January 10
Today was a long day in Leipzig. We left the hotel bright and early to catch our train to Leipzig. On the train we did two class activities—sugars and starches, and boiling. Both lessons contained quite a bit of chemistry that took me a while to understand, but I figured it out and it makes me glad that I don’t need chemistry for my major.
Once we got to Leipzig, we took a long walk to Reudnitzer Brewery—one of the largest breweries in the area. We were led into what can only be described as a “groupie room” for the beer—the lighting in the room was red, the furniture was made out of beer crates, and there was a soapbox car made out of recycled beer materials. They said that the beer was very popular among young people because it was cheap and the fans spread the beer by word of mouth so they didn’t need to spend money on advertisements. We then took a tour of the brewery which had primarily the same processes as all the other brewers we visited, except everything at Reudnitzer was way bigger.
The mash tuns and lauter tuns were just gigantic, and they had beer silos that stored enough beer for one person to drink 33 glasses of beer a day for their entire life (birth to death). Another difference between this brewery and a small microbrewery aside from the sheer size was the bottling process. Many microbreweries often just put the beer straight to the tap and never bottle it, Reudnitzer on the other hand not only bottles their beer, they have two machines that can each bottle 50,000 beers in an hour. I also found it interesting that they truly recycle their bottles—each bottle gets returned, sorted, cleaned, and then filled with beer along with the others. Now every time I drink beer from a bottle I’ll start thinking about all the random people I’ve never met who have also drank from that very same bottle!
After visiting the giant brewery, we went to Bayerischer Banhof—a small local brewpub. They are one of the few places in Germany that make Gose—the beer that Jenna did her presentation on a few days ago. We tried Gose as part of the tour, and I also ordered a Gose with raspberry with my lunch. While the Gose with raspberry reminded me of Berliner Weisse with raspberry, the Gose on its own was very different from the Berliner Weisse without syrup. The Berliner Weisse was sour and used the syrup to cut that taste whereas the Gose wasn’t as sour, and was really bubbly! We also stopped at a restaurant under the city hall and had a different type of Gose which was similar, but a lot saltier. Speaking of differences, another difference between the two breweries we visited today was manpower—although Reudnitzer produces a lot more beer, they seem to use the same amount of people as the smaller brewery. Another thing is the little quirks of a smaller brewery—Bayerischer Banhof used to be a train station and they turned it into a brewery, restaurant, and event space; they also can experiment with their beers like aging it in tequila barrels. The little oddities like that are what I really enjoy about the smaller breweries.
After all the beer, we stopped into a church—and not just any church, but the one where Johannes Sebastian Bach used to play! I’m not a huge classical music fan but even little things like that get me excited—to think that I have walked in the same places that someone that amazing has also, and to listen to the sounds from the same organ where he used to play.
We then made our way back to the train station, and took the train back to Berlin. In the evening we went to Slumber Land—a bar suggested to us from the same Linfield Alumni who hooked us up with many tours and other recommendations. We walked into the bar and the first thing I noticed was that the floor was covered in sand. I don’t remember what beer I ended up getting, but I do remember the fun times I had with some of the other students on the group in such an interesting location—just an extension of the rest of the trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment