Headlines from July 2017 on THE BEER BEAT.

1987 vintage.

Previously, I've explained several reasons why this blog has gone on hiatus, adding that my thoughts about beer will be posted alongside my utterances about everything else, over yonder at NA Confidential.

You'll find them there via the helpful all-purpose tag, The Beer Beat.

However, whenever the urge strikes -- I seem to have settled on monthly -- I'll collect a few of these links right here. Following are July's ruminations, with the oldest listed first. Some are more topical than others, and I'm past the point of caring about it.

Thanks for reading, if belatedly.

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THE BEER BEAT: Are barstools even necessary? There ARE alternatives, you know.

As David Wondrich explains, more templates of barroom designer than we ever realize actually derive from top-down bureaucratic standards inherited in the aftermath of Prohibition, at times abetted with Hollywood's regimented narrative.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Changing an empty keg the Soviet way.

Here is one of the very first sights I saw in Leningrad on the morning of July 2, 1987.

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THE BEER BEAT: Dan Canon and the welcome return of progressive thinking at NABC.

Most importantly of all, welcome back to the real participatory local world, NABC. I missed your political consciousness these past two years. It was something I'd taken for granted. Maybe it will survive without me, after all.

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THE BEER BEAT: Dollars and cents remain the most rational arguments against AB InBev.

There'll always be exceptions, but life is about the everyday. In the main, as a consumer, I'd like to know exactly where my money is going. Whenever possible, I'd like to see my money directed to indies.

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THE BEER BEAT: "Why Brexit could mean a pricier pint of Guinness."

It's worth remembering that the distance from Dublin to Belfast is a scant hundred miles, less than the drive from New Albany to Indianapolis.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: The finest restorative Pilsner Urquell ever, upon arrival in Prague.

I limped to the long, imposing counter where a brawny, mustachioed man stood next to a pair of matching taps, both pouring the exact same nectar, and with a wheeled cart filled with clean mugs. Mustering my courage, I flashed four fingers and muttered, “Pivo, prosim,” having miraculously recalled the proper words without stealing a glance at the guidebook buried somewhere in my day pack.

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30 years today on THE BEER BEAT: The Automat Koruna, one of my favorite pubs (?) in the world.

You told the cashier what you wanted and paid, to be given a receipt, then waited in a customarily long line, handing the receipt to one of the white-smocked beer pourers. The reward was a cool half-liter (or more) of golden, pilsner-style Pražan beer, brewed a few miles away in Holešovice district of Prague.

You consumed your Pražan and also ate while standing at a stainless steel table. There may have been chairs at the Automat Koruna, but if so, I can’t remember them, at any rate, I didn’t ever sit. Crowds were a constant, and stand-up space sometimes at a premium.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Worshipful pilgrimage to the Pilsner Urquell birthplace shrine.

We caught a train from Prague to Plzeň, got there well before noon, and reconnoitered. From the station, the Pilsner Urquell brewery was easy to see and smell, although we knew to inquire at the official state-run Čedok travel agency (actually established in 1920, prior to communism), which surely would be located somewhere in the center of the city.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Meeting the gang at the legendary Imbiss by Gleis 16 at the Hauptbahnhof in Munich.

July 16, 17 and 18 are holy days in the pantheon of my beer travels, for it was on those three days in 1987 that four good friends from Hoosierland came together in Munich. I was joined by Bob Gunn, Barrie Ottersbach and my cousin Don Barry for three nights of Bavarian bacchanalia.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Munich's incredible Mathäser Bierstadt, symbol of a lost era.

For example, “beer halls” in the sense of the Hofbräuhaus generally do not exist in matching scale outside the city of Munich. Moreover, in 1987 a beer hall even larger than the Hofbräuhaus was our home away from home for two glorious evenings: Mathäser Bierstadt, which was tied to Löwenbräu.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Friday nights and Saturday mornings, Munich-style.

It was Don who famously rose, grinned broadly, and disappeared. Later when asked, he insisted that his parting had been effusive and memorable, a valedictory oration surely among the most eloquent ever uttered in such an honorable establishment.

I'm here to tell you that he never said a word.

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THE BEER BEAT: I guess if NABC isn't celebrating its 30th birthday, then I will, with a look back at the 25th.

Yesterday (July 22) was the 5th anniversary of the New Albanian Brewing Company's 25th anniversary, which means the business entity variously known as Sportstime Pizza, Rich O’s Public House, the New Albanian Brewing Company (later, adding Bank Street Brewhouse, now dubbed NABC Cafe & Brewhouse) has celebrated its 30th birthday.

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: A ferry ride from France to Ireland, with the help of Super Valstar and Guinness.

The magic moment possibly occurred at lunch in Versailles while Bob was still traveling with us, or somewhere amid the Ottersbach/Baylor excursion to Pointe du Hoc on Saturday, but I'm thinking it likely came in Cherbourg on Sunday afternoon. Of course, I'm referring to the time we drank deeply of the Super Valstar, or as it read on the label, "the big blonde."

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30 years ago today on THE BEER BEAT: Stouts galore in Cork, Kinsale and the Hibernian Bar, but in Ballinspittle, not so much.

The great thing about Cork is that it had not one, but two of its own classic Irish Dry Stouts: Murphy's and Beamish. Sadly, they've long since ceased to be independent, but add the ubiquity of draft Guinness, and the city was a stout-lover's dream.

One bar we found had all three on tap at once. By contrast, there may have been two Guinness taps in all of Louisville KY at the time.

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AFTER THE FIRE: The seasonality of Oktoberfest in time, beer and year.

AFTER THE FIRE: The seasonality of Oktoberfest in time, beer and year.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Let the record show that in 2016, our Kentuckiana (Indyucky?) weather became tolerable again by Monday, the 26th of September.

The air conditioning had run constantly from the beginning of June, and it was a pleasure to switch it off. There were no 100-degree days I can recall, although temps topped 90 for a record number of days. We also had frequent rain, contributing to a steaminess more commonly associated with Florida.

Taken together, these atmospheric variables wreaked havoc on our five tomato plants, which grew like weeds but only began yielding fruit in early September.

The point to all this is that having endured three and a half months of pain, autumn conditions arrived overnight, and with them the impulse to drink an Oktoberfest (or Märzen) beer.

