Back Home

So I'm finally back home in Portland, still recovering a bit from the jet lag. Home is so crazy, I've missed so much while I was gone and it was only for three weeks! I can't imagine how much stuff people miss when they are gone for a semester or a year. So our last day in Europe we went to an art museum in Brussels, I did some shopping, and I updated my blog. After all of that, all of us met up at Cafe Delirium one last time for some beers. We had a dinner reservation at 6:30 at Chez Leon which was Belgian food. We had a pre-paid meal and had a few choices for dinner, and I was in the minority when I ordered chicken; everyone else got mussels-- something Brussels is famous for. The craziest thing was when people started finishing their plates of mussels and the waiter would come in and bring more! It was great talking about everything that had happened on our trip and talking about bottling our beers and graduation, which for most of the group will be in the spring and then for four of us it will be next fall. I then went back to the hotel to pack.

At 3am I woke up to get ready for the flight. We had a 50 minute flight from Brussels to Amsterdam and then a 10 ish hour flight from Amsterdam to Portland. In Amsterdam we met up with the Jan Term group who went to India and they were sharing their stories--way different than our trip. Plus they had already been on a flight for 8 hours before even getting to Amsterdam. This flight had four movies and I slept through parts of all of them. Once we landed in Portland, we got off the plane and there are two paramedics waiting at the gate-- one of them was my uncle! He works for the airport and found out when and where my flight got in and stopped by to see me. After a quick chat with him, I headed through passport check and customs, then we had a long bus ride to McMinnville where my parents were waiting for me. I grabbed my stuff and we drove back to Portland. The original plan was for them to just get me at the airport but I had left my wallet and keys and such in McMinnville. We caught up and I showed them all the stuff I brought back and we had dinner and caught up some more.

Last night I fell asleep around 8pm and woke up today at 4:30am. I wrote my reflective essay and had lunch with my parents and went grocery shopping. My brain still isn't fully functioning in English-- I mean I spoke in English mostly when I was in Europe but I'm still half expecting people to not be speaking English. My dad rented "In Bruges" from the library and we watched it tonight so I could point out where I had been-- it was actually a lot better movie than I had thought it would be. It was really cool pointing out where I had been and stuff and then it hit me: I was there about 4 days ago! Crazy! Anyway, I'm still not used to the time so I'm about to go to bed, I'm going to try to update this blog occasionally until I've adjusted back to American culture.

In Bruges

Today we went to Bruges. Our tour guide showed us a lot of historical spots there—especially centered on religious things. We saw a few areas that were started by beguines—women whose husbands were away at war but didn’t want to join a convent. Beguines were also the women who started what is now Het Anker Brewery in Mechelen. The beguines here started a hospitality house where foreigners could sleep in a bed for a night before they found their way. Many of the foreigners were sick and the beguines would pray for them to get better—and it started what we would now call a hospital.

Our tour guide also had a special surprise for us—a chocolate demonstration. She took us to a local chocolaterie, Sukerbuyc, and the chocolatier showed us the basic process for making chocolates. Although this particular chocolate shop doesn’t make their own chocolate from scratch, per se, he still told us how chocolate is made. Although the end product is very different, the process has some similarities to beer brewing. They start with cocoa beans and open them to get out the cocoa powder and oil—in beer brewing this would be the malting of barley to get the usable product. Dark chocolate is primarily cocoa powder and the cocoa butter that is made from the oil—the same cocoa butter that is used in many cosmetics. Milk chocolate is the same, but also with sugar and milk or milk powder. White chocolate is just the sugar, milk or milk powder, and the cocoa butter—there isn’t actually any of the cocoa powder in it (which is why it is still white) and really isn’t chocolate… The chocolate is then put into a mold, shaken to get out the air bubbles, and then dumped after about a minute so that way it creates a shell. Later, they add in the filling and another layer of the chocolate so it is completely covered. I’ve made chocolates before similarly: every year for Christmas we get candy melts which you melt down and then put it in Christmas shaped molds. After all these years I’ve gotten pretty good at painting white “chocolate” of different colors into the molds to make them even more decorative. After the chocolatier talked about how important the temperature is when you’re dealing with chocolate, like with beer, I’m thinking I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. We normally just heat up the chocolate melts in the microwave and then once they’re in the molds we throw them in the fridge. I’m thinking now that we might’ve gotten the chocolate too hot to start with and maybe if we did melted it a little cooler, than we could get our Christmas chocolates all shiny and super professional looking!

We then continued our tour of Bruges and had two hours—until 3pm—to explore on our own. Again, I really had no clue what there was to do, so I just wandered through whatever shops I found interesting. I kept pretty close to the meeting spot in the city center for a while, but after a bit I had been to pretty much all the stores that looked interesting. I wandered down a side street to some more shops, and when it was about 2:40, I decided I should head back. I went down a few streets in what I thought was the right direction, but ended up in a spot that was unfamiliar. I knew the city center had a giant bell tower so I just started walking towards the big tower that I saw. As I got closer I realized that it wasn’t the bell tower, it was a tower at the top of a church. I asked a group of business people how to get to the city center and they said it was pretty much on the other side of town, but gave me directions. I quickly walked down a few streets and finally recognized some of the shops. By this time it was already 3pm, but at least I was headed in the right direction. I finally got back to the group only about 5 minutes or so late, but I was bright red and sweaty, and we still had to walk back to the bus. I’m usually pretty solid with my sense of direction, but I had wandered a lot farther than I had thought. Plus the streets in Europe tend to curve so you can turn left and think you’re headed back in the right direction, but because the street you were on curved so much, you’re going the opposite way! Luckily I was able to find my way back without too many problems or being too late.

We then walked back to the bus, stopping at a little mini-town within Bruges that rich people had built for poor people to live in—in return that the poor people prayed for the rich people so they had better chances of getting into heaven. After a long drive back to Brussels, I’m now sitting on my bed resting my feet before we meet up for dinner at 7:30. We again don’t know where we will be going, but hopefully it is good. Then I’m guessing we will go out tonight since it’s really the last night we have to do something before we head back since Thursday night is out unless we want to stay up all night until we leave for the airport at 3:30am. Tomorrow we are going to a museum nearby then have most of the day free until our farewell dinner. I’m hoping to pick up some last minute souvenirs, maybe find a comic book in French for myself, and try to get some reasonably priced chocolates to take back. Also I’ll have to spend a good chunk of my day packing or deciding what to leave in Belgium so I have space to take stuff back.

Lovin' in Leuven

Today we took a train to Leuven. Leuven is the home of the Stella Artois Brewery which is part of the largest brewing company in the world but we had decided not to go there, and to go to Den Domas instead. Den Domas is a small brewery in a college town—they don’t bottle any of their beers, they only go to the tap in the bar. They also use a mechanism that uses carbon dioxide to pump the beer from where it is stored inside a giant plastic bag of sorts into the tap—sort of similar to wine in a box. The tour guide told us that they have two primary beers and a holiday beer. One of their primary beers is a student beer (since they are in a college town) called Con Domas. I really wished that they sold merchandise because I wanted something that said “practice safe drinking” on one side and “Con Domas” on the other.

