Berlin’s Beer Culture: Communal Drunkfests
Like twins conjoined at the skull, separating Germany and beer would result in a bloody mess. Not ones to fuck around when it comes to brew, Germans pay tribute to their amber soul mate every year, in Munich, during Oktoberfest. But the foam festivities aren’t unique to Munich alone. Berlin is a history-soaked place in northern Germany where beer drinking is also a varsity sport and biergartens, beer bars and festivals provide countless options for saturation.
While the famous blond lagers have only been around for 150 years, Germans have been brewing beer for at least 3,000 years. They’re so psychotic about their beer that special laws were created surrounding its production. The Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law, states that beer ONLY equals water, barley and hops. This ensures that every brewer gets a level playing field and eliminates the possibility of drinking a six pack of elephant piss (we’re looking at you Bud Light). Despite the rigidity of what goes into their beer, the consumption laws are surprisingly lax. In Berlin, there are no open container laws, so the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, streets, squares, parks, and everywhere in between become a virtual beer garden. That’s great news for chavelers (cheap travelers) who want to bum it with a tallboy and skip the bars altogether.
Beer the Berlin Way
Take the class up just a half notch to fully marinade in Berlin’s beer culture. Strict beerophiles go to Berlin in August. Like Oktoberfest, the Internationale Berliner Bierfestival brings together drunks from all over the world annually. It also butts-up to the Munich event, so the opportunity to get shitfaced for an entire month and annoy a large portion of the German population is alive and well. Since beer chugging is basically a national sport, putting on your beer goggles first thing in the morning is perfectly acceptable.
For the slightly more ambitious, try the Fat Tire Bike Tour. A great way to burn beer calories while peddling your way toward more beer, these guys give you the full scoop on the company so you can properly report back to your parents. You’ll get to stop at a biergarten for lunch and if you’re in no mood for spaetzle or weisswursts solids, you’re totally allowed to maintain a liquid diet. Loretta’s Biergarten and Café am Neuen See in the Tiergarten have large trees, tons of tables with intermixed beer and food stalls and are perfect for outdoor re-hydration. Here, you can get nice and hammered, then rent a rowboat on the adjacent lake.
Kjost
In Kreutzberg on Oranienstrasser, Kjost is an old bus sitting in a lot that was once a landfill and has now delightfully been converted to a bar. With a random assortment of outdoor seating, including couches and tree stumps and a Super Nintendo on the second floor of the bus (if you sit inside), you’ll be hard-up to find a place that’s more unique. Plus, the beer is cheaper than most bars, so it’s a win-win.
O Tannenbaum
In Neokolln, this small bar has cheap bottled beer. The real attraction is the Christmas decorations strewn about the place. Make Santa proud and down a few beers with the locals.
Rose’s
A kitschy gay bar on Oranienstrasser, the walls and ceilings are covered with pink and red fur, and at the end of the night, who doesn’t want a little fur in their life? It might sound weird, but the place is popular and usually packed.
Honorable Mentions: Beer pong at Dr. Pong’s in Prenzlauer Berg and tat/piercing-watching at Feuremelder.
When that time of night rolls around and you need an all-night-boogie-binge to pass out, you‘re in luck. Berlin is known for its massive club scene. The more popular places are usually expensive and picky about who they let past the door. Make the yeast in your stomach dance till daylight at OTP’s backpacker picks:
White Trash
The typical posh club’s grimy cousin, this place has decent burgers, a club on-site and usually, live music in the bar area. Their beer is cheap and it’s right in the middle of the city.
Cassiopeia
Named after a constellation, Cassiopeia has an outside garden and the music is normally electronic or drum/bass. This place also packs a rock-climbing wall for when you decide to let drunken Indiana Jones take the reigns.
Club de Visionaire
Rumored to have some of the best pizza in Berlin, this Kreutzberg club is on a river barge and has a mild identity crisis. If a fancy club hooked-up with a grungy riverside bar/restaurant, Visionaire would be the accident they decided to keep.
There’s no scarcity of beer-infused shenanigans in Berlin. So go on– make the Spree River appear a pale shade of gold and rock out with your stein out.
I’m Kyle, a 2002 graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a degree in English and Art History. My studies also include time at Cambridge University, but short of picking up phrases like “cheers” and an affinity for “a good curry,” the experience was more social than academic. In addition to fashionable beers and cuisines from far-flung places, I started embracing things like currency conversions and the metric system. In other words, it was when the travel bug nestled in for the long-haul.
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Berlin is such a great and multicultural city! Can’t wait to do some fine dining myself. Kae Lani | A Travel Broad recently posted..Sankt Pauli Soccer
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