This Can't Be Good: Last Call At Another Notable Brewery

[day_trippr]

Hahahaha! Ok, I only skimmed that video, but except for maybe one shot I didn't recognize a single venue.
Which isn't to say that didn't or even doesn't happen, but perhaps such compilations aren't actually representative of the average Oktoberfest day in Munich.

I have to say I've visited Munich three times in my life, twice on business with my company and once on business with my wife's, and had a great time each visit...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I've been there, too. Just not in September.

They have a place they call "puke hill." Makes New York's subway stations sound nice.

 

[bwible]

Haven't been to octoberfest in Germany, but at other times, they serve pretty dang close to a full half or liter. And it is why the UK has a line on their pint glasses. Foam above the line, beer beliw

On my bucket list, but I’ve never been either. Just watch videos though of the girls carrying 13 mugs. Not one of them is more than half full.

 

[day_trippr]

Those big mugs are a full liter, and so it can be "hammer time" pretty quickly - depending on the ABV.
We were fortunate that the brews at Kloster Andechs we had with dinners there were in the 5s and maybe 6s otherwise we'd have never made it back to our hotels in Munich...

Cheers!

 

[bwible]

Check out Youtube. It's a real spectacle. Vomiting, passing out, falling down...really glad we were not there.

I don't know how widespread the high school behavior is, but the videos are pretty off-putting.

The drinking age is 13, they serve beer in half liter mugs and they have a highway with no speed limit. What could go wrong?

My nephew got to go on a school exchange program and stay with a host family I think he was 17 or 18. He got in trouble drinking. He was ordered to write a letter of apology. I think it was something to do with spraying a fire extinguisher all over some cars.

 

[bwible]

My wife and I also tried to go to Munich. I had a hard time finding a hotel. We had no idea Oktoberfest was in September.

I looked at some videos to see what it was all about. I had assumed it was about people who really appreciated the craftsmanship that went into good beer. Not exactly true. Those people lying face-down in the street weren't thinking about balanced malts and subtle hopping.

This wins post of the day

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The first time I got drunk, I was 12. I was with my parents in Munich, and the restaurant gave me all the wine I wanted. When I was 16, I went to Europe with a bunch of other high school students, and the only place where I couldn't get drinks was one bar in Amsterdam. The trip was 5 weeks long, and I got hammered a bunch of times. They were happy to sell me hard liquor, not just beer. Not sure the European approach was the best.

I had such a great time, it taught me a lesson, which was that alcohol was the one thing that would make me the life of the party and make girls like me. I would have been better off if I had thrown up after every drink.

The drinking age is 13, they serve beer in half liter mugs and they have a highway with no speed limit. What could go wrong?

My nephew got to go on a school exchange program and stay with a host family I think he was 17 or 18. He got in trouble drinking. He was ordered to write a letter of apology. I think it was something to do with spraying a fire extinguisher all over some cars.

 

[MaxStout]

Not-so-CSB about Munich O-fest.

Went there in 1984 with some friends. Two Germans and one other American. No reservations, came by train from Stuttgart, arrived at the Munich Hauptbahnhof late in the evening. The station had a sort of concierge booth with staff that helped people line up lodging, etc. Guy made a few phone calls, found us a place, an apartment flat nearby with a room with several bunk beds. IIRC, rates were something like DM100/night per person w/continental breakfast. About $25/night. A half hour later some British guy came by the station to take us over there. The flat was owned by his German girlfriend. We crashed for the night, lots of drinking ahead the next day.

We took the U-Bahn to and from the fest grounds. Going to it around noonish was uneventful. We headed to the Hofbrau hall and pretty much stayed put for a while and drank. A little later we wandered to a couple smaller halls, don't recall which. We all had more beers and ate.

Returning at night was a freakshow. This was 1984. Lots of punks, neo-nazis with skinny jeans and Doc Martin boots, and a various assortment of people puking or passing out. Or both. It was SRO on this train. Some were hanging onto the straps for dear life and spewing all over themselves. The stench was...memorable.

We made it back to our rooms without incident. Amazingly, none of us puked. More amazingly, I didn't get any on me. We all crashed, got up the next day, rinse and repeat.

Good times.

 

[day_trippr]

Gotta say...that sounds like Rush Week waaay back in my college days...in Denver back in the early 1970s. The alcohol induced "Technicolor Yawn" was definitely a thing - and I developed a lifelong revulsion towards "Cold Duck" in one fateful night of mostly being carried from one sorority house lawn to the next. Fun times I've striven to avoid repeating ever since. Woof!

 

[whovous]

So my 9-ounce "pint" glasses are actually a scam!

When my wife and I were trying to visit Czechia, I watched a lot of videos, and I was surprised to see they serve lagers that are literally all foam. I hope that doesn't catch on here.