Naturally, by this point they’d been on store shelves for weeks, as had a profusion of pumpkin-influenced marketing exercises. Well, to each his own. I’m no fan of pumpkin-anything, even when it isn’t used as pretext to flavor beers with baking spices best left in their jars, and yet if I were to crave one, 90-degree weather isn’t the time for it.

To be honest, I’ve nothing profound to add to the seasonal beer timing debate, by now a staple of poorly written click bait portals. Rather, my aim is to remark upon how wonderful it can be to enjoy seasonal beers in their appropriate season, especially when they’re well-crafted lagers.

Oktoberfest always was misleading to American ears, this being a “German” concept confined largely to Bavaria and its capital, Munich, and beginning in September, not October.

Back in the 1980s, when we first began receiving shipments of Oktoberfest beer from Bavarian breweries, these tended to be malty brown-shaded lagers. Subsequently they seemed to lighten in color, while remaining malt forward, impeccably balanced and of slightly higher alcoholic strength than the norm.

I couldn’t ever separate them from two primary influences.

The first was Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson’s descriptions of Oktoberfest as festival and seasonal beer, and the second was finally being there in Munich in 1989 to witness one and drink the other.

Kindly indulge a look back.

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In September of 1989, after an eventful summer spent chasing history in the East Bloc, the leaves were beginning to turn in Copenhagen when it was time for the rail journey to Munich. I’d never been to Oktoberfest, and meant to redress this oversight.

We stocked up on beer, salami, beer, cheese, beer, bread and more beer before boarding for the overnight journey to the Bavarian capital, where reservations had been made at an inexpensive “pension” (small family-run guesthouse) near the Hauptbahnhof, or central train station.

Upon arrival, it was still morning. We hurried down the platform to the famous Imbiss at the foot of Gleis (track) 16. The Imbiss is long gone, victim of extensive remodeling, modernization and gentrification, and it wasn’t all that much even in its heyday, but during the 1980’s this simple, functional train station concession stand was a genuine Munich destination for budget travelers the world over.

There were two long windows with outside counter space, plentiful tile and stainless steel, wonderful beer taps, kitchen equipment for preparing basic snacks and several customarily greasy, though by necessity efficient, employees in blue smocks.

In front of the Imbiss were a handful of tables that resembled smaller, elongated versions of the telephone wire spools that used to litter backyards in the Georgetown of my youth. Standing at the tables in morning, evening and night were locals, tourists, commuters, vagrants and assorted hangers-on, the majority of them savoring the Imbiss’s only true specialties: Cool Hacker-Pschorr golden lager at a reasonable price and a portion of Leberkäse, a high-quality form of all-meat bologna cut from a warm deli-sized square loaf, weighed and priced, and served with a crusty roll and plenty of mustard.

The Imbiss at Gleis 16 never disappointed, and with breakfast under our belts, it was time to claim the room and prepare for the main event: Oktoberfest, 1989. A few hours, unburdened of luggage, with Deutschmarks in hand and harboring a powerful thirst, a vast fairgrounds lay before me. It was crowded with carnival rides, arcades, food vendors of every stripe and giant prefabricated beer halls.

There was at least one Oktoberfest beer hall for each of Munich's six major breweries, all having every appearance of being permanent structures, and yet they would be completely dismantled and stored away at the end of the two-week festival.

Thousands of people of all colors, creeds and nationalities were spread out before me, reveling in Bavaria’s most notorious celebration of beer as a beverage, as a foodstuff and as a way of daily life. My favorites were the natives dressed in folkloric Dirndls and Lederhosen. Later I learned that Oktoberfest is far more localized during the afternoon, yielding to foreign visitors by night.

I'd come to the grounds by way of the U-Bahn (subway), where scores of policemen assisted in the packing and unpacking of underground trains at a station built overly large for peak usage during Oktoberfest’s annual run.

Emerging into the cool dampness, I plunged into the throng and was carried through the Midway by the crowd, past bumper car arenas and target-shooting booths that wouldn’t be out of place at an American state fair, and toward beer halls that assuredly would.

Soon the mass of people parted in near Biblical fashion to reveal the majesty of the Paulaner hall. Gaping at the vision before me, I went off-tackle and bulled ahead. From fifty yards away, the interior was visible through several sets of opened double doors; trancelike, my eyes focused on the octagonal bandstand in the center, where an oom-pah orchestra twice the size of any I'd seen before held forth to the undisguised delight of hundreds of glass-wielding drinkers.

The temporary structure seemed to shake and roll, and to no surprise: Half the people inside were dancing and singing atop the heavy wooden tables, tables that surely had been constructed with precisely that sort of punishment in mind. Obviously, considerations of decorum -- those restraints on behavior customarily observed by society -- had been forgotten, to the obvious edification of all those present.

I stopped at one of the outer doors. Just yards away, absurdly long rows of whole chickens were being roasted on spits. Signs decreed the price of the liter-sized Masses to be six Deutschmarks, 75 pfennigs - or was it 7.10? Either way, think of it as $8.50 for 33.8 ounces.

Just like in the photos, matronly waitresses toting anywhere from two to ten of the deliciously full Masses rushed past. Pretzels the size of large plates were being eaten.

Still standing at the door, I beheld this veritable city of beer, and as I started to enter, a greenish-hued man staggered past me and began vomiting violently next to a steel support beam.

Finally, it seemed that I'd found home.

Im Himmel gibt es kein bier! Darum trinken wir es hier!

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Consequently, and unsurprisingly, these sources and sensations have combined to produce an inner barometer.

To see an Oktoberfest beer on sale in mid-August is an optical illusion to me. If I buy one, it is destined to remain in my cupboard until the Ohio Valley adapts to Bavarian climatic norms. If this occurs in mid-September, that’s fine. If it doesn’t happen until October, even better.

And if I might be in Munich some sweet day to once again experience the real thing … but maybe not. Nothing can match the memory of the first time. Better to board a train for the countryside, find a weekend harvest celebration in a small town, and do it together one more time.

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September 19: AFTER THE FIRE: This week in solipsistic beer narcissism (2014).

September 12: AFTER THE FIRE: England, or one man's heightened cholesterol panic is another man's nostalgic repast (2013).

September 5: AFTER THE FIRE: Beer stories and bedtime for gonzo (2013).

August 29: AFTER THE FIRE: In the Red Room, we’re all left – right?

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The PC: We pause Euro '85 to remember the Mathäser Bierstadt in Munich.

