My Berlin Week In Beers
The following article was originally published on bennysentya.com, my personal beer and travel website. I have shared it here with a few tweaks as needed.
Berlin feels simply unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been before. While each city may have a street, suburb or district dedicated to creativity and counter culture, Berlin has that artistic spirit as a standard where being weird is normal and being normal is a sin.
The historical events inseparable from contemporary Berlin culture are worn by the city solemnly, constantly and dutifully. Being a Berliner as a unique identity that comes with the responsibility of keeping stories, looking out for others and being yourself.
Considering it’s the capital of Germany I was ready to try a bit of everything that the mad new generation of German brewers had to offer. I was wrong. I drank two craft beers the whole time I was there, everything else was the high quality beer that pleases 85 million Germans and keeps the craft beer scene fringe.
Often just two euro a glass, beers in Berlin are purchased in half litre bottles at convenience stores called spätis, many of which that have ramshackle tables and milk crates out the front and encourage you to treat the shopfront like a self service bar. Get your beers, get your nicotine, get your junk food; it is the ultimate urban expression of freedom.
Arriving from Cologne on Friday evening, we were pretty tired coming in, picked up some things for dinner at the supermarket along with two glasses of Oberdorfer Helles (from Bavaria) which we shared. A very crisp and deeply refreshing start to our week of beers.
On Saturday it was my filming day which involved a cameo of an old friend of mine from my stand up comedy days, Wolfgang. While filming, he, Katie and I enjoyed a beer each from a späti while Wolfi showed us around Berlin.
Sunday was Katie’s filming day. Katie took us to a craft brewery where we had strawberry jam sours and a restaurant where I had a dark and decadent festbier.
Monday we filmed our final segment at Mikkeller Berlin, the German arm of the fabled Danish brewer. I had an oat pils that was light and unique followed by a mysterious and geographically appropriate Berliner weisse that you can watch me review here.
Having read the article up to this point it might seem ridiculous that on Tuesday we wanted to have a ‘beer day’. We started with two Pilseners by Berliner Brewing that we drank by the Spree river. It continued the trend of beers that meet tick every box without doing anything revolutionary.
Then we headed down the river to a rather touristy but accommodating beer garden at a brewery called Gourg Brau, in the shadow of a big statue of Saint George killing a dragon. The house helles was the most distinct helles of the whole German trip and I don’t really know if that was a good think. It was like a whole mouthful of Skittles at once, different flavours competing and dancing around your mouth. We had two of their earthy, dark and intriguing dunkels with a nice place of ham hock terrine.
From there it got a bit messy and I can’t really remember too much but I have a picture from that night of drinking this Schultheiss pilsener out the front of the späti nearest our place where I also broke my post lockdown abstinence from vaping.
On Wednesday we focused on the modern history of Berlin at places like Checkpoint Charlie where there are open air museum displays that give you a top-level but comprehensive overview of the Berlin wall. We met Wolfgang and friend Katya at a bar on the river called Holzmarkt where they do their own helles, nice, approachable and sessionable. Like a few places we’d discover in Germany, they took a deposit on the glass (one euro) which you got back when you returned the glass.
After that I’m afraid to say this night went much as the first as my photo reel, written record and overall memory can’t quite piece it all together. We got takeaway beers from a screamo bar inside a squatters comune in a building that is technically abandonned to wash down some Turkish bread kebabs. Then we went to a nightclub where I know I had at least one other beer that I could best describe as more expensive than the hours worth of pre drinks.
Thursday was our final night in Berlin. During the day we explored Berlin alcohol free as Wolfgang’s mate and artistic collaborator Dylan had graciously invited us to his birthday (40th no less) on a moored boat on the Spree. We brought Dylan some Czech Pilsner and vegan lollies, both of which he immediately shared with us.
Later a Munich helles by Augustinerbrau made an appearance. Drinking it while talking to Berliners, watching a beaver roam the bank and the sun set on the river at 10pm I thought to myself that Berlin has been one of the greatest places I have ever been. It should be one of the places you have ever been too.