After the tour and tasting, we had two hours to wander around Leuven. None of us really seemed to know what there was in Leuven to do, so we ate some food, and then just wandered. Jenna, Emma, and I just walked around until we found coffee in a place with a bathroom. The girl at the counter spoke really good English and when we asked her about it, she explained that tv and movies in English don’t get voiced-over into Flemish since it’s not a common language and instead they watch their English shows in English with Flemish subtitles! I never thought about that before but I bet if all of our tv shows were in a different language we would be multi-lingual as well! After our coffee (or my hot chocolate) and our new bit of information, we just wandered through shops until it was time to meet again. I had some fun wandering around an entertainment sort of shop—basically movies and cds and books—and seeing what was translated into Flemish and what was left in English. I thought about buying something but I figured I would wait until we were back in Brussels when I could get something in French—at least then I’d have a fighting chance of understanding. When we got back to Brussels, Michael and I worked on our beer recipe (for part of the class). We struggled a bit trying to come up with some inspiration, but originally decided on a different take on a wheat beer like the one we had brewed when we first started the class. We settled on using some light malt extract for the base, along with some caramel Munich malt and some Belgian wheat. We also switched it up a bit and went with Czech Saaz hops for bittering and Cascade hops for aroma. Our original wheat beer had coriander seed and orange peel which we used, but we also wanted to add a tiny bit of lemon peel since many wheat beers, like hefeweizen, come with a lemon slice! The final ingredient was, of course, Belgian Ale yeast. The hardest part of making our own beer style was coming up with a name. We kept playing around with different ingredients and styles as part of the name, and since it is a blond ale of sorts, we decided on the name “The Busty Blonde”. I’m sure if it was a real beer it would have a heck of a label.

After our beer recipe was complete, I settled in to finally finish the book that I had started on the plane, “One for the Money”. My mom has read through the eighteenth book in the series so I had finally decided to start on the first one and I’m so glad I did. What a great book! I’m so ready to read the next one. Anyway, back to Europe… we went out to dinner at the same Italian restaurant we were at the other night for pizza again and it was still as delicious as before. Now I’ve settled in for the night while others are taking advantage of the last few nights in Europe. Tomorrow we go to Bruges for the day which is our tour guide’s hometown so I’m sure we will get to see the best stuff that most tourists are unaware of! Á bientôt!

Jan 23

Today was another long day of back-to-back brewery tours. Luckily this time the bus arrived on time. We started with Brouweij Bosteels in Buggenhout (say that three times fast) who are the makers of Kwak and Tripel Karmeliet. They started the tour by showing us a bunch of different carriages—which seems odd for a brewery—but turns out Kwak was originally made for carriage drivers; they weren’t allowed to leave the carriage and so the tavern owners made a beer that would both quench their thirst and fit in a special holder on the side of the carriage. When we arrived, they were currently making a batch of Tripel Karmeliet and the whole brewery smelled wonderful. We also saw a farmer picking up spent grains for their cattle. After the tour, we got to taste three of their beers—the two that I already mentioned and something called “Deus” which was champagne-like but extremely odd to taste. I really enjoyed the Kwak—it was creamy and caramelly without being too sweet—plus it’s an adventure to drink because you have to spin it at a certain point or else it will splash in your face. After drinking, the brewer came up to see us and offered to show us around the brewer’s house—which is now just offices, but still exciting!

We then bussed it out to Ghent for a bit of site-seeing and lunch as well as some weird local fruit snack called “Cuberdons”. Ghent was a cute little city on the water, slightly similar to Venice with water running through it rather than it being a coastal town. We then bussed to Oudernaarde—deep in the heart of Flemish Belgium (Flanders)—for a tour of Liefmans Brewery. Most of it is out-dated and much of the process happens at a different location except for the fermentation because they use spontaneous fermentation and need the local cultures from the brewery. I enjoyed the tour guide because he switched up some English words—like he said at the end of the tour we would get to consummate the beer instead of consume it. I tasted four of their beers—Flanders Oud Bruin—but I wasn’t a fan because they had a sour twang from the fermentation style—similar to that of Cantillion. They also had some similar to the Oud Bruin but with fruit: sour cherries make Kriek and then fruit juices in another. Although they were a little sweeter to cut some of the sour, I still wasn’t a huge fan. Before leaving he gave us all a canister of sorts with a bottle of their Kriek in it. The canister is really cool but I don’t know if I can fit it into my luggage. We then headed back to the hotel and wandered around looking for a place for dinner. We settled on a Vietnamese restaurant and they asked if that was ok with everyone. A few of us, myself included, replied with it should be fine but we hadn’t tried Vietnamese food before. We waited for a long time before we got our food and some of us got to the point that everything was funny because of how over-hungry we were. It hit me partway through waiting that I have actually been to Vietnam before so it wasn’t my first time having Vietnamese food. Either way, when it finally came out, my food was really bland but I shoveled it in anyway because I was so hungry. Anyway, I best get to bed because it is about 10:30 pm here and we have to meet at about 7:30am tomorrow for our train to Leuven. Then Wednesday we go to Bruges, Thursday is mostly free, and Friday at 3:30am we leave for the airport! I can’t believe this experience is almost over.

Les Bandes Dessinees!

So last night was uneventful, and today was exhausting. Josie and I wanted to go to the market in the area that they have on the weekends, but the guy at the hotel sent us to one that was way farther than expected and not what we had in mind. It reminded me of a market I went to in Mexico—lots of random fruit and meat stands, and everything else was clothes and shoes and watches and household items that they probably get super cheap and sell for 10 Euros or less too—super sketch. Then we decided to walk to the Comic Strip Museum but ended up at the Comic Strip Café instead, which was quite a hike in the wrong direction. When we finally found the Comic Strip Museum, it was really interesting. They had original drafts of comics and history of certain popular strips like Tintin, Gaston Lagaffe, and The Smurfs. My favorite is Titeuf but turns out he is actually French and not Belgian. The book store was pretty interesting too and I probably would’ve bought a bunch of funny comics if I had the space in my suitcase, so I might see if I can find smaller ones at bookstores or something. We then walked back towards the hotel in search of food. We stopped and got frites and then I did some souvenir shopping before returning to the hotel. I finally caved in and bought a little mannekin pis with a bottle opener on his head and a corkscrew from you-know-where.