The PC: We pause Euro '85 to remember the Mathäser Bierstadt in Munich.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

I. In which we take a bathroom break at halftime.

Having reached the approximate midpoint of my ongoing Euro '85 series, there'll be a small breather now while I exhume various relics from the banker's box in the basement. The transition from Munich to Ireland in July of that year represents the point at which all previous efforts to write about my experience have run aground.

This time, I am quite determined to finish the story.

First, there'll be some belated editing of the Munich installment. Almost immediately after publishing it last week, there was a loud slap of my forehead in annoyed recognition of my omitting certain significant details about 1980s-era Munich, like experiencing the gargantuan 5,000-seat beer hall known as Mathäser Bierstadt, and in doing so with none other than my cousin, Don Barry, because he was there, too.

At least I think he was.

Of course he was.

Well, maybe ...

For the moment, while I take a pause for additional research, let's move briefly forward to 1987 ... and 2007, and 2009, and even 2011, because in the end, one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging is feedback, and in the case of my 2007 rumination about our 1987 frivolity at the Mathäser, it took two years before two comments were appended. Two others followed in 2011.

Reprinted below, these are uproarious and informative stories, and they stand entirely on their own. Reading them, I find myself strangely moved, almost to tears; four complete strangers, all expressing reverence at the memories of this legendary beer hall, and feeling genuine sadness and pain to know it is no more.

This is why I sought a life in beer -- not the fleeting ephemera and narcissism and chest-thumping, but this sense of mystical awe. This is what I'm chasing. The thought crosses my mind that there may need to be a Mathäser Fan Shrine somewhere on the internetz so we all can pay our respects to what once seemed the epitome of Munich-ness.

Here is the 2007 post that got the ball rolling.

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II. Mathäser, Munich and the summer of '87 with the lads.

July 16, 17 and 18 are holy days in the pantheon of the Curmudgeon’s beer travels, for it was on these three days in 1987 that I was joined in Munich by Bob Gunn, Barrie Ottersbach and my cousin Don Barry for three nights of Bavarian bacchanalia.

The stories have been suitably embellished over the decades, and yet there remains a core of truthfulness to the anecdotes.

There was my episode of disgruntlement at having to leave a beer hall at an hour I considered to be far too early, and a stern worker’s gentle suggestion to take the argument elsewhere.

There was Don rising from the bench to tell us that he’d had enough and was returning to his hotel … except that his lips never moved and no sound was emitted in spite of his subsequent recollections of prime oratory brilliance.

There were liter steins of beer, various and sundry sausages, Deutschmarks and Pfennigs, aspects of unfathomable etiquette that became second nature before the last glass was poured, and a constant flow of conversation, information and education.

To me, it remains remarkable that we coordinated our arrivals so well. While making plans to meet friends in Munich in order to partake of the city’s bountiful beer and pig flesh wasn’t such an unprecedented feat, and we’ve managed to do it many times since, considering the circumstances at the time and our relative inexperience traveling, the manner by which our scheme came to fruition still elicits a smile.

Knowing that we all would be in Europe during the summer of 1987, detailed planning began over the Christmas holidays in 1986. Barrie and I had booked a two-week tour of the Soviet Union and proposed to approach Munich by rail from Prague. Bob, who was on his first trip to the continent, and Don, who had been many times, had devised detailed itineraries, and both would be arriving in Munich on the same day, but from different directions. As was his habit, Don booked a single room at a favorite haunt, while the rest of us made reservations together in a triple at another hotel somewhat near the Munich train station.

We knew what day to be there and where we’d be staying, and yet in those far-off and primitive times, lacking e-mail and mobile phones, and with each member of the quartet having been traveling for quite some time before the projected Munich gathering, a considerable element of uncertainty was palpable.

In essence, could we remain sufficiently sober, avoid unexpected transportation delays, show up on time, and be where we were supposed to be?

Happily, it went off without a hitch. Barrie and I arrived at the Hauptbahnhof and found Don idling with beer in hand at the fabled Track 16 Imbiss, and after enjoying a few Pschorrbraus and portions of Leberkäse, we ran into Bob at the hotel.

Admittedly, had I known then what I know now, we’d have avoided Munich entirely and gone instead to Bamberg, but given our remedial state of beer knowledge, it’s likely that the choice of Munich was all for the best. We might not have fully grasped Rauchbier and Kellerbier. We needed a larger stage, and found it.

The city’s brewery consolidations had already started to diminish historical distinctions, although international corporate investors had yet to appear as they have in recent years. The future could be glimpsed, but at the same time old ways seemed to persist.

These traditions can be pleasing so long as it is remembered that much of what Americans know about Germany actually pertains to Bavaria, and much of what they know about Bavaria actually applies to Munich alone.

For example, “beer halls” in the sense of the Hofbrauhaus generally do not exist in matching scale outside the city of Munich. Moreover, in 1987 a beer hall even larger than the Hofbrauhaus was our home away from home for two glorious evenings: Mathäser Bierstadt, which was tied to Lowenbrau.

It was cavernous, filled with nooks and byways and various banquet rooms and snugs, and decidedly grittier than the Hofbrauhaus – no less attractive for tourists, but rowdy and with an earthier composition of native German barfly.

These many years later, what I’ve taken away from three Munich nights in July isn’t capable of being detailed. That I experienced it with wide eyes and a sense of wonderment cannot be doubted. For a beer- and history-loving Hoosier just shy of his 27th birthday, roaming Europe for the second time, Munich was the epitome. It was Disneyland with ubiquitous mugs of foamy lager and all the sauerkraut and potatoes one cared to eat.

Unfortunately, the Mathäser perished, and the site is now an ultra-modern cinema and entertainment complex. I walked past it in 2004 and bowed in reverence for what used to be. The last time I was there during its actual existence was in 1995, and even then the beer hall seemed exhausted even if we did our level best to enliven the proceedings.

Dubbed American movies probably are showing now, and outside the cinema, you’ll see imported Miller and Corona throughout the city. The old brands aren’t the same, at least to me. Oktoberfest lagers become ever more golden, and all beer tastes steadily colder on each trip. There even is a Hofbrauhaus franchise in Newport, Kentucky, and more coming to America.

Fond memories, indeed, and now increasingly balanced by melancholy.

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III. Now for the comments: RIP, Mathäser Bierstadt.

D said ...