So my 9-ounce "pint" glasses are actually a scam!

When my wife and I were trying to visit Czechia, I watched a lot of videos, and I was surprised to see they serve lagers that are literally all foam. I hope that doesn't catch on here.

Don't knock it until you try it. An all foam pour is called "mliko" and you are expected to chug it as soon as it is served. Czechs know how to pour beer!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Their website shows two taprooms still open, Longmont, CO and Brevard, NC.

The general discussion of this thread seems off. From what I can tell, Oskar Blues expanded to 3 breweries around the country. They decided to just close one of them. Honestly, I was surprised to learn that Oskar Blues had locations in Texas and North Carolina. Dales Pale Ale is an okay beer, but is really just a run of the mill old school 6.5% ABV IPA. Ten Fidy is an okay beer, but not a favorite of mine. Their Pils is the only other I have seen or tried.

My area (Loudoun County Virginia) seems saturated with breweries. But, while some have closed, a larger number have opened or expanded. There does not seem to be a lot of room for breweries with plans to expand to country wide distribution to compete with the Sierra Nevadas (like Oskar Blues apparently tried to do), but there still seems to be plenty of room for local craft breweries.

 

[beersk]

Not-so-CSB about Munich O-fest.

Went there in 1984 with some friends. Two Germans and one other American. No reservations, came by train from Stuttgart, arrived at the Munich Hauptbahnhof late in the evening. The station had a sort of concierge booth with staff that helped people line up lodging, etc. Guy made a few phone calls, found us a place, an apartment flat nearby with a room with several bunk beds. IIRC, rates were something like DM100/night per person w/continental breakfast. About $25/night. A half hour later some British guy came by the station to take us over there. The flat was owned by his German girlfriend. We crashed for the night, lots of drinking ahead the next day.

We took the U-Bahn to and from the fest grounds. Going to it around noonish was uneventful. We headed to the Hofbrau hall and pretty much stayed put for a while and drank. A little later we wandered to a couple smaller halls, don't recall which. We all had more beers and ate.

Returning at night was a freakshow. This was 1984. Lots of punks, neo-nazis with skinny jeans and Doc Martin boots, and a various assortment of people puking or passing out. Or both. It was SRO on this train. Some were hanging onto the straps for dear life and spewing all over themselves. The stench was...memorable.

We made it back to our rooms without incident. Amazingly, none of us puked. More amazingly, I didn't get any on me. We all crashed, got up the next day, rinse and repeat.

Good times.

That's a great story. I wonder...how did the beer taste then versus now from your memory?

The general discussion of this thread seems off. From what I can tell, Oskar Blues expanded to 3 breweries around the country. They decided to just close one of them. Honestly, I was surprised to learn that Oskar Blues had locations in Texas and North Carolina. Dales Pale Ale is an okay beer, but is really just a run of the mill old school 6.5% ABV IPA. Ten Fidy is an okay beer, but not a favorite of mine. Their Pils is the only other I have seen or tried.

My area (Loudoun County Virginia) seems saturated with breweries. But, while some have closed, a larger number have opened or expanded. There does not seem to be a lot of room for breweries with plans to expand to country wide distribution to compete with the Sierra Nevadas (like Oskar Blues apparently tried to do), but there still seems to be plenty of room for local craft breweries.

It seems like a lot of breweries are expanding in this way and I don't understand it. I mentioned Big Grove here in Iowa City is currently constructing a 4th and 5th location, one is a production brewery only and the other is to have a taproom. They have one in Solon, IA (the original brewpub); Iowa City (where I live); Des Moines; building one in Cedar Rapids, and building a production brewery near my house in Iowa City. I just don't get it. Why does a brewery need that many locations?

 

[MaxStout]

That's a great story. I wonder...how did the beer taste then versus now from your memory?


It seems like a lot of breweries are expanding in this way and I don't understand it. I mentioned Big Grove here in Iowa City is currently constructing a 4th and 5th location, one is a production brewery only and the other is to have a taproom. They have one in Solon, IA (the original brewpub); Iowa City (where I live); Des Moines; building one in Cedar Rapids, and building a production brewery near my house in Iowa City. I just don't get it. Why does a brewery need that many locations?

I think it was before the fest switched to Festbier, and I recall the beer being amber in color. My tastes weren't very refined then, though I was long a fan of what Bavarian beers were available in bottles at home. Having it served fresh was night and day different from the beer shipped 5000 miles in green bottles. Very malty, nice hops flavor, and WAY too easy to consume a lot. I recall thinking it was like nothing I'd had before. Microbreweries were not a thing yet in the US.

I haven't been back aince then, so I can't compare with today's offerings. A few local breweries here make fairly true-to-form Festbiers and Marzens, and I suppose they are close.

