mardi 22 mars 2011

MEMORIES OF MUNICH

Last Sunday night we returned from a fab weekend in Munich. A truly beautiful City with breweries galore. If I were a betting man I would wager on Munich winning the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. But sadly, these things aren't always meritocratic.

The accommodation was excellent and I pigged out on the 12€ buffet breakfast, which was enough to last the whole day. We felt uncomfortable drinking a beer in the snooty Ratskeller as the trade was mostly for meals, and we'd only ordered a small basket of 5 pretzels ( a rip-off at 6€). But we should have headed underneath the tower to the right of the Rathaus where there was a beer garden with an atmosphere more convivial than that of the upmarket, here-to-be-seen Ratskeller.

Strange that I brewed a beer called Festlich - a rich porter brewed with pale and chocolate malts and spiced with root liquorice - in November 1998 and Colin, the then landlord of the Bennett Arms in Tisbury, tried some and declared,

'You should be proud of that because I'd sell that in my pub anyday!'

Alas, I only had a 5-gallon brew length!

Anyway, what I meant to say was that Festlich in German = convivial so if you're ever in Munich and ask for a litre of Festlich, they'll think you've lost the plot. .. .Just like that nasty little Austrian corporal who thought he could, and nearly did, change the world forever...How true the quote, 'evil happens when good men do nothing'.

Watching the fairytale rotating figures beneath the Rathaus clock just after 5pm later that day was definitely a highlight and brought to mind the age of innocence before the two World Wars.


On the way back to the airport, we passed the site of the 1923 Beer Hall putsch and I wondered how so much evil could have taken root in such a wonderful place.

We arrived with four hours to spare at Munich airport, the first in the world to have acres of solar panels on its roofing, so once I'd purchased my malt whisky in Duty Free, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the teas, coffees, hot chocolate from the vending machines were all free!

Bliss for a coffee/tea-aholic like me!

When we arrived home after the 1 hour flight to Geneva, I was pleased to see the Chelsea v. Man City result.

So a return trip to Bavaria is now definitely on the cards!

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