Beer, Beer and More Beer: My Time in Bavaria

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a beer drinker. 

On a typical night out with my girl friends I could consumer any number of cocktails, wine, vodka mixers, shots or even horrificly-coloured bottled drinks, but beer? Never.

The only exception to this rule has ever been fruit-flavoured Belgian beers (also known as Lambic), which are so deliciously un-beer-like that they slip down with ease. I think it stems from my college and university days when beer was cheap and I was broke and so often found myself with a pint in one hand whilst boogying away on the dancefloor (with terrible consequences). Since then, the taste of beer has (literally) left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then I travelled to Vietnam, and beer was cheaper than water. As a backpacker on a budget, how could I justify paying more for water than for alcohol? I couldn’t. So I drunk beer. And although it wasn’t the best beer I’ve ever had in my life, at around 80 cents a pint, I wasn’t going to complain. I also found that as an accompaniment to the hot temperatures and spicy foods, beer was actually pretty refreshing. But after I returned home, I went back to my ways of vodka and cocktails and cried over the loss of cheap alcoholic drinks in South East Asia.

Since starting this round-the-world trip I have drunk beer on several occasions, some of it fruity, some of it not. For those of you who are fans of my Facebook page, you’ll even have seen a photo of me drinking fruity beer on a bridge in Budapest. And yet, despite my best efforts, I still haven’t been able to jump on the beer bandwagon, no matter how cheap the prices.

Three weeks ago, I arrived in Munich and my habits changed once again. We went out for dinner the first night with the German couple whose house we would be looking after for the next few weeks and they insisted on buying us a ‘kellerbier’, a type of beer which is cool and not pasteurised and the name literally translates as ‘cellar beer’ because of the fact it’s often served directly from the barrel.

The first sip was like sweet, sweet nectar.

It was cool and crisp and refreshing. Everything I had always imagined beer should be, yet always seemed to fall short on. I actually enjoyed it, and it left no bitter aftertaste. I realised that perhaps me and beer could get on after all, in a country which brews its own fresh beer and serves it to you directly from the barrel.

After that, pretty much the only alcohol I drank was beer in Bavaria.

We visited the Andechs Monastery, where the monks brew their own beer and it is poured fresh into large steins right in front of you. It was the best beer I have ever tasted.

I also sampled a stein of their apple weissbier and it was delicious and fruity and I’ve been dreaming about it ever since.

Now that I have left Munich, you may be wondering whether I’ll continue to drink beer forever more. The answer is no. I am currently in Italy and as such am revelling in the fact that I can drink delicious wine for as little as 3 Euros a bottle. The truth of the matter is, unless I am in a country or state such as Bavaria which takes their beer so seriously that it is almost a religion, I am not going to waste my time. You may think me foolish, but bad, stale beer from a can will never hold court with me again, as long as I can help it.

If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Once you have tasted the nectar of the Bavarian Gods, you can never go back