Beautifully written, I share your sentiments totally and with equal sadness. In the winter of '62-'63 while working in the banquet hall and night club at the Hotel Bayerischerhof, the Mathäser ( I agree with that spelling too) was THE BEST.

My daughter, Meghan, is about to embark on a trip to Munich ... here is what I wrote her today July 29.09:

Your upcoming trip to Germany is bringing back some pretty strong memories, one of which unleashed a flood of emotion when I just discovered, a few minutes ago, that my all-time favorite Beer Hall in Munich, the Mathaeser (which used to be a stone's throw from the main station, the Hauptbahnhof, and the main traffic circle, Karlsplatz -- colloquially known to us locals as Stachus) has been torn apart and has become a modern, artificial multiplex cinema and urban bar/restaurant center.

That is a fucking crime.

Meg, this breaks my heart and I'm crying as I write this and knock back a couple of Labatt Blues, saddened that a place which was so central to my experience in Munich has been so abused and all I am left with is my memories of so many wonderful wild nights there with my best friend, Andy Gardiner (who was to die, almost appropriately, a few years later in a late night, post pubbing car crash near Cambridge, UK).

The Mathaeser was a HUGE, and I mean massive open beer hall (held 3000+) with a boxing ring type stage in the middle upon which performed various wonderful oompahpah bands with their 'blasmusik' ...I can hear them now ... "Heute blau und morgen blau und oooooooooober morgen wiederrrrr!" ("Sad today and tomorrow sad too and the day after all over again!"). Perfect to sing when you are half wasted on huge steins of frothy beer straight 'vom fass' (from the spring or barrel) interspersed with shots of schnapps dispensed by hefty aproned waitresses with an aluminum bucket full of ice containing a bottle or two of schnapps over their muscled arm. In the same hand they held a tray of shot glasses. They just wandered through the crowd pouring shots which we sometimes just dropped into our steins, glass and all, depth charge style.

(A depth charge was a mine dropped on submarines in WW2 … when it reached a certain depth it exploded, hopefully on top of a German submarine. Those schnapps 'charges' were pretty devastating too!)

All the while singing lusty (lustiger) German beer drinking songs, arms locked with those of complete strangers and rocking rhythmically back and forth, row-the-boat style, on the benches on which we all sat, twelve to a table.

Then, if you were hungry you could retire to one of many satellite rooms off the main hall which served 'eintopf' of wonderfully tasty linzensuppe (lentil soup) served with semmeln (rolls with sesame seeds), soup guaranteed to make you fart for a week.

Oh Meg, those were great times. We were so broke but managed to have such memorable times.

The Mathaeser's ( pronounced mattayser) rival was the Hofbrauhaus....after which the famous song was sung...

In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus (Hofbroyhouse)
Eins, zwei, g'suffa ...(pronounced zuffah)
Da läuft ( loyft) so manches Fäßchen ( fessschen) aus:
Eins, zwei, g'suffa ...

translated....

In Munich is the Hofbrau pub--
One, two, drink up!!
So many kegs flowed out of it
One, two, drink up!!!

To us it never rivalled the wildness of the Mathaeser. Hitler spoke here and you could feel, even in 1962/3, an undercurrent of angry, cold, nastiness, as opposed to the Mathaeser's good old German friendly spirit (gemütlichkeit = gemootlichkite)

But, today it is all that is left and the service sucks and they steal your change if you aren't careful but it is still a must in Munich.

Prost !!!

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P said ...

Thanks for your reminiscences of the Mathäser Bierstadt, which also left me with a feeling of melancholy for great times gone forever.

I caught the overnight train from London to Munich in the summer of ‘75 looking for a holiday job. Having spent all the first day in a fruitless search for work, I was heading along Bayerstrasse back to the Hauptbahnhof to collect my stuff in anticipation of having to sleep in the park for the night when I tried one last time at the hotel right next to the Mathäser, Hotel Stachus. It worked and I got a bellboy/washer-up/night porter/general dogsbody job for the summer.

My duties basically consisted of anything that nobody else wanted to do, such as washing up for breakfast. Now, standing over a hot, steaming sink at 7.30 am on a warm summer’s morning washing up for 150 Swedes may not sound like a lot of fun, but the perk of the job was the handily-placed fridge, packed with deliciously cold half-litre bottles of Löwenbräu.

I have not drunk beer at that time of day before or since, but never has the golden nectar tasted so sweet or slipped down so effortlessly and however much I drank, I never felt drunk because I was sweating so much from the hot kitchen it just seemed to go straight through the system. This was going to be a great job.

The Mathäser was a constant presence. It was so close you could see into it at the back because the kitchen windows of the hotel looked straight down onto it. The oompah bands were generally audible in the background at most times of the day and night, and even during the hours when it was closed there was always activity or movement of some sort going on and the place seemed to be reassuringly alive and breathing even if it was now at rest, like a friendly giant slumbering in the background.

As you would expect, the Mathäser had a huge kitchen (or apparently five kitchens: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathäser). Whenever a large party arrived at short notice and the hotel was short of food, I would be sent round from the hotel to pick up a few hundred frozen Schnitzel. The head chef knew me and would just add a couple of ticks to the slate as I staggered out under the load, a mere drop in the ocean of the vast quantity of supplies at his disposal. I think they must have brewed beer on site as well, because on warm, slightly damp mornings the streets around the back were always filled with that wonderful smell of brewing hops.

There were plenty of other large beer-halls and beer-gardens in Munich, usually displaying the arms of the brewery to which they were attached: Spaten, Paulaner, Franziskaner, Hacker-Pschorr come to mind and I selflessly devoted many hours to a thorough investigation of the particular qualities of each of their different brews: Pils, Export, Export Dunkel (always my favourite but you don’t seem to be able to get it now, not the same stuff anyway) and so on.

But none had the all-encompassing warmth and down-to-earth openness of the Mathäser. You walked in and it was always busy and unaffected: all life seemed to be there simply enjoying itself and to have been there enjoying itself for eternity, like a timeless tavern scene painted by one of the Dutch masters. But after a moment’s surprised contemplation, you realised that all you had to do was find a small space in those vast, cavernous rooms, sit down and get the Fräulein to bring you the first Maß, and you became a part of that eternal scene yourself.

