itself, though, with the Beethoven playing softly, does much to settle me down. Check this: The LMM orders a salad (Oh, really?), but I have to try to sample the "German" part of the menu to see just how apocalyptic it is. Beer list: domestics? bottles? AAAAARGH! I order unsweetened iced tea. It comes....with ICE. This is no German place!

Except that then I see the actual beer list. A fine variety of actual German beers, on tap, including a very fine Hefe Weisse. I ordered the Wurst plate (going for the knockwurst), which comes with sauer kruat, kartoffelsalat, and bread, as you see on the menu...

The waitress, dressed in a modest dirndl, brings the food. Note that it looks quite tasty, that the side dishes actually LOOK like sauer kraut and potato salad, and the the Hefe Weisse is served in a proper Hefe Weisse glass, and is properly cloudy. Overall, a decent B. Any German who ate this meal would be disappointed (the bread was horrible, though it is standard American "brown" bread, soft, gummy, and tasteless), but not amazed. The knockwurst was quite good, the sauer kraut was that weak kind without spice, but with some rye seeds added, and the potato salad was just okay. BUT IT WAS A WURST, WITH KRAUT AND POTATO AND BREAD. That is a German meal, no matter how poorly executed. Further, the ham on the LMM's salad.... delightful fresh lettuce, and oh, the ham. German meats generally, and ham in particular, are just at a higher standard than the U.S. And this ham was genuinely first rate.

Finally, on the language question: the owner, and one employee, were both native German speakers. No repeat of the "pollo" incident here.

So, tote up the score: Hefe Weisse, wurst, and ham all very acceptable quality. Side dishes were mediocre, but at least they were the correct side dishes. Adding the watermelon slice was charming, an American touch. But it did not DISPLACE the correct side dishes (at the German Mexican restaurant, you may recall, the cabbage with mayo was presented INSTEAD of rice/beans/etc. that should accompany a Mexican meal).

Plus, The German Cafe had a nice tapestry of a fine German schloss, in a dark corner. The decor was legit. Like I said, solid B. American German beats German Mexican.

Bergkirchweih

Okay, you may not speak German.

But, this video of the Bergkirchweih gives you an idea of the current events here in Erlangen. Here is the home page: Mai 28 - Juni 8---Prost!

Though, lest you get the wrong idea, let me assure that my own participation is purely as an observer. Of course, I'd hate to be RUDE, and so I have a few beers. The big 1 liter ones. Per hour. Also, while it is certainly true that some of the young ladies wear dirndls that can barely contain their....enthusiasm, I always avert my eyes. No, really.

Some Observations.....From Dland

Got the EYM on the train this morn, bound for the FRA Flughafen. Quite a week. We did our best to support the local beer and restaurant industry.

Some random observations:

1. Witnessed a fantastic, operatic dust-up between the Parking Enforcement guy and a woman who wanted to park. She had a piece of paper, and he kept alternating between refusing to look at the piece of paper and insisting that there was a specific line on the paper, to which he would point triumphantly, which meant that the woman was out of luck. They actually alternated in JUST the way an opera would have gone. She would wave her arms, and yell, with him standing with arms folded and then sing, "NOOOOOO!" to punctuate her questions. Then he would have a go, pointing behind her, pointing down the street, pointing at the cross bar that he refused to raise for her. Fantastic scene. The best parking argument I have EVER seen, made better by the fact we couldn't understand what they were saying. Getting shut down by the parking Gestapo is a universal human experience, one that transcends language.

2. The DBahn should have a disclaimer on their tickets, for the sake of full information. To wit: "The traveller should be warned, because of our combination of simple imcompetence and aggressive indifference to your need for timely travel, that you should completely ignore any ticket with a connection of less than 20 minutes. You will not make the connection, because we will probably dawdle and delay without warning or explanation."
If they would give you that warning, then you could try to make shorter connections (now the default, and withOUT warning), but it would be at your own peril. The problem is the discontinuity: there is an enormous difference between just barely making your train connection, and just barely missing your train connection. ESPECIALLY if you are trying to go (for example) to an airport. The regional trains, as far as I can tell, are ALWAYS ten minutes late, and probably more. You can guess what this means for the 8 minute connection that the DB "planners" (who probably drive to work, so they are not late) schedule as the default. I'm just asking for a sporting chance here, a little information.