One thing I noticed about Germany, is that nearly every town with a few 1000 or more people had its own brewery and many held their own O-fests. We visited a few, including one in Heubach (where my German friends lived), just east of Stuttgart. If you travel to Germany around fest time, don't overlook some of those smaller events. Nowhere near as crazy, and the beer is excellent.

 

[beersk]

I think it was before the fest switched to Festbier, and I recall the beer being amber in color. My tastes weren't very refined then, though I was long a fan of what Bavarian beers were available in bottles at home. Having it served fresh was night and day different from the beer shipped 5000 miles in green bottles. Very malty, nice hops flavor, and WAY too easy to consume a lot. I recall thinking it was like nothing I'd had before. Microbreweries were not a thing yet in the US.

I haven't been back aince then, so I can't compare with today's offerings. A few local breweries here make fairly true-to-form Festbiers and Marzens, and I suppose they are close.

One thing I noticed about Germany, is that nearly every town with a few 1000 or more people had its own brewery and many held their own O-fests. We visited a few, including one in Heubach (where my German friends lived), just east of Stuttgart. If you travel to Germany around fest time, don't overlook some of those smaller events. Nowhere near as crazy, and the beer is excellent.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. We kind of hijacked this thread and should've been talking about all this in the Beer Vacation to Germany thread.

 

[balrog]

Show me a thread that never goes sideways.

 

[MaxStout]

Show me a thread that never goes sideways.

But we always return it to its original, upright position.

What were we talking about, again?

Oh yeah, breweries closing.

In recent months, we've had the following closures or soon-to-be closed in the Twin Cities:
Dangerous Man taproom
Eastlake Craft Brewery
Clutch Brewing

Some course-correction in an overcrowded market.

 

[day_trippr]

One thing I noticed about Germany, is that nearly every town with a few 1000 or more people had its own brewery

Definitely true in Germany - and much of western Europe...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Makes sense. My house has only two people, and it has a brewery.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

It seems like a lot of breweries are expanding in this way and I don't understand it. I mentioned Big Grove here in Iowa City is currently constructing a 4th and 5th location, one is a production brewery only and the other is to have a taproom. They have one in Solon, IA (the original brewpub); Iowa City (where I live); Des Moines; building one in Cedar Rapids, and building a production brewery near my house in Iowa City. I just don't get it. Why does a brewery need that many locations?

The "multiple taproom" model does seem to be one that breweries around me have been using successful (though it is always hard to tell from the outside how successful a business actually is). I think it make sense to have a location (or multiple) where people came come out and drink your beers...with some additional attractions (trivia night, food, live music, comedy, room for kids to play, mountain view, etc.). Tap rooms also provide flexibility to rotate new beers in with a core set.

I don't quite get the desire to create large production facilities. That means you are competing with the established large production "craft" breweries and fighting the AB distribution machine for limited tap handles and grocery shelf space. I tend to think that if you are a craft brewery that distributes to 10+ states, you are not really a craft brewery. It is hard to change an established "brand" or introduce new beers.

Oskar Blues is a perfect example of that. At one point Dale's Pale Ale was an interesting beer and a craft beer in cans was unique. Now it is just one of many outdated Pale Ales / IPAs. I have zero reason to purchase a DPA, when there are so many better locally made Pale Ales and IPAs (and cans are the norm). Restaurants looking for something similar are likely to put on one of the AB brands like Elysian or Cigar City, or look to a local brewery. Besides maybe Ten Fidy, the other Oskar Blue offerings are the exact stuff put out by Sierra Nevada/Stone/Bell's/etc.

Here is a local brewery (Honor Brewing) that just expanded to a massive tap room and production brewery space, that is right across the street from another established production brewery and tap room (Solace...who have expanded by opening up small brewpubs and taprooms). It seems like an odd move.
https://www.honorbrewing.com/honor-brewing-loudoun-location/

 

[JAReeves]

I watch BrewBids and ProBrewer and other sites, and there's a lot of brewery locations coming up for auction the last couple of years. A lot. I just don't see me convincing the household to let me put a 10BBL in the garage.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I watch BrewBids and ProBrewer and other sites, and there's a lot of brewery locations coming up for auction the last couple of years. A lot. I just don't see me convincing the household to let me put a 10BBL in the garage.

I recall 4 Northern Virginia breweries that closed in the past year or so, and they pieced out all the equipment at auction. It is too bad, as I have to assume a fermenter installed with electricity, plumbing and drainage in place is worth 10x what just the piece of equipment is worth. Some of these were not in the most ideal location, but a lot of breweries succeed in out of the way locations. I hear one of them now is a dog kennel, or maybe does dog training.

