Here's another beer page from Berlin! This first picture is from a brewpub called Luisen-Braeu, across the street from Schloss Charlottenberg. Despite its touristy location, the beers were quite good. The woman at the left is hauling a meter of their Hellesbier out to some thirsty business people. They made an excellent beer choice; the Helles was malty and toasty with a subtle spiciness, just as the menu promised: "wuerzig und sueffig." (spicy and pleasant).

They also served a nice Hefeweizen, without lemon, very much like mine but with perhaps a touch more hops. Their Dunkels was fine, but unexciting.

I can't be sure if every evening at Luisen-Braeu is like this, but there were a lot of business people mixed in with the younger local crowd grabbing post-work beers. A good number of the suits were in a private room, where they were being entertained by a German oompah band and a Mexican quartet (?).

The shot to the right is the drummer preparing for the gig. While no beers are in this shot, it was at a brewpub, so it counts for the beer page, right?

Here is the Schultheiss brewery, which we toured. The left-most tall silo is for their spent grain. The truck in the background is loading up to take it to a farm. Yes, that is a lot of grain.

They brew as much in one batch as I brew in a year. The vast majority of this is their Pilsner (two brands, actually). Their best and most interesting beer, Berliner Weisse, accounts for a mere 2% of production.

The Schultheiss Brewery is the largest I have ever toured, and it is most impressive.To the right is their filtration area. I guess only a brewer can find so much stainless steel to be beautiful, but since I'm a brewer, you have to suffer with a picture of it. Jenn had to endure the tour!
You may recognize Brewmaster Kai Ullrich from a photo on an earlier page. There he was pouring us samples of unfiltered pils, here he is happily pouring the finished product.

This is the part of every brewery tour that Jenn likes best; it is usually worth the wait. This time was an exception: it was MORE than that! Due to some communication SNAFU, our 10 a.m. tour didn't happen until 6 p.m. To make up for it, the taps flowed quite freely. When Kai had to go check stuff in the brewhouse, he left us to pour our own. What hospitality!

As we were finishing our last beers at the Schultheiss canteen, the gentlemen in the photo to the right walked in. We were alone; Kai had gone off to work. The gentleman asked, in German, what we were doing there. A reasonable question at 9 p.m. in a deserted brewery room!

I explained in butchered German that we were on a tour with Kai, the brewmaster. He asked where we were from, and his face lit up when he realized we were English speakers. His name is Andre, and he works for Schultheiss as the "collections man." He is from the former east, and is always looking to practice his English. This ran counter to my plan to practice German, but it's always fun to meet new people.

He took us to a cool restaurant in Kreuzberg, and asked to meet up again the next evening, which we did. He took us around to some sights we missed, like Checkpoint Charlie and the Terrors, and then to a great place for dinner. The tavern, called Freischwimmer (Free swimmer) is located on a canal off the Spree river, and features some exceedingly pleasant views.

Sadly, they had no Schultheiss Weisse, but they had the Pils, so we drank that with our meals (duck and quail soup; very tasty).

Our last day in Berlin found us touring prior to our train's 14:45 departure for Verden. We visited the Berliner Dom, a magnificently restored cathedral (more later), and then ran off to lunch at the Altes Berliner Weissebierstube.

We thought we had left much more than enough time for lunch and beer, but the service was again so syrupy-slow that we cut it a little close. Why would any place schedule only two servers to handle Friday lunch in the center of the city?

I was able to achieve one of my goals for the trip at this place: Schultheiss Berliner Weisse in all three incarnations at once! Berliner Weisse is a sour beer, therefore many people prefer to mix it with sweet syrup. Red is Himbeer (Raspberry), green is Waldmeister ("woodruff," which is about as meaningful to most of us as Waldmeister), and yellow is straight. It is usually served with a straw, but I favor the straight version with no straw so as to fully enjoy the beer: it is an incredibly complex drink, fermented with a venerable culture of yeast and bacteria, including Brettanomyces. The aroma is tart, earthy and mouth-watering. The flavor is much the same, with sourness just bold enough to excite.

The Waldmeister syrup lends a vanilla flavor, while the raspberry syrup adds the expected characteristics.

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