3 Responses to 11 in 1 ????

1. ellsworth_200 on 2008-08-23 18:43:05.400878

   Just curious: unless we are in a bar, beer bottles caps are twist off...so is the electrician sitting at the bar all day and then taking bottles from said bar to bring to the job, thus needing the beer bottle opener? ;-) Kati In Iowa

2. schneider_1300 on 2008-08-23 17:29:39.088629

   From what I can recall, they don't drink the watered down variety we have in this country. I have seen more than few who thought they were real drinkers that couldn't hit themselves in the rear with a 10 hand working party after a few good German beers. Of course they begin consumption as soon as they are old enough to hold a glass in two hands. Drinking has not been turned into a right of passage in Europe as it has in the good old puritanical USA Dale

3. peterson180 on 2008-08-24 10:45:40.881549

   Exactly--European beer has a bit of a kick to it. The strongest beers in Germany are made by monks. I don't know the full explanation for this, but any beer made by a monastery will contain between seven and nine percent alcohol. The very strongest beer it is possible to make without adding Everclear to it, the infamous EKU Kulminator Urtyp Hell (at 13.3 percent alcohol, it is fermented until the alcohol kills the yeast), is a monastery beer. Even the cheap "supermarket house brand" brews in Europe have five percent alcohol. There are a few other things about German drinking that may seem strange to Americans: * Many beer-drinking Germans who live in populated places don't keep beer in their homes. They drink in pubs--there are usually enough of these that you can just walk to your usual place. * There are probably more national brands of beer in the United States than there are in Germany. Almost all populated places in Germany have at least one brewery. * It is absolutely illegal to sell a beer without a head on it. * All places that sell food or drink for consumption on the premises must post a copy of their menu next to the front door. This is a great law, I wish we had this law in the US, and if I owned a restaurant or a bar I would do this, law or no law. * It is illegal to offer for sale a drinking glass that does not have a permanent volume mark on its side. (It's usually molded into the glass.) It is illegal to sell a beverage that does not come up to the mark in its glass. * You cannot find a "large" drink on a menu. All beverages are sold by volume. * Germans generally do not drink alone. * Beverages cannot be served in ceramic steins--you can't see through them to check for...things that shouldn't be in there. (The ceramic stein was decreed by a Kaiser who decided all serving containers would have a lid on them to keep the bugs out.) * Beers are sold in three sizes. All bars offer a "klein" (small) beer, which is usually 0.3 litres. Most have a "grosse" (large) beer, which is usually 0.5 litres. Sometimes this is different, usually because a brewer wants to stimulate business by offering more for your money and commissions a 0.6-litre grosse bierglas. The rare one is the Mass (pronounced moss--like the stuff rolling stones do not gather), which is 1.0 litre. If you order a large beer or a Mass, you will die from thirst if you do not order a small beer first--most people can finish a small beer by the time a Mass is ready to be served. * If you are asked to drink a beer boot, please follow these simple directions: The Beer Boot is a glass that's shaped like a cowboy boot. It holds 1.5 litres of beer. If you hold the Beer Boot so the toe points upward, when air finally gets back to the toe it will force all of the beer in the boot straight into your face. This is not a good thing. Hold the toe of the boot either to the side or down and you will drink without bathing. -- --jmowreader

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