In the evening we met up with the group for the final two presentations—Caleb’s and mine. Caleb’s was about trappist breweries in Belgium—though I’m still not positive what the difference between a trappist brewery and a monastic brewery is… My presentation was about how Belgium culture influences its brewing. Most of my presentation focused on how Belgian beers have a lot of influence from the surrounding countries as well as the history of its overlords. Also Belgium, unlike Germany, never had a beer purity law to limit the ingredients in their beers. I’m glad to be done but it was super intimidating giving such a casual presentation in a conference room—normally we’ve done them in bars or in the lounge of the hotel, so the conference room was overwhelming.

After the presentations we went out to an Italian restaurant for pizza. It was really different from the pizza in the United States, and super delicious. I got a salami pizza and the salami was really spicy, so I had to order another shot of Sprite (they serve 0.2 L at a time). After dinner my roommates and I found “27 Dresses” on TV in English with Flemish subtitles and watched that until bedtime.

Brusselicious

January 21st

So last night a bunch of us went out, and stayed out later than we probably should have—but at least we had fun! It did, however, make this morning difficult. Let’s just say I got maybe 5 hours of sleep… Anyway, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower anyway, then upstairs to breakfast, then down to the lobby by 9am for our day of two brewery tours. We all walked down the block to the place where we were supposed to meet: 11 Rue de l’Écuyer (or Rider Street for those of you who don’t speak French). Our first tour was at 10:30 and would take a while to get there, so we wanted to be on the road by 9, so we were already running a little bit behind. Well, 9:05, 9:10, 9:15 rolls around and no sign of the bus. Our professor tries to call him, but the service is in French so Amanda attempts to talk to him and he says that he is here, at 11 Rider Street, and I guess we were at 6 Rider Street, maybe 10 meters from 11 Rider Street. So after lots of phone calls and attempted translations, turns out that he was at 11 Rider Street, but in a different suburb of Brussels! We went back to our hotel to wait for him and call the travel service who booked the bus to see if we could get a refund or what the deal was. All I know is that I fell asleep on the couch in the hotel lobby, and by 11am, we were on the bus. It was a long bus ride to DuBuisson Brewery and it was the lunch rush, so we were put in a back area to watch a film on how they brew, and given samples of their beer, and then we left. The video was entertaining considering one of their beers is called Cuvée des Trolls and there was a very charismatic troll that would interrupt bits of the presentation. After that it was a super long bus ride to Het Anker Brewery in Mechelen. Again, we were very late and arrived at about 3:20 and he said that he had another tour at 4, so that tour was also rushed. Even with how quick it went, it was very interesting and the guide made a lot of jokes to keep it entertaining. Het Anker Brewery was started by a group of beguines, nuns of sorts, who made strong beer to use as a painkiller to use at the hospital they ran. It was bought out by a brother and sister, and the fifth generation now runs the company—they still brew strong beer and now also make whisky. Turns out that they get their barrels for their whisky from Jack Daniels—in America there apparently is a law that forbids distilleries from using their barrels more than once in order to keep barrel makers employed, so they are exported and Het Anker gets once-used barrels for very cheap. It also turns out that whisky has very special laws that make it near impossible to make money off of it, so many companies do not follow these rules and instead call it whiskEy so they can’t get in trouble for it.

After way too much beer and way too little food (only breakfast at 8:30am), we were all starving. We came back to the hotel and everyone split off for a snack before dinner later. Pretty much everyone got fries, but I got a Belgian waffle—best decision I’ve ever made. I got one that had milk chocolate on half and white chocolate on half—I wish I had milk to cut it because it was super sweet, so next time I’m going to get something a little less rich—but even still, it was delicious. Or as they say here (or at least on signs for something): Brusselicious.

So in a bit we are off to dinner at the same restaurant we ate at the first night we were here (so 48 hours ago) which I don’t understand because there are TONS of restaurants right near our hotel and they all have more than 10 items on them (I might be exaggerating but the place we are going has a very limited menu). Then tomorrow is a free day so I think most of us will be out late experiencing all that Brussels has to offer tonight and then I’ll probably go to the Comic Strip Museum tomorrow—Brussels is the home of Tintin and The Smurfs, among others. LAST WEEKEND IN EUROPE!

Do I detect a hint of horse blanket?

So last night was our first night in Brussels, and a group of us went out to a local hot spot, Delirium Cafe-- a bar with supposedly over 2000 beers. It turns out that it is right around the corner from our hotel, so I'm betting we'll frequent here... Well not even betting--turns out they have free wi-fi so I'm here again already writing this blog! Anyway, today we started out with a city tour, as per usual, and Brussels is so different from both Munich and Berlin. Some I already mentioned last night, but even more was noticed today. I already mentioned the personal safety issue, but it seems like everything is a lot more cutthroat-- more vicious traffic, more aggressive people, pushier salesmen... so I'm not as confident here, even though I understand more of the language. Like I said before, we are located right in the heart of the city, so most of our tour was pretty centrally located. Something I found really interesting was that under a lot of the city is the remains of a monastery and the remains of a former castle. You can look in windows here and there and just see this entire set of ruins underground! We stopped at a museum with a cafe on the 10th floor, which allowed for some chocolat chaud with a nice view. We also got to see the infamous Manneken Pis, which was a lot smaller than I expected. He was also dressed in some sort of Italian uniform-- apparently he gets dressed up all the times. Our tour guide also pointed out some good places to eat, and so we stopped into Le Chat Noir for lunch, and she was right, it was tasty.

After lunch, we went to Cantillon Brewery-- a brewery that makes Lambic-style beers. At Cantillon, they brew using a lot older machinery, and open fermentation practices--this allows for their beer to be activated using all the yeasts and bacteria in the air. Also, because of their practices, they can only brew in limited months-- about November to March. These practices along with the fact that their beers are conditioned and constantly fermenting for years, gives their beers a unique taste. Most of their beers are pretty sour and acidic due to the spontaneous fermentation, some are a bit barn-yard-y due to the fact that they are brewed in a barn... but they also make some fruit beers that add a little bit of other flavors. Overall I wasn't a huge fan, but it was interesting to try something so different from what we've been drinking the past few weeks.

Anyway, since I'm using the wi-fi in a bar, I didn't think to grab my camera along with my computer, so I still haven't had a chance to upload photos. Hopefully I can do that in my room without the wi-fi and then add them to my posts later.

Bienvenue a Brussels!

So right now we’re on the train going to Koln, then to Brussels, so I’ll catch up to here.

Yesterday (Wednesday, January 18^th) we took a bus to Andechs to visit the monastic brewery. It’s located on the holy mountain which I’m guessing it’s called after all the people shouting “oh God, how long until we reach the top”. Though getting partway up, there is a beautiful view looking down of rolling hills and the church looking up. I’m sure back in the day it was a bunch of monks around their brew kettles, but nowadays it’s just the same as any other brewery. They’ve got your average people running the computers that control the brewing process and a decent sized bottling plant. Turns out that there are only six monks there currently and they hold the management positions so it therefore can still be considered a monastic brewery. Because of this, they are exempt from taxes, and use the money for their daily lives. All excess money goes to help the homeless in Munich—another reason to drink!