3. Nuremberg. Very, very nice. The old part of the city: extraordinary. Albrecht Durer's home town. Very fine beer pretty much everywhere. "Drei im Weckla" means heaven for the those of us who work represent Herb. "Drei im Weckla" is three very fine little keyhole brats, in a most excellent weckla, or hard roll. A fine selection of spicy senfs, or mustard. All for 1.20 Euro. Or you can get six brats, a weckla, and a big pile of sauerkraut, for 3 euro. Food fit for kings, if the king is Herb Munger. I should explain the brats: the rule was that the butchers had to close, and that the city walls of Nuremberg had to close. But travellers still wanted those (really, really great) sausages. So, instead of obeying the state, or confronting the state (neither of which is the way of German business), they made the brats really skinny, so they would pass through the keyhole of the main gate. A kind of food-oriented glory hole, if you will.
4. Bamberg. Not what I expected. I had expected it to be smaller, for some reason. It is quite a large city. But the old part of the city, the extremely cool medieval part that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, begins when you cross the SOUTH branch of the river Regnitz. Many people had said "you should go!" to Bamberg, and they were quite right. Plenty of travel guides, so I won't go through the obvious things. But I would say this: If you are on a budget, and want to go early enough for a nice breakfast, just walk south on Luitpoldstr., straight from the Bahnhof, and stop at Nico's bakery and coffee shop on the right, right after you cross the North branch of the river, which you come to first. Enormous, fantastic pastries, and you will have trouble spending 6 euro for two people, for more than you can eat. The cafe looks out over the river, and it is steady but not crowded. Lots of locals come in to buy bread and stuff, but it is very pleasant to sit there, too. Then go ahead and cross the second (south) branch, and look around. Very, very steep. Wear comfy shoes. Two more things to do: (1) make sure you go up to the old Benedictine monastery on the Michaelsberg; (2) even if you are tired, make sure you leave a little time for the breweries up on Konigstrasse, north of the north branch of the river. (You can't go wrong, but here is my choice.) Little, local places with small beer gardens and lots of families just out for the afternoon. Didn't see a lot of tourists up here, just serious beer fans and local folks. (A photo of the BG at the Spezial...)

Our favorite beer, though, was the Mahrs Dunkel Weissbier. It helped that we enjoyed this most excellent beverage in the courtyard of the little restaurant behind the old Benedictine monastery at the top of the Michaelsberg. If it looks like a long way up, it is. But once you get up there, it is a long way down. Very, very fine view, very very fine beer.

5. Also in Bamberg, but deserving special mention....E. T. A. Hoffman. I had, to my shame, never heard of E. T. A. Hoffman, but the EYM is a big fan, both on the merits and because ETA Hoffman was a big influence on Nikolai Gogol, the author that the EYM studies and follows most closely. We tried to visit the Hoffman house, and museum. And the museum had a sign saying that it was "geöffnet," or open. But it was locked tight. The explanation was that it was open only 10 - noon on Saturdays. Since the time was then 10:45 am, this seemed like a pretty bad explanation for being both "geöffnet" and locked. But I do have to say that MOST of the places I have tried to visit in Germany have this attitude. The operators and employees are simply MUCH too busy and important to wait on customers. It's like that Monty Python skit, where if you try to get served, or try to get in the door to a place that is supposed to be open, then Eric Idle yells back at you, "You think YOU have it bad? When I was growing up we would have BEGGED just to be turned away from a museum. We were turned away and TORTURED! You are just SOFT, complaining that the museum should actually be open during the hours it is supposed to be open!" So, we had a good laugh, because it had taken us an hour to find the place, and we actually arrived in the two hour geoffnet window, and it was STILL closed. THEN, we noticed a series of semi-guerilla griffiti stenciled on the sidewalk, marking the path in the "E. T. A. Hoffman" tour. If ol' ETA had ever walked in a spot, then that seemed to be a spot on the tour. The stencils appear in strange spots, nearly a "Kilroy was here" anarchist blotch on the old city. We loved it, and made an effort to keep track of the strange places (there were DOZENS) where the E.T.A. Hoffman logo would turn up, on cobblestones or ancient roads. Someday, I'm going to try and go back and visit, if the curators of the museum ever decide to actually open the doors during open hours.