The Mathäser was not sophisticated, but it was genuine, and it is indeed a tragedy that it has been replaced by a soulless, glass-and-aluminium ‘entertainment’ complex, where the closest you can get to a decent drop is a miniscule amount of beer served in a champagne glass at some frigging café. They don’t know what they’re missing …

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E said ...

Thank you for your wonderful memories and for stirring my own deeply felt memories of youth.

On my nineteenth birthday, a Sunday in June 1968, I found the Mathaeser Bierstadt of Munich by accident. Walking on the street outside with my buddy, a fellow soldier from the 24th Infantry Division, we entered an alcove, drawn by the wonderful smells of cooking sausage. Then, from somewhere, I heard music. We explored further, up a staircase and opened two huge doors--and there it was--beer-drinkers heaven. It was 11AM on a Sunday morning and there were two thousand people in the place! DRINKING BEER! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

We were two dopey kids, but we stumbled upon one of the greatest beer-drinking joints in the world! And I love beer. For the next year, it became my favorite place in Munich, our home away from home. We would take the #6 trolley to Karlsplatz, walk toward the Hauptbahnhof and there we were. It was, at one time, in the Guinness Book of Records. More beer was served in that building, in one year, than anywhere in the world.

Everything the previous posters wrote was right-on about the place. I have the warmest of memories the place of how kind the people treated a young soldier. I can't believe it's gone. That makes me very sad.

Again-thank you for the memories.

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J said ...

My partner and I lived and worked in Munich in '78-79. The Mathäser was our favourite watering hole by a country mile and believe me we sampled a few! Saturday nights at the Mathäser were always packed with incident. It was a place that you felt was steeped in history, very down to earth and REAL compared with the tourist traps.

We were so happy that on a visit ten years later very little had changed and we naively expected it to be ever thus. I only found out its fate today (April '11) after a search on Google Earth/Streetview. We are devastated that it has gone. I thought that Müncheners of all people were a breed that valued what they had.

So sad.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 14 … Beers and breakfast in Munich.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 14 … Beers and breakfast in Munich.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(Fourteenth in a series chronicling my travel year 1985)

It took a month and a half of roaming the continent, but finally came Germany. Upon arrival in Munich, I was presented with a reality check.

The jolt was not unexpected. In fact, I’d avoided it for a while.

The Mediterranean – Greece, Turkey and Italy – had proven to be refreshingly affordable in the summer of 1985, but I had always been aware that as I moved northward, this would change. In Vienna and Salzburg, the independent hostel prices had been so reasonable that with a modicum of restraint in food and drink, the budget stayed balanced. The challenge would begin in Germany.

Simply stated, finances were not a negotiable proposition for me. Periodic splurges had to be planned with laser precision, and the daily undertow was vital to maintain. Between traveler’s checks and a debit card, I had just enough money to average spending somewhere between $20 and $25 a day for roughly three months.

There was no Plan B, although it helped that the exchange rate for most European currencies in the summer of 1985 was praiseworthy to the point of unprecedented (three Deutschmarks to one U.S. dollar, for starters). This was as good as it would get for some years to come.

Still, for the remainder of the trip, bargains would be few, and it was time to deploy the full arsenal of budget travel tricks, as outlined by Arthur Frommer in his “Europe on $25 Dollars-A-Day” or “Let’s Go: Europe,” as well as gleaned from conversations with fellow travelers.

For instance, it always was a good idea to carry a few plastic freezer bags, and this assertion requires a “preferred lodgings” digression.

That first trip, I stayed in many youth hostels. Understandably, youth hostel breakfasts (when available) tended to be basic. There’d be coffee and tea, some rolls, butter and jam, and maybe fruit. They tended to be just enough, which was fine for the price – sometimes inclusive, other times a la carte.

My hope for Munich was to stay in an officially registered “international” youth hostel. I knew it would be my only chance to do so, given that in Bavaria hostels did not accept guests over the age of 25. I was as yet 24 and fully qualified, but to my disappointment, beds were exceedingly tight, as in: None at all.

(The major drawback to hostels was the frequency of stays by large groups of younger schoolchildren during high season, and this was the problem in Munich.)

In the end, I was compelled to stay in an actual hotel near Munich’s central axis, albeit it in a tiny closet of a room with communal toilets and showers down the hall, and for double the price of a hostel bunk. But it was clean and private, and there was a nice surprise in store.

The saving grace of my hotel room was the breakfast buffet at no extra charge, and on the first morning it seemed as though I’d entered the wrong hall by mistake. Bountiful was an understatement, and available beverages and edibles included coffee, tea, juice, milk, quark, yogurt, fresh fruit, bread, rolls, eggs, muesli, ham, salami and cheese.

I ate as intemperately as possible, and the discrete use of my handy freezer bag meant that lunch later in the afternoon became a seamless extension of breakfast.

Granted, I didn’t always stay in reputable establishments like this, of the type affording such creative buffet options for secretive carry-out. When I did, the goal became double duty. All hail the plastic freezer bag.

---

In an era of railpass holders, Munich’s Hauptbahnhof (main train station) obviously was the focal point of arrival and departure for most visitors to the city. A country bumpkin like me soon learned that it also served as crossing point for numerous U-Bahn (subway) and S-Bahn (suburban rail) lines.

The latter was operated by the German state railway, and so it could be used with a railpass, but not the subway, which had its own tariff regime. Travelers confusing their U’s and S’s were sometimes spotted paying on-the-spot fines.

Just outside the Hauptbahnhof, city buses queued and fixed track trams rattled past. As in Vienna, the transit options were fairly bewildering. It should suffice to say that literally, one could get anywhere in Munich (or Germany, or Europe) from the Hauptbahnhof.

As with airports, big urban train stations of the time were complete one-stop shops. A traveler could get a hot shower, buy fresh produce and snacks, peruse the latest in electronics and video gear, or pick up a newspaper from just about any European country.

At the same time, these train stations seemed gritty, evocative and genuine, invariably more “real” than airports, which by virtue of their isolated locations always felt artificial and contrived by comparison.

Train stations were organic and connected, not hermetically sealed, perhaps precisely because they served as daily crossing and congregating points for ordinary people from all walks of life, generally of the sort who don’t routinely commute to work, shopping or visits to grandma by airplane.

Beginning around 1989, Munich’s Hauptbahnhof was extensively remodeled and modernized, evidently as part of a long-term European goal of making train stations into sleek, antiseptic, carbon copies of airports. It is a trend I detest.

Which brings me to the art of drinking beer in a train station.