The afternoon was free so I spent it catching up on some reading, blogging, and German tv. Although we haven’t been able to watch Spongebob Schwamkopf here in Munich, we’ve caught plenty of How I Met Your Mother—which is still pretty funny in German, though I wonder if all of the jokes translate.

In the evening we had Kala’e’s presentation on Lambic and Gueze brewing in Belgium. I already knew quite a bit from researching my own topic on Belgian cultural influences on their brewing. I’m still super curious about how Lambic and Gueze taste considering their open fermentation traditions. I’m guessing it’s got to taste pretty good or else they wouldn’t continue to do it. After his presentation, the professors treated us to dinner at a different Augustiner location. They ordered for all of us—helles beer and some sausage platter. The helles beer at this location comes from oak casks instead of a regular tap! I have no clue what sausages were on the platter but it was all delicious! One was the Nurenburger ????? sausages which are about the size of breakfast sausage links and taste like mini-bratwurst. The second two sausages were bigger and one even had cheese in it. They were all really yummy and we were joking about how the little ones were pretty much the best and so we said it was “the power of a small sausage”—which is funny for us Linfielders because they just changed the college slogan to “the power of a small college”, only after first considering it to just be “the power of small”.

After dinner I packed most of my stuff, but had to wait for my socks and underwear to dry after I hand-washed them in the afternoon—and didn’t think about separating out my black underwear from the rest so now I have a batch of grey socks! I packed all my clothes and souvenirs and got it all nicely in my suitcase which was surprising because before it was stuffed; I am now a packing-pro! So this morning we woke up bright and early—I woke up at six—to catch the train to Koln. We’ve stopped in a few places and are about to go through Manheim—I’m on the lookout for steamrollers. It’s currently about 10:45 and we should get there at about noon. Then at 12:45 ish we catch the train to Brussels! Although I really enjoyed modern Germany and then traditional Bavaria, I’m so ready to get to Belgium for something completely different.

We’ve been in Belgium for a few hours, and it’s already so different here. Everything is super close together and all the roads are cobblestones and super bumpy. Amanda made the point that it wasn’t bombed in the war like Germany was so it wasn’t rebuilt like the places we went were. We did a tiny bit of exploring but mostly just stayed in the hotel and then went to dinner. We are right in the heart of the city, right near the city hall. It definitely seems a little…grungier here. We were told to be extremely careful about pickpockets—though you should always be cautious when in a foreign place. We definitely seem to be in a tourist-y place since there are souvenir shops everywhere. Well there is no free wi-fi in the hotel, but Amanda bought a day’s worth for 15 euros, so I am borrowing it while she is napping to update my blogs until we can find someplace near bye with free wi-fi… and then maybe I can also add some pictures.

Au revoir!

Germany

Now that we’re on our way to Belgium, it’s time to reflect on Germany. We stayed in two places, and even though they were in the same country, they were very different. Berlin was a very modern city, just like any other modern city in the world. There was public transportation that would take you anywhere, skyscrapers, and food from everywhere. The people always dressed fashionably and the majority of them spoke English. Munich, although relatively modern, still was very traditional German. The Bavarian influences were a lot more evident everywhere, and people didn’t always speak English. There was a very large population of Middle Eastern people and a high population of homeless people—which is odd because I would think it would be higher in Berlin considering the size, but it might’ve just been the area we were staying at in each place.

Although Berlin was very modern, it was also rich with history—because of its central location, it was hit hard in the war, both literally and figuratively. Because of the war, many places had to be rebuilt and while some decided to recreate the original structures, others instead chose to modernize. After the Berlin wall fell, industry flooded to Berlin, so it is modern. Although Berlin, with its wall, is rich in history, Munich was the start of many movements. Both the White Rose Movement and the XXXXXX movement started in Munich. Munich is also where Hitler first joined the Nazi party after being rejected from art school.

Both cities are located on waterways, which increases the amount of trade that can happen between the cities and elsewhere—especially in the past when water travel was the easiest way to go. Water is also very important in these cities since they both make so much beer. Beer is important to the monks in Munich and the rest of the people in Germany. I’m not sure about Munich, but in Berlin the groundwater was very close to the surface, so we often saw pipes all over the city to reroute the groundwater during construction. Groundwater is also an important source of water for brewing, but sometimes can be hard depending on the minerals in the ground in the area. The hardness of the water can have a great deal of influence on the final beer.

Brewing Outline

So you want to make some beer? Well it’s quite a long process but the end product is usually worth it. Depending on the size of the brewery, some things will be a little different. Most breweries and brewers start with malted barley that has been prepared elsewhere or with malt extract, like we did. If they need to be malted, you must soak the barley and allow it to sprout to activate the enzymes, and then heat it to stop the enzymes. If you use malted barley, then it will need to be milled before you can use it. Otherwise you can use malt extract.

The start of most brewing is called mashing. Depending on your specific beer, you might have slightly different processes. Generally you’re going to steep your grains in hot water in a mash tun. By heating up the grains, enzymes are activated to convert starches into sugars that can be fermented later. This new mixture is called wort. Depending on the brewery, you might just remove the grains if they were in bags or you might transfer your wort into a lauter tun that has a false bottom to filter out the husks of the barley. Many breweries then take these spent grains and either turn them into bread, or use them as feed for cattle. The wort is then moved into another kettle where it is heated to a boil and hops and sometimes other ingredients such as spices or herbs are added. Hops added early on in the boil are added for bitterness; hops and other ingredients added later are for aroma and flavor.

After the hops and other ingredients have been in long enough, they need to be taken out and the wort needs to be cooled quickly. When we made beer, they were in bags steeping so it was easy to just take out the ingredients; some breweries instead use a whirlpool method that allows all the sediment to gather into the middle to make it easier to separate from the wort. Once you have separated it, you need to cool the wort quickly, either by adding or submerging the wort in ice, or by using tubing filled with ice water—it doesn’t matter how you do it, you just need to cool it. The wort then gets aerated and when it is cool enough, yeast gets added to it. The type of yeast depends on the type of beer you are making—GENERALLY top-fermenting yeast for ales and bottom-fermenting yeast for lagers. The yeasts are called top-fermenting or bottom-fermenting based on where the yeast settles at the end of fermentation. Also, top-fermenting yeasts work at slightly higher temperatures than bottom-fermenting yeasts. Yeast is needed to convert the sugars from the wort into ethanol alcohol and carbon dioxide. Depending on the type of beer you’re making, the time it takes to ferment and condition will vary. Most bigger breweries will then fill bottles and/or kegs with their beer; smaller breweries will just pipe it right to the tap at their bar. Home brewers will just tap it from their fermentor/ conditioner and enjoy!