Best Beer

After exhausting research (I mean exhausting, yes: we visited 11 different breweries or biergartens in a period of 4 hours at night, then 2 hours the following day), the EYM and I can answer the question....What is the best beer in Munich?

Unfortunately, our answer is boring, and it's the one that many people would give. I was hoping for some obscure and revolutionary insight.

But....the answer is.....The Weissbier brewed by Augustiner. It has three separate flavor sensations. First, just the cold, solid feel and taste of a hefeweissbier, unfiltered and tactile. Then, a terrific middle taste, crisp. Then a hint, a coquettish peak at a lovely ankle, a sweet biting breath of clove spice like the memories of her lip gloss on your first kiss, gone as soon as it you feel it.

And I have to admit that even the universally available Franziskaner, or Guttman, or Schneider, weissbiers, out of a bottle, are just fine, wonderful really. But Augustiner is clearly the best.

We tried HARD to avoid this choice. Augustiner is a touristy, standard beer, widely available in Munich. But it is really, really fantastic.

The response is likely to be that, no, no, the only REAL good beers are available after crawling up a mountain, taking a four wheel drive vehicle over a goat path to a monastery, something like that. At a minimum, I expect to hear, you have to take the dB to Bamberg to get good beer in Bayern.

And, maybe so. But I know this: the fact that something is not widely available does NOT make it better. The whole premise of Smokey and the Bandit was that Boss Hog wanted a really, REALLY special beer for the wedding. So....they went to all that trouble...for COORS! Bland American carbonated pisswater beer.

So, for anyone seeking the Bayerische weissbier experience, the basic tourist wisdom is actually true: Augustiner weissbier is a remarkable, complex, fantastic beer. If you sit in a biergarten and have four 0.5s, on a warm German day, you will be happy. And you will be in Munich, with all its charms. The day trip out to the country is worth doing, but for the trip, not for the beer.

Munich

I am going to try to find more time to write about Munich soon. But today is my big teaching day. Some squibs:

1. The EYM pointed out that every city in the U.S. now has a Martin Luther King Blvd. He posed the question, "Does every city in Germany have a Martin Luther Strasse (Platz, Bahn, something). The answer appears to be "yes," since there certainly is one in Munich, the most Catholic city in the most Catholic region of Germany.

2. The train ride to Munich and back was uneventful and mostly on time. Boring, like it should be. I have had enough of exciting.

3. We did visit Haus Der Kunst museum, as suggest by recreational genius Angus. Gerhard Richter was in fact one of the exhibitions. I have not seen much modern art. But in terms of my own reaction, both emotionally and intellectually, this was clearly the best exhibit I have ever seen. One odd thing, however: the little speaker jobbie you get at exhibitions, to listen to some otherwise unemployed art historian tell you what it all means? Well, you go from number to number, press the button, and learn. And I have to say the CONTENT of these recordings, which were available in many languages, including English, was very good. But the pieces being exhibited were in RANDOM order, or nearly so. 1 was outside; fair enough. 2 was just inside the door. 3 was in another room, though 5 and 6 were in the same room as 2. 4 I didn't find until nearly the end; it was in another room. And so on: 8 was next to 14, then 15 (good), then you finally come to 9 and 10, in the next room. It is just possible, of course, that this was intentional. My own insistence that the numbers should develop in a logical, orderly also meant that time is linear, and patterns are revealed in a sequence required by physics. So, if the curators intentionally partly scrambled the order (only partly, not really random, but hard to tell what comes next, and the viewer has to CHOOSE what comes next, without knowing the consequences), then ....well played, Haus der Kunst.

4. Next post: Two much more lengthy descriptions of important questions. A. What is the best beer in Munich? B. What happens when fat Americans from Ohio go on a tour of Munich, following the development of the Third Reich in its home city, led by a French-Tunisian named Schadlich? Answers: A: Ha! You have to wait. B: Nothing good. They certainly embarrass the Americans from North Carolina, who are not easily embarrassed.