 

[beren]

The first time I got drunk, I was 12. I was with my parents in Munich, and the restaurant gave me all the wine I wanted. When I was 16, I went to Europe with a bunch of other high school students, and the only place where I couldn't get drinks was one bar in Amsterdam. The trip was 5 weeks long, and I got hammered a bunch of times. They were happy to sell me hard liquor, not just beer. Not sure the European approach was the best.

I had such a great time, it taught me a lesson, which was that alcohol was the one thing that would make me the life of the party and make girls like me. I would have been better off if I had thrown up after every drink.

The problem is you are American and aren’t raised to not gulp anything down you can get your hands on as fast as you can. Does it happen to Europeans? Sure, but the whole “ Abstinence” shtick that America tries absolutely backfires on everything it’s applied to. Alcohol, sex, drugs, food, it doesn’t matter.
This sums it up pretty well: Emma Watson says she's been drinking wine since she was a kid but didn't realize other teens used it 'for getting wasted'

 

[beren]

Definitely true in Germany - and much of western Europe...

Cheers!

Yeah we’ll they didn’t have the idiocy of Prohibition like we did. That stopped drinking all right…

 

[passedpawn]

lolz! I was fortunate to have been flown into the Greater Munchen Area on business in the middle of Oktoberfest and conveyed around the notable bierhauses by the local sales dudes. I saw plenty of merriment (that Hofbräuhaus behind the Glockenspiel was a total riot) but fortunately no face-down drunkards. Same deal at Kloster Andechs - lots of red faced folks that probably should not have even considered driving home but I didn't trip over any bodies

Cheers!

Munich has a pretty nice subway. Drinkers in the city don't need to drive.

 

[passedpawn]

Don't knock it until you try it. An all foam pour is called "mliko" and you are expected to chug it as soon as it is served. Czechs know how to pour beer!

No sorry, Dutch are experts, with their scrapers. Perfectionists that way.

 

[MaxStout]

An all-foam pour ensures lots of gas for the Czech belching contests that will ensue. The Czechs drink Duff Beer--who knew?

 

[day_trippr]

Munich has a pretty nice subway. Drinkers in the city don't need to drive.

Kloster Andechs is a bit under an hour drive from Munich (some of it autobahn, which is always fun), but there is a train that takes about 90 minutes. I do believe quite a few of the folks we had seen there took the train because there were "waves" of them arriving at the same time...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The problem is you are American and aren’t raised to not gulp anything down you can get your hands on as fast as you can. Does it happen to Europeans? Sure, but the whole “ Abstinence” shtick that America tries absolutely backfires on everything it’s applied to. Alcohol, sex, drugs, food, it doesn’t matter.
This sums it up pretty well: Emma Watson says she's been drinking wine since she was a kid but didn't realize other teens used it 'for getting wasted'

I think the main problems were the supervision I had at 12 and 16, which may not conflict too much with what you're saying. But let's face it; plenty of Europeans turn their kids into drunks. The Irish take their kids to pubs, where everyone gets plastered and sings. They have a horrible alcoholism rate. The English just came in first in a survey to determine which Europeans drank the most in Europe. The Finns and Russians...it's a wonder they function as nations. If you're saying all European nations are better at handling alcohol than we are, well, that's just wrong.

On the high school trip, we had several teachers with us, as well as the couple that ran the tour. They drank with us! Some of the kids were as young as 14! One of the teachers was 24, and he had a romance with a beautiful Jamaican girl who was 17. Her mother owned the Double Bubble factory in Jamaica, we were told.

The night before we flew home, they took us to a gay bar in Paris. The Wunderbar. That was a little weird. I passed out and slept in a rolled-up rug in a room with two 14-year-old girls from Georgia.

 

[passedpawn]

I think the main problems were the supervision I had at 12 and 16, which may not conflict too much with what you're saying. But let's face it; plenty of Europeans turn their kids into drunks. The Irish take their kids to pubs, where everyone gets plastered and sings. They have a horrible alcoholism rate. The English just came in first in a survey to determine which Europeans drank the most in Europe. The Finns and Russians...it's a wonder they function as nations. If you're saying all European nations are better at handling alcohol than we are, well, that's just wrong.

On the high school trip, we had several teachers with us, as well as the couple that ran the tour. They drank with us! Some of the kids were as young as 14! One of the teachers was 24, and he had a romance with a beautiful Jamaican girl who was 17. Her mother owned the Double Bubble factory in Jamaica, we were told.

The night before we flew home, they took us to a gay bar in Paris. The Wunderbar. That was a little weird. I passed out and slept in a rolled-up rug in a room with two 14-year-old girls from Georgia.

Awesome. Keep talking please.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I sometimes wonder if genetics is a big factor in the way nations handle alcohol. The Southern Europeans don't seem to have the problems people farther north do.

When I lived in Israel, the Jewish Israelis could not figure out why the gentile volunteers got drunk all the time. One of them told me that to them, beer was just "fizzy water."