Straight Wodka

So I'm a bit behind...

Tuesday, January 17th, we had a free morning so Amanda and I did some shopping. Her shoes had broken so she got some new ones, and I picked up a few souvenirs. In the afternoon, we went to Paulaner Brewery. To start our tour, he gave us all 0.5 L of beer. I got their wheat beer and it smelled pretty banana-y, but it tasted so good. There wasn't too much carbonation and it was smooth, creamy, and slightly sweet. Paulaner’s practices were very similar to the other smaller breweries we had toured, except Paulaner originally started as a monastic brewery, which was extremely topical, since Keith’s presentation afterwards was on monastic brewing.

After Keith’s presentation, some of us went over to one of the Augustiner Brauhaus locations. They were showing a game of handball—Germany against Macedonia. I think people in America play it, but I had never seen it before. It was kind of like a cross between soccer and basketball, and moved pretty fast. Germany won by one point and the guy we were sharing the table with got us all shots.

We then decided to go out to the big Augustiner where they actually brew their beer, and I got a “lemonada” which turned out to be like Sprite but with less carbonation. Because of the low amount of carbonation, everyone kept joking that I was drinking straight wodka. Some of the group continued to bar hop (pun intended) but my roommates and I just went straight to bed.Keith’s presentation was really interesting—I had no clue before on the restrictions and reasons behind monastic brewing. I really enjoyed a story he told us about how the monks originally made this super delicious and super strong beer that they would drink during lent, but thought it might be too indulgent so they sent it to the pope to see what he thought. Of course, in these times, they had to send it by horse-drawn carriage which mixed it around and it was in the sunlight all that time, so when it got to the pope, it wasn’t very good—so of course he said it was fine to have during lent! So if you want the pope to approve of something, send it on a long journey first!

Halfway Through

Today we woke up early to get to the BMW plant for our first non-brewery tour (aside from the city tours). It was really nice to get to tour something that wasn’t beer related, but it turned out there were just as many similarities to a big brewery as there were differences. The obvious difference was that the end product was cars instead of beer, but they relied on similar processes. Both BMW and places like Reudnitzer use a lot of machinery in a lot of different steps. BMW, however, uses the machines to move large car parts and do a lot of welding. They also had machines to do different stages of painting for the bodies of the cars. The machines positively charged the paint and the cars were negatively charged in order to increase the efficiency of the painting process; breweries inject carbon dioxide into the bottles in order to fill them up faster. BMW had machines that analyzed each piece to make sure it was perfect, just like breweries have a machine to make sure the bottles are clean before filling them. I was bummed that they wouldn’t let us take pictures in the factory because it was a mind blowing process. Also, the machines were so life like with very smooth movements and scared me a little because they’re so technologically advanced that I was afraid they would come to life and attack—and the last thing you want to be attacked by is a machine capable of lifting and welding cars. Something I found interesting was that the engines were hand put together, as well as the interior of the car was mostly done by man power with the help of machines instead of vice versa.

After our tour, we took a bus to Aying. We had lunch at Liebhard’s which turned out to be the name of the guy who founded Ayinger Brewery—the brewery we went to Aying to visit. I really liked the Ayinger Brewery. First off, it was privately owned by a family—and you could tell; it didn’t have quite the same mass-produced feeling like some of the giant companies we visited earlier in the trip. They had similar practices in general just like any other brewery, but it was really cool that they let us onto the floor of the bottling plant, whereas the other breweries had platforms above for us to watch from. Here you could see up close how the machines worked to wash the bottles, take off the labels, fill the bottles, cap them, and label them. He also told us a lot about the history of the brewery and the family who owned it. This was our first brewery visit in Bavaria and so far I am very impressed!

Tomorrow morning is free and we have a presentation and a tour in the afternoon. Hopefully I will go shopping and get some souvenirs in my free time tomorrow. Today was the halfway point—I can’t believe it! I feel like I’ve been here so long yet not long at all. It’s so nice having a little bit more laid back agenda in Munich but it’s going to get super busy in Brussels, but I can’t wait!

Dachau

Today we took a trip out to Dachau to visit a concentration camp. I had never been but I had an idea of what to expect from history classes and such. We bought audio guides and just wandered around the area. There was an overload of information but the things that stuck with me most were the bunker, the barracks, and the crematoria. The bunker was where "special" prisoners were put and were most often made to stand in itty bitty rooms. Some of the stories of what put people in the bunker were ridiculous-- one man found a newspaper when he was clearing out rubble and was put in the bunker for the possession of a newspaper. The rooms were tiny but I was surprised that there were toilets in most of the rooms. I also learned that concentration camps were referred to as re-education camps. It was claimed that those who were sent there just needed to learn how to be a good citizen, and after that happened, then they would be released--obviously that wasn't really what happened. Mostly it included hard labor and occasionally they did science experiments on the prisoners. Even in the normal areas it wasn't good--it was overcrowded and they were undernourished.

The crematorium was the worst. They would take them there by telling them that they were showering. They would disrobe and then walk into the room titled "Shower Room" (in German of course) and walk into a room with tons of shower heads on the ceiling... totally reasonable right? Then they would all get closed in there and gassed-- then they would take their bodies, two or three at a time, and load them into the cremation oven. We walked through this building and it was just eerie thinking about all those who had walked through before... and not walked out.

The rest of the day was uneventful-- mostly just eating and blogging and walking. It's hard to have an upbeat day after visiting something like that. Well it's late, and we are leaving for the BMW plant early in the morning.

Bunks

One of the cells

Down the hallway--- so many rooms

The "shower"

cremation oven...

January 14th

Last night we hit up a couple of different bars, nothing too exciting or new—just some more group bonding.

Today we took a walking-tour of Munich. Although it was freezing cold and snowy, the city tour was really interesting—the guide kept it exciting. City tours are something that I am very familiar with considering they are quite popular on cruises, but this one was so much better because she made it very personal—it wasn’t a mass-produced money-making tour. We walked through Munich’s city center and stopped at many churches and monuments in Marienplatz, but more than exactly where we went I remember some random bits and pieces. For example, the area that is currently an ice skating rink is located in what is technically called Karlsplatz—named after a past ruler of Bavaria. He was unpopular because he tried to sell Bavaria to Austria and so the locals instead call the square Stachus, after a popular pub owner. The tour guide also pointed out random sculptures/statues at the top of columns in one of the churches that you would've never noticed otherwise.

She also told us about the legend of the devil’s footstep in the Frauenkirche: the devil made a deal with the builder of the church (which is why it was finished so quickly) on the condition that it has no windows.

The builder made it so that the columns in the church cover the windows in the spot where the devil’s footstep is. When the devil figured out he had been tricked, he couldn't do anything because people were already worshiping in the church and could only stomp his feet. Also at this church, certain groups have their own prayer areas. One group’s—the bakers’—area has a pretzel under their crest. The tour guide told us that pretzels are shaped the way they are because they used to be eaten only by monks during their lent-like time when they prayed, and they prayed by crossing their arms across their chest.