---

So it was that in Munich in 1985, a city where all self-respecting beer tourists were supposed to submit to the ritualistic visit to the Hofbrauhaus (yes, I duly complied during my stay), and then make the rounds of various beer gardens, tap rooms and traditional restaurants (for me, these came on later trips), the single most enduringly totemic chapter in the beer travel narrative of mine, which would expand exponentially during the years to come, but still was very much a work in progress early on, was a fatal attraction to the Imbiss (snack bar) by Gleis (track) 16.

The Imbiss, as it was then, has long since been gone. There’s probably a Burger King there now. To be honest, it wasn’t all that much during its heyday, but during the 1980’s this simple, functional train station concession stand was a genuine Munich destination for budget travelers the world over.

There were two long windows with outside counter space, plentiful tile and stainless steel, wonderful beer taps, kitchen equipment for preparing basic food, and several customarily greasy, though by necessity crisply efficient, employees in blue smocks.

In front of the Imbiss were a handful of wooden tables that resembled smaller, elongated versions of the telephone wire spools that used to litter backyards in the Georgetown of my youth.

Standing at the tables during morning, evening and night were locals, tourists, commuters, vagrants and assorted hangers-on, the majority of them savoring the Imbiss’s only true specialties: Cool Hacker-Pschorr golden lager and a portion of delicious Leberkäse, a high-quality form of all-meat bologna for the aesthete, cut from a warm deli-sized square loaf, weighed and priced, and served with a crusty roll and plenty of spicy mustard.

True, there were other choices. I could have opted for a Hefeweizen and Weisswurst (wheat ale and white sausage) combo with sweet mustard. Perhaps there were soft drinks, too, but no matter. The Imbiss at Gleis 16 was the place to sip beers and watch people, and it rarely disappointed.

The same could be said of Munich. My three days there were filled with long walks, museum visits, a day trip to Fussen in the Bavarian Alps for the bus up to looney King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein castle, and periodic visits to the Imbiss at Gleis 16 for refueling.

Insofar as my budget permitted, I emerged sated, and it was time to begin gravitating toward the Atlantic Ocean.

---

Previously:

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 13 … Tears of overdue joy at Salzburg's Augustiner.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 12 … Stefan Zweig and his world of yesterday.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 11: My Franz Ferdinand obsession takes root.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 10: Habsburgs, history and sausages in Vienna.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 9 … Milan, Venice and a farewell to Northern Italy.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 8 … Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 7 … An eventful detour to Pecetto.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 6 … When in Rome, critical mass.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 5 … From Istanbul to Rome, with Greece in between.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 4 … With Hassan in Pithion.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 3 … Growing up in Greece.

The PC: Euro '85, Part 2 ... Hitting the ground crawling in Luxembourg.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … Where it all began.

These requests from abroad, Vol. 12: From Munich, a young man seeking to break the bottle cap record.

If you own or work for a brewery, you've probably fielded numerous e-mail inquiries from overseas asking for beer labels, crown caps and the like, as destined to become the cherished keepsakes of private collectors from just about anywhere -- although it seems that most of them live somewhere around eastern and central Europe.

To me, there is something compelling and yet haunting about these foreign requests, places of longtime personal interest to me both historically and geographically. I've been in or near many of them. They speak vividly to my inner melancholic. Lately, I've been pasting their addresses into Google Map and seeing what their places of residence look like.

After all, they can look at my business via the same technology, and it seems only fair for me to see where they live, so very far away. Especially coming from European locales, these are images that speak powerfully to me, conjuring memories of places I've been, people I've met ... and beers I've consumed.

Say hello to Moritz, who is a resident of Munich, Germany.

It has been a decade since my last visit to Munich. Once upon a time, this would have been cause for concern, but I've been to Bamberg a few times since then, and it just goes to show how priorities change.

Moritz's residence appears to be the smudgy building in the center, which is located around eight miles from the center of town, to the northwest, just before the countryside begins. Quoted verbatim, you'll note something perhaps unusual about this request.

Dear Sir,

I am 15 years old and I am collecting bottle caps (crown caps) since four years.

Now my greatest wish is that my collection will be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The world record is 175171 caps and therefore I am always looking for new caps to catch up and to break this record.

Therefore I would like to ask you to send me one of your bottle caps for my collection.

It would make me very happy if I could add a bottle cap of your company to my collection.

My address is: Moritz Bester, Lidelstrasse 3, D – 81245 München Germany

Thank you very much and kind regards

Moritz Bester

I returned Moritz's e-mail, informing him that alas, I could be of no help; NABC's bottle caps bear no logo or insignia. However, if anyone can give him a hand in his quest, please feel free.

Meanwhile, I'm not being flippant when I say: If I were to send him caps, would it constitute statutory breweriana?

After all, at this late date we're still plagued with many instance of Internet idiocy, wherein there must be an age verification process to read a web site about beer. I remember an episode many years ago when I was trying to access the Samuel Adams web site. Being slightly lubricated and butter-fingered, I managed to enter bad information and was blocked. Being me, I complained. Being them, a cyber-reply was forthcoming.

We understand that the age verification process may seem cumbersome. However, it is very important to us that we take every reasonable precaution to ensure that the only visitors to our site are those who can legally enjoy the great taste of a Samuel Adams beer. We take this responsibility very seriously, even to the extent that it may cause someone like you to become frustrated.

Not for the first time, I couldn’t resist the impulse to cast a line and see if there were humans somewhere on the other side.

Thanks for the template. Does this mean that we shouldn't allow children to study automobiles until they're old enough to drive? 

When it came, the reply was bureaucratic and humorless, so three cheers to censorship, to “reasonable precaution” in studying the history of fermentation science, and to those deep bows to the dictates of Puritanism that we feel like me must make.

Up the revolution ... and send Moritz some caps if you have some.

The PC: The Doppelbock Viscosity Tour of 1995, revisited.

The PC: The Doppelbock Viscosity Tour of 1995, revisited.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that a liquid anniversary was at hand. It’s been 20 years, almost to the day, since the Doppelbock Viscosity Tour began.

By then, I’d traveled enough times in Europe to feel comfortable doing the planning for a small group and acting as the tour leader, and of course the beer bug had bitten. The fax machine at work was put into overdrive, and an itinerary took shape. My own departure date was a few days in advance of the others, to allow time to fly into Berlin, hop a train, and visit my friend Suzanne at the boarding school where she taught.