In another area, we learned that Hitler had applied to art school in Austria but was turned down because he wasn’t good enough. He then came to Germany to apply but the same thing happened and instead joined the military. From there he heard about the Nazi party, went to jail, and started writing Mein Kampf. I can’t imagine how different things might have been if Hitler got into art school. Interestingly enough, Munich was also the start of the White Rose movement against Hitler.

Our tour guide was telling us about how bad the plague was in Germany, and then realized that this year was a special year—a year of a cooper’s dance. Apparently when the plague was finally over, all the keg/barrel makers did a dance, and now to celebrate the fact that there is no more plague, they do a dance every 7 years. I couldn’t believe our odds—that this dance only happens for a month or so every seven years, and we happened to be here when it happened! The dance in and of itself wasn’t super exciting—a bunch of men with hoops covered in greens and super repetitive music—but the idea behind it was exciting. Go health!

After the dance we went to Hofbrauhaus for lunch and then had the rest of the day free. A few of us decided to go check out the BMW Welt (World) for something to do. It was pretty interesting; though it was mostly like a giant show room—I’m sure my brother would be in heaven though. We will also go to the BMW plant on Monday where they actually make the cars so that should be really interesting! We then wandered around the stadium where the 1972 Summer Olympics were held. I’m not much of a sport person but the sheer size alone was enough to make anyone be in awe.

Tonight we are going to check out some more nightlife since tomorrow is a free day. I’m still trying to decide between going to a modern art museum or to a concentration camp. Only time will tell!

Freitag the 13th

Happy Friday the 13^th from München! Today was pretty much a free day so we had breakfast

and my roommates and I decided to wander around the city. We stopped at a bakery for a snack and wandered until we found what they call the “Versailles of Germany”—Schloss Nymphenburg. I’ve never been to Versailles but what we saw was so extravagant! The most interesting part was the “Gallery of Beauties” that King Ludwig I had commissioned—paintings of 36 beautiful women ranging from a shoemaker’s daughter to a king’s daughter. These paintings showed what/who was considered beautiful by the king’s preferences—which was all that mattered because beauty was considered a sign of morality.

In the evening we had Michael and Lindsay’s presentations. Lindsay presented on the differences between beer from Northern Germany and from Southern Germany and we tasted a few of each. Beers from the North were much hoppier and more bitter whereas the Southern beers were maltier and sweeter. Michael’s presentation was on the Reinheitsgabot which we’ve heard a lot about—the main parts is that the law dictates what is allowed to be put in beer and what is not. After the presentations we had a prepaid dinner at Augustiner Brauhaus, a popular batch of brewpubs in Munich. I’m sure it’s supposed to be appealing because it has a very traditional Brew House feel—like what you would expect to find with wooden tables and the women in the Bavarian dresses and giant mugs—but I wasn’t a fan. First off the place was so crowded to the point that people were sitting at our reserved table because there was nowhere else to sit. Also, it was crowded and so loud with drunk people and it was nearly impossible to move through the crowd—I honestly thought I was having a panic attack. The preordered food was some sort of pork loin with cheese speatzle but the pork wasn’t very good and the cheese speatzle was bland. The food overall seems to be a lot more traditional German than in Berlin, where there were a lot of restaurants that featured food from all over the world.

A few of us are planning to see what Munich has to offer in ways of nightlife, so if I live, this blog will get posted tomorrow.

Munchen!

Today we are in Munich! We left our hotel around 7am for a 6 hour train ride into Bavaria. This part of Germany is much closer to what you might expect when you think traditional Germany—lederhosen, the Alps, sausages, beer steins. We spent most of the day wandering around and stopped into a restaurant for a meal—I had cheese spaetzle which is like a magnificent German macaroni and cheese. We also went to another restaurant for beers and the décor was a cross between modern and traditional Bavaria. I don’t know how close the other Jan Term Abroad groups are, but we bond so much over our beers!

Auf Wiedersehen Berlin

January 11^th

Today we went to Berliner-Schultheiss-Kindl Brewery. Although comparable in size to the Reudnitzer Brewery that we toured yesterday, it was a very different tour. First off, the tour guide brought us into where the mash tuns and lauter tuns were, but unlike other breweries, it was set up for tours—built-in chairs surrounded a projector screen that dropped from the ceiling; rather than talking to us directly, we had headphones and a receiver so he could talk through a microphone; a power point and video obviously professionally made for tours. Although the power point was very interesting and helped to visualize the brewing process, I felt like the video was just a giant advertisement for their brands—quite different from Reudnitzer. Much of the tour was looking through windows and we weren’t allowed to take pictures which made me wonder what they might be trying to hide; what we did see was very similar to Reudnitzer though. After the tour we went to a tasting room to try some of the beers that they offered. The tour guide just kept bringing us different types of beer, one after the other. Although we also had some super delicious bratwurst and potato salad, he was bringing out regular sized beers and I simply couldn’t drink that much.

After the brewery adventure, we had a few hours of free time which a few other people and I chose to spend at the “Erotik Museum”. Although it wasn’t quite what I had expected, I still found it really interesting. There was a lot of art depicting different sexual things and a lot of old sculptures that different cultures might’ve used for whatever reason (education or art mainly). There were also random odds and ends such as replicas of different chastity belts and tons of random phalluses (even some with wings). We then took a quick walk through KaDeWe—the second largest department store in Europe. It was not really what I expected—it was pretty much a HUGE Macy’s with every name brand of everything ever—bags, dishes, jackets, clothes—as well as a supermarket with tons of food.

At about 5pm, Gudrun told us to meet up because she was taking us somewhere. We walked and walked and ended up at a museum of sorts that commemorated those who fought against the Nazis. We got there only about 20 minutes before we closed so we had to zoom through the place but the parts we saw were super interesting. I wish we had known about it earlier because perhaps we could’ve found some more time to go. It was located in a building next to where those who planned to assassinate Hilter were executed.

We then went to Lemke’s Braueri where we had a prepaid dinner. They started by bringing us samples of all four of their beers—a pilsner, a weizen, a winter bock, and the original. The pilsner was banana-y, the weizen was sour, the original was bitter, and the bock was ok but not my favorite so I ended up handing off the rest of them to others. The dinner was a mushroom soup to start, and some sort of meat with potatoes and carrots—sort of a deconstructed stew. The mushroom soup was delicious but I didn’t care much for the meat so I mainly ate potatoes and carrots—luckily I was still pretty full from lunch. After dinner we took a double decker bus to the hotel (super fun!) and then I packed while watching Spongebob Schwamkoff and went to bed early for our early train ride to Munich in the morning. Auf Wiedersehen Berlin!

**Note: I've tried multiple times to add pictures to this post but it has (obviously) been unsuccessful, so I'm just going to post it anyway

Leipzig

So I'm a little behind on posting:

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.

VLB

Today we visited VLB--Versuchs und Lehranstalt fur Brauerei in Berlin. I originally thought it would just be a school where people learned to brew, but it was so much more than that. They offer classes in engineering, packaging, event management, microbiology, public relations, and a whole lot more-- pretty much anything that could possibly have to do with brewing and beverages. We took a tour of the facilities, starting with the main brewery. We then went to a lab that focused on packaging-- the labels, bottles, crates, everything. They tried different glues, tested temperature and pressures that the bottles could withstand, tested how much force the crates could take-- all sorts of things you wouldn't think about. They had beer bottles from America to Singapore and everywhere in between. It wasn't just a school, but also a research institute. They also had chemistry labs and such, which a lot of the equipment went over my head-- my primary science background is in physics, if anything. We then were able to do a sensory panel which started with water cups A,B,C, and D. Each one had sweet, salty, sour, or bitter added to it and it was our job to figure out which was which. I was easily able to pick out the salty and sour, but the bitter and sweet were harder for me. We then had beer spiked with off-flavors and I could easily pick out which three were spiked and which one was normal, but the specific flavors were more difficult. One obviously smelled buttery which was the diacetyl but the other two were harder to place. One turned out to be DMS which should smell/taste like cooked vegetables, and the other one tasted stale/aged.

We then had a quick lunch, and later sat down for the orientation which included many prominent members of the beer community. It was quite long but mostly pretty interesting to hear about the different people and their link to brewing (one was even born in a brewery), but my take-away point was that you need both passion and education--one without the other could only take you so far. Obviously they were talking about what makes good beer/brewing, but it is extremely applicable to other areas. Anyway, I am about to look up someplace good to have dinner, and I think the plan is to go to the Irish Pub later for karaoke. Tomorrow we have a day trip to Leipzig. until then!

Spandau

Last night I was so exhausted that we went to our room after being at the bakery, we turned on the tv and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was on, then the next thing I know it’s 11pm and I’m waking up with my clothes on. I didn’t eat dinner and instead rolled over and changed into my pajamas and went back to sleep. We had class this morning at 10am and learned about the minerals in brewing water and about the mashing process and enzymes. I’m glad that some of the things we’ve been learning about I have in my brain somewhere from chemistry in high school or nutrition or physiology last year; I was worried that a lot of the technical stuff would go over my head. After the lessons, Amanda and Jenna did their presentations. Amanda’s presentation was about brewing behind the Iron Curtain. I had heard of that phrase before, but wasn’t completely sure what it was. The Iron Curtain was essentially the division between Eastern Europe and Western Europe—behind it would be the Eastern side. The Eastern side was the side run by Communism and was only allowed to brew the beer that the Soviets said was ok—which was mostly the same cheap Pilsner everywhere. This beer died out once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 because people were able to get better beer. Jenna taught us a little more about Gose, a type of beer from Goslar. I haven’t tried it but from her description—sour, salty, fermented with yeast and lactic bacteria, and some people add raspberry or woodruff syrup because of the taste—it sounded similar to Berliner Weisse, the beer that Emma presented on yesterday. I hope I am able to try it to see if I can find a difference between the two.

After class we took a train to Spandau to visit a brewery. We went to the Brau Haus Braueri in Spandau and took a tour of their facilities and had lunch. The brewery was set up very similarly to the one we toured yesterday that has been turned into a museum, except this one was obviously in use. * They started at the top and ended at the bottom, but the Brau Haus doesn’t bottle their beer—it goes straight into the tap at their bar. We got to try both types of their beer—the Helles and the Dunkel (light and dark). I’m still developing my beer skills, but the Helles was not filtered and was a little cloudy but generally a golden yellow color. Since it wasn’t filtered, it tasted a little yeasty. The Dunkel was super dark and had almost a coffee-taste—not my favorite since I’m not a fan of coffee, but it was pretty tasty overall since the coffee-flavor wasn’t overpowering. We were also served a pretzel that was good and lunch of cooked carrots, potatoes, and a hamburger-esque beef with some sauce that kind of reminded me of Salisbury steak. Overall I was way too full to eat it all but it was all so delicious.

The rest of our day was a free day so most of us chose to go to the Jüdisches Museum (Jewish Museum). It was only 5 Euros to get in or only 2.50 if you had a student id—which I didn’t because I left it in the hotel, who would’ve thought I would need it. The museum was designed by Daniel Libeskind and was all sorts of zig-zag craziness. The whole museum was disorienting because you could walk around and have no clue where you were and windows were sparse—and many of them just went into the middle of the building and you could really only see a concrete wall. We went through a door into a room that we later found out was called the “Holocaust Tower”. The room was freezing and dark—the only light came from a slight opening at the top where some natural light fell through. It was probably what I liked most about the museum—I mean the personal stories from the holocaust and the history of Judaism were interesting, but this was something where you could interpret it yourself. There was also “The Garden of Exile” and “Fallen Leaves” which were exhibits that I found particularly fascinating. “The Garden of Exile” was made of columns filled with earth and was outside on slanted ground to show how even escaping could still not feel right. “Fallen Leaves” was an area containing tons of faces made out of metal covering the floor to honor the innocent victims of war and violence. Overall the museum was really interesting but so disorienting because of the sloping and zigging and zagging. I don’t think I had ever been to a museum before that put so much thought and effort into the architecture and layout to match the content.

*The brewmaster who led the tour didn’t speak English so everything was translated through a couple of people, but I was told that he used to work for the Coca Cola Company earlier in his life, and we were told that beer is healthier than Coke—it only has water, hops, grains, and yeast whereas Coke has tons of chemicals (Remember this for future referenceJ)

Adventuring in Berlin

Before I start this one, I'd like to make a note to my parents that I'm alive. And with that...

Last night we (the 10 of us students on the trip) decided to make a trek to Kreuzberg to check out the Berliner nightlife. So we met up in the hotel around 10pm and Keith, who had been to the area and knows German, led us to the U-Bahn (the subway) and we took it down a few stops to head to a bar that he read about in a travel guide. We walked for quite some time and when we figured out where it should've been, it pretty much just looked like an abandoned crack house, so we moved along. We stopped at a bar and got a few drinks before taking the U-Bahn again to where the club was. We got on the train to a guy singing "Wonderwall" and playing guitar, and next thing we know, a drunk guy gets on the max and some guys start arguing in German (I was later told they were arguing about iPhones or something and then one guy said something rude about the other's mother--good to know that insults are similar in all cultures) and one chokes the other, and the other pulls a knife on him. A few of the people from our trip were right there and got out of the way, while the rest of us watched from afar. Another guy broke up the fight and the two guys got off at the next stop, so I'll never know what happened, but what an experience! So we finally got to the stop for the club, and took a while to find the club because it wasn't well-marked (or at all that I could tell) and we paid to get in. Mind you, by this time it was a little after midnight-- a time when most clubs in Portland would be busy-- but not here, we were about 50% of the population of the club. Well we had a few more drinks and attempted to dance to the eclectic techno music, and by about 2am we were ready to leave even though that's finally when it was getting crowded. We stopped for Currywurst on the way home-- I just got fries, and by 4am I was snug in my bed.