In Prague, I was joined by Rick Lang, Barrie Ottersbach, Rick Buckman, David Pierce, Bob Reed and George Schroeder. This merry band of fine fellows visited Prague, Bamberg and Munich for a total of ten days. Our Danish pal Kim Wiesener joined us for the Prague portion. Later in 1995, I wrote about it as part of an article entitled “Several Thousand Delta Frequent Flier Miles Later,” which also included stories from the two other European holidays I was fortunate to take that year.

With a couple of minor adjustments for clarity, here is the essay. There are equal measures of joy and sadness as I read through the account. While much remains intact after two decades, some establishments and people (Mathäser Bierstadt, Fra Wolff) are long gone.

I raise a glass to them. Brief acquaintances, perhaps, but you helped make me what I am today. Thanks.

---

Now for the truth ...

Thursday evening, March 30, 1995. Seven residents of the Louisville metropolitan area are seated at a table deep within a huge building somewhere overseas.

They are drinking. Drinking beer. It is the seventh day of the 1995 Doppelbock Viscosity Tour, and things are about to get ugly.

Then, without warning, it happens.

"Meinen Damen und Herren -- Ladies and Gentlemen -- we have a very special request for Biggus Dickus of Kentucky."

Oom-pah players in authentic Bavarian attire pick up their instruments and follow the practiced hand of the bandleader, and soon the oversized main hall of the Mathäser Bierstadt (a.k.a. Beer City) in Munich is filled with an uncharacteristic, yet oddly pleasing sound.

A neo-Tijuana brass riff rockets through the cigarette smoke.

"Love is a burning thing ..."

I choke on my Triumphator Doppelbock and look across the massive wooden table at Barrie Ottersbach, who looks back at me and gleefully croons "fur is a burning thing."

The music continues.

"I fell into a burning ring of fire ..."

" ... burning ring of dung," echoes a delirious Ottersbach.

Biggus looks pleased, and he should be. Three empty liter masses are in front of him, and his tape player is rolling.

It is Big Dick’s (a.k.a. Rick Lang’s) first trip to Europe, and I had drawn the lucky raffle ticket entitling me to be his chaperone. Never did I imagine that it would entitle me to a rendition of Johnny Cash performed by the Tuba-Teutonic Waltz Kings.

Sometimes, things just don’t work out like you’d planned.

Prague, Woodrow Wilson Station, March 24.

The train from Germany had come and gone, and contrary to plan, it had not disgorged six eager tourists from America looking to drink the fascinating city of Prague dry of Pilsner Urquell.

It could mean only one thing. My friends had missed their rail connection, and now they were doomed to flounder around Frankfurt and drink that city’s odious Binding Pils while dodging the Polizei cars speeding past them on the way to apprehend the drug dealers who congregate in the parks barely a beer-cap finger-flip away from the towering, atypical skyscrapers of Germany's banking capital and prime transport hub.

Hardly. Indeed, the first train had left Frankfurt without them, owing to the unexplained lateness of the US Air flight from Pittsburgh, but the group made the next train, and Danish FOSSIL Kim Wiesener and I were again at the platform to meet it.

It was a momentous occasion as Biggus Dickus, Barrie Ottersbach, George Schroeder, David Pierce, Rick Buckman and Bob Reed emerged from the rail car, heavily laden with baggage and the vast debris of the nonstop, seven-hour party that had broken out on the train.

Pierce was incoherent, mumbling something like "Lolita, Lolita ..."

Ominously, Ottersbach waved an enormous pepper-coated salami that nearly impaled him when he tripped over a carelessly discarded bottle of beer. A money clip tumbled from Dave's pocket and was effortlessly scooped up by the slick-fielding Lang. Rick Buckman attempted to shake my hand but couldn't without first putting one of the beers into a coat pocket. Within seconds, Kim and I understood that all of them were helplessly swizzled.

We led them into the subway, rode one stop, bolted from the escalator and guided the weaving group of foreigners to the Hotel Opera, which is conveniently located ten minutes by foot to the east of both Wenceslas and Old Town Squares.

After registration and the stowing of packs and suitcases, it was decided to venture off in search of beer, but the pickings were slim in the immediate vicinity of the hotel. We finally spilled into a small pub/restaurant, where draft Gambrinus was available. Contradicting the signs on the wall, the indifferent people on duty let us know that the kitchen was closed. The beer tasted flat and old. We left, but not before learning a lesson as to the way it used to be during Communist times.

The next two days were filled with long walks through the city, rest stops in the many pubs and reflections on the ways that the city has and hasn’t changed since the demise of Communism.

Although the graceful Baroque arches of old Prague are gradually yielding to the golden McDonald's variety, and the facades where rote pronouncements of socialist solidarity once were unfurled now bear the neon language of multinational commerce, most of the classic virtues of the Czech capital remain intact.

Herzlich Wilkommen nach Deutschland.

On the 27th, we left Prague for Germany, stopping along the way to visit the Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen.

Urquell, the most famous Czech beer, has been a constant in my travels since 1987, when Barrie Ottersbach and I made our first, unsuccessful visit to the brewery in Plzen. Our 1995 visit enabled Barrie to fulfill his dream of being able to pass through the hallowed Urquell gate, but it also served to illustrate the extent to which things have changed in eight years.

We learned that the renowned wooden fermenters and aging vessels have entirely given way to stainless steel, and that the lagering time has been cut in half, from three months to a month and a half. We saw the way that Pilsner Urquell’s management has adapted to the post-Communist market by emphasizing cleaner, updated labels for the brewery’s line of products, with the result that the archaic "Plzensky Prazdroj” signs once seen everywhere are being supplanted by contemporary ads and promos.

We were surprised at having the opportunity to sample the brewery’s new German-style wheat beer, and pleased at its faithfulness to the Bavarian prototypes. Finally, the group was able to enjoy several after-tour beers in a facility that would have been unimaginable in 1987: A huge, new, German-style beer hall capable of seating 700 people that occupies the site of at least part of an old malting.

Next stop was Bamberg. It snowed, and we walked through the storm to find the taproom of the Mahr’s brewery, where Weizenbock kept us warm. A tour of the Kaiserdom brewery was interesting, but little was learned about smoked lager, which turned out to be an item of little consequence for them.

Rather, we drank smoky treats in abundance at the Spezial brewpub and the restaurant of Schlenkerla, Bamberg’s most justifiably famous Rauchbier. The food at the Maisel Braustubl, our small hotel, was as good as I remembered it, and locals taught us something each evening when we shared tables with them at the pubs.

Too few Americans visit Bamberg, and that’s good.

The tour ended in Munich, home of excess and overkill in almost every aspect of the beer drinking experience, and a place where Barrie Ottersbach feels at home like nowhere else. The Munich portion of the trip featured a brewery tour of Spaten, which in itself was rather ordinary, and yet it ended with a grand lunch at the brewery’s banquet room atop its grain silo, with tremendous views of Munich and as much beer as we cared to drink.

It was a fine day, but the next day was better.

Guido’s Tithe.

Guido was the nicest Italian man we never met in Munich. Although he didn’t know us, he took us on a trip to the countryside, bought beers and food, and even paid for taxi rides.

On our last day in Munich, as David, Rick Buckman and I exited the Pension Hungaria to go into the city center for shopping, we passed a phone booth only yards from our door. Dave glanced in and spotted a billfold, which contained cash (both German and Italian), credit cards and an Italian passport.

Diligently, our local brewer turned in the wallet to our landlady, Frau Wolff ... but not before extracting the standard, universally-recognized fee for getting your things back, 200 Deutschmarks.

We thanked Guido profusely, and after arming ourselves with beers and recruiting Bob Reed, we set off for the 40-minute train ride to Kloster Andechs, a Benedictine monastery and religious complex set on a hill in a beautiful rural area, which in summertime would provide sweeping vistas for those drinking from the vantage point of the beer garden that surrounds the buildings on numerous levels.

The brewing is now done in the village below, but the old brewhouse is visible at one end of the indoor drinking area, which comprises several rooms. We barely found space in one of them -- the place was jam-packed with locals on a Saturday afternoon -- and consumed liter masses of Doppelbock and Hefe-Weizen. Beer as well as food was self-service; the pig’s knuckle that Guido bought me was the approximate size of a basketball, oozing grease and porcine yummies, and defeating my efforts to finish it.

Grazi, Guido.

I’ll never forget you.

Mathaser, Munich and the summer of '87 with the lads.

These are holy days in the pantheon of the Curmudgeon’s beer travels, for it was on July 16, 17 and 18, 1987, that I was joined in Munich by Bob Gunn, Barrie Ottersbach and my cousin Don Barry for three nights of Bavarian bacchanalia.

The stories have been suitably embellished over the decades. There was my episode of disgruntlement at having to leave a beer hall at an hour I considered to be far too early, and a stern worker’s gentle suggestion to take the argument elsewhere. There was Don’s rising from the bench to tell us that he’d had enough and was returning to his hotel … except that his lips never moved and no sound was emitted in spite of his recollections of prime oratory. There were liter steins of beer, various and sundry sausages, Deutschmarks and Pfennigs, aspects of unfathomable etiquette that became second nature before the last glass was poured, and a constant flow of conversation, information and education.

To me, it remains remarkable that we coordinated our arrivals so well. While making plans to meet friends in Munich in order to partake of the city’s bountiful beer and pig flesh wasn’t such an unprecedented feat, and we’ve managed to do it many times since, considering the circumstances at the time and our relative inexperience traveling, the manner by which our scheme came to fruition still elicits a smile.

Knowing that we all would be in Europe during the summer of 1987, detailed planning began over the Christmas holidays in 1986. Barrie and I had booked a two-week tour of the Soviet Union and proposed to approach Munich by rail from Prague. Bob, who was on his first trip to the continent, and Don, who had been many times, had devised detailed itineraries, and both would be arriving in Munich on the same day, but from different directions. As was his habit, Don booked a single room at a favorite haunt, while the rest of us made reservations together in a triple at another hotel somewhat near the Munich train station.

We knew what day to be there and where we’d be staying, and yet in those far-off and primitive times, lacking e-mail and mobile phones, and with each member of the quartet having been traveling for quite some time before the projected Munich gathering, a considerable element of uncertainty was palpable. In essence, could we remain sufficiently sober, avoid unexpected transportation delays, and show up on time, and where we were supposed to be?

Happily, it went off without a hitch. Barrie and I arrived at the Hauptbahnhof and found Don idling with beer in hand at the fabled Track 16 Imbiss, and after enjoying a few Pschorrbraus and portions of Leberkase, we ran into Bob at the hotel.

Admittedly, iad I known then what I know now, we’d have avoided Munich entirely and gone instead to Bamberg, but given our remedial state of beer knowledge, it’s likely that the choice of Munich was all for the best. We might not have fully grasped Rauchbier and Kellerbier.

The city’s brewery consolidations had already started to diminish historical distinctions, although international corporate investors had yet to appear as they have in recent years. The future could be glimpsed, but at the same time old ways seemed to persist, and these traditions can be pleasing so long as it is remembered that much of what Americans know about Germany actually pertains to Bavaria, and much of what they know about Bavaria actually applies to Munich alone.

For example, “beer halls” in the sense of the Hofbrauhaus do not exist in matching scale outside the city. In 1987, a beer hall larger than the Hofbrauhaus was our home away from home for two glorious evenings: Mathaser Bierstadt, which was tied to Lowenbrau. It was cavernous, filled with nooks and byways and various banquet rooms and snugs, and decidedly grittier than the Hofbrauhaus – no less attractive for tourists, but rowdy and with an earthier composition of native barfly.

These many years later, what I’ve taken away from three Munich nights in July isn’t capable of being detailed. That I experienced it with wide eyes and a sense of wonderment cannot be doubted. For a beer- and history-loving Hoosier just shy of his 27th birthday, roaming Europe for the second time, Munich was the epitome. It was Disneyland with ubiquitous mugs of foamy lager and all the sauerkraut and potatoes one cared to eat.

Unfortunately, the Mathaser perished, and the site is now an ultra-modern cinema and entertainment complex. The last time I was there was in 1995, and even then the beer hall seemed exhausted. Dubbed American movies probably are showing now, and outside, you’ll see imported Miller and Corona throughout the city. The old brands aren’t the same, at least to me. Oktoberfests have become golden, and all beer tastes steadily colder on each trip. There is a Hofbrauhaus franchise in Newport, Kentucky.

Fond memories, indeed, and now increasingly balanced by melancholy.