Skip ahead to 10:30am this morning, when we had class to go over some chemistry of brewing and off-flavors in beer. I surprisingly was able to figure out a lot of the chemistry-- probably something in the back of my brain from nutrition and physiology classes. It was also was interesting to learn about how off-flavors can get into beer-- mostly from craziness going on with the yeast-- but more interesting to find out that people sometimes purposely create those things in the beer to "spike" the beer for tasting, or in the case of Belgian Lambics, some "off-flavors" are a sign of that beer style.

After class, we trekked to the Deutsches Technikmuseum, which kind of seemed like a German OMSI. It had sections about boats, trains, jewelry making, and of course a brewery. The brewery was in a separate building but it was a good start for us before we visit actual breweries, because we were able to learn all the basics of breweries without having to think about that particular brewery. The brewery/museum that we were visiting was in business from about 1910 to 1990 and was 4 levels high. The process started at the top floor with the milling process, and then proceeds downwards with fermentation and bottling on the bottom floor. We then had a bit of time to look around the rest of the museum before we left for lunch.

Lunch was at a place that served Berliner Weisse, because Emma was giving her presentation on it. First the U train we were taking stopped for repairs or something (I'm not sure, the announcement was in German) so we had to walk the rest of the way. We got a little turned around and sidetracked, passed the restaurant, and looped around to find it. The hostess/waitress then wouldn't seat the 12 of us until our German professor talked to her. We finally sat down and I had a Berliner Weisse with raspberry syrup, which is the same thing I got the first day at the Thai restaurant, except this time was a lot better. You could tell that it was actually beer with syrup in it rather than just some beer/juice mix. At the place we went, you could order it without syrup, but it's really sour so it is usually mixed with either Woodruff or raspberry syrup to balance it out. They also served it in the proper glass-- a chalice of sorts-- as well as with a straw. The whole experience was better than the super juicy one in a plastic cup with a bendy straw that the Thai restaurant gave us. I also ordered Weiner Schnitzel-- which I wasn't aware was the same thing I had the other day, but it was much different. Yesterday it was served with a mushroom gravy and potatoes, and today it was just breaded and served with fries. It was good, but I think I preferred the way it was served yesterday. I always thought Weiner Schnitzel was a type of sausage, but that might just be because it has the word weiner in it.

Anyway, sorry for the super long post today, just had a lot of adventuring to fill everyone in on. I haven't gotten around to add more pictures to my computer--especially considering I left it in my jacket when we checked it and only took pictures on my ipod in the museum today, so I won't have as many from today. Tomorrow we have class and a few presentations, and then a lunch and tour at Brauhaus Spandau.

Bis morgen!

Ich Bin Ein Berliner

Today we took a bus tour of Berlin. I really enjoyed sight-seeing but can’t remember a lot of the places we went. We saw a lot of embassies and government buildings—since Berlin is the capital—and also saw a lot of historical monuments from WWII and the separation of East and West Berlin/Germany. We saw a big chunk of the Wall with art on it and also went to Checkpoint Charlie. I think the art on the Berlin Wall was my favorite; there was such a wide variety of art styles and it was clear that different artists each took over a chunk of the wall—it was amazing! We passed a Holocaust Memorial that was across from Hitler’s Bunker which is now currently a parking lot for an apartment. We then went to the Panorama Punkt and rode a super fast elevator to floor 24 (100metres in 20seconds) to see Berlin from high up. For lunch we stopped into Mommseneck and I had Kostriker Schwarzbier and Pork Schnitzel. It was really good. Brian, my professor, ordered a wheat beer that was smoked and it tasted like bacon! Today I’ve finally started picking up on some differences between Germany and The U.S. The main one being an obvious one in that none of us got carded when ordering beer—which for someone who just turned 21 seems really odd. Also, it is packed here! Berlin has a population of about 3million people—about the population of Oregon as a whole—all packed into one city. One of the reasons I mention this is because we rode the Underground—like the Subway—which is way more extensive than the MAX that I’m used to riding in Portland. Once we got back to our hotel, we had class to learn about barley, malting, and beer styles. In a bit we’re planning to go to the local bakery which offers free Wi-Fi and food for dinner. Then a group of us is going to explore the nightlife in Berlin. Should be an experience!

Yesterday's Post

I’ve been up since about 7am Portland time… and it’s now currently 5am Portland time according to my computer… or about 2pm in Berlin… That’s right, finally made it to Berlin!

So we took a bus to the airport and spent quite a few hours at PDX before our flight took off which was some good bonding time with the group. On our 10 hour flight, I sat next to Josie. The flight had a dinner, a snack, and a breakfast and showed three movies and a few tv shows at the end. They showed Moneyball first which I glanced at occasionally; secondly they played Crazy Stupid Love which I watched; thirdly they showed Jane Eyre which I slept through. Josie and I learned some German and played some cards and trivia and then we landed in Amsterdam after circling for about 30 minutes. Our flight from Amsterdam to Berlin was quite short by comparison. We then got all of our luggage and took a bus to our hotel. I’m staying in a triple with two other girls from the trip. We’ve unpacked and now are flipping through the tv channels watching How I Met Your Mother, Spongebob, and the Big Bang Theory in German… quite entertaining. Tomorrow we will tour Berlin and have class, and I will hopefully be more well rested and coherent, not like this post in which I first wrote that we took a bus to the theater instead of the airport. Well we don’t have internet in our hotel so I will post this once we go to an internet café or other hotspot.

Around 2:30 here, we went next door to have some food—we got Thai food and beer. I had a Berliner Weisse—red. It pretty much tasted like juice. Then we walked around to see some of Berlin—mostly shopping areas but we stopped and had Gluehwein—a heated spiced wine.

Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow

So today I brewed my first batch of beer. Michael and I made a Witbier, AKA Wheat Beer. I had no clue what was going on at first but we got the hang of it. Our recipe called for flaked wheat, German Vienna Malt, and Belgian Caramel Munich Malt as well as liquid malt extract. Our beer also included coriander and orange peel and Czech Saaz hops. Once we got into the swing of things, it was a lot easier than I expected. Once we transferred it into the fermenter and then into the carboy, we pitched the yeast. Now to play the waiting game. It was a lot of work but it wasn't too overwhelming. Now to fill my day with nonsense and tomorrow I'll wake up bright and early for our flight to Berlin.

Auf Wiedersehen!