Sample Chapter: Leipzig

November 19, 2015 by Tupper Leave a Comment

This is a sample chapter from “Drinking In the Culture.”

Quick orientation

Leipzig’s magnificent old Hauptbahnhof claims to be the world’s largest in floor area. It boasts 24 platforms and a dizzying amount of modern shopping mall. At the northwest edge of the old town, you can get from there to pretty much anywhere you’d want to go in the city by tram, bus, or the spanking new underground S Bahn City Tunnel.

Welcome to Brauerei an der Thomaskirche

The shape of the town roughly resembles a not-quite- inflated beach ball. The station was built in 1915 by two railroad companies; each got its own identical entrance. Exit from either one, and the old town lies in front of you to the south across a large expanse of tram lines and an even larger park, Willy Brandt Platz. Cross the park and keep walking away from the station, and you’re in the town cen- ter in less than 10 minutes. You can get to the spectacular Neues Rathaus on the other side of the old town in less than 20 minutes if you don’t stop to drink.

Station breaks

The multi-leveled and very modern shopping area that fills the Hauptbahnhof will sell you almost anything—except an interesting beer. Unless we’ve missed a hidden gem, here are your limited options.

There’s a small pils bar opposite Gleis 8 offering a light and dark Hasseröder from nearby Wernigerode and some international brands of draft, in a haze of cigarette smoke. To escape its smelly confines, cross Willy Brandt Platz in front of the station and head into the city center on Nikolaistrasse. On your left and down a set of stairs is the King’s Head English Pub (Nikolaistr. 40), which has Newcastle and Guinness and a few others on tap. We found it dark and gloomy, but others might call it atmospheric. It opens at 6 PM most days. On our last trip it was “closed for remodeling.” Goodness knows it could use it, but we’ve encountered too many “temporary” closures that never reopened to be confident about this place. For a more German experience, continue just past our three-block limit to the Gasthaus Alte Nikolaischule; see below.

We try to stay away from America when we’re not in America, but if you’re homesick, the Champions bar in the Marriott cooks up a good burger and you can wash it down with U.S.-style pitchers of Krostitzer Pils or Schwarz. For other options, walk past the Marriott headed into town, jink right on Brühl and then left onto Reich- strasse, and you’ll find a series of bars, all modern and all pretty dull. If you have the time to walk a little farther, skip all of these and head for the Brauhaus at the Thom- askirche. Several trams will take you there easily and the S Bahn drops you at the market in less than five minutes.

Read the entire chapter

Gold Metal Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale Returns in July 2019!

It hasn’t been easy to resurrect Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale, winner of a gold metal at the GBBF in the ’90s when well hopped beers were rare and almost non-existent in the east. We’re collaborating again for a return with a brew date set for June 5th. It’s an authentic version of the original and comes from Dynasty Brewing in Ashburn, Virginia– almost within walking distance of the Old Dominion brewery that brewed the first batch just over 25 years ago. Favio Garcia, a former brewer at Old Dominion who brewed dozens of batches of the original is making it happen. Stay tuned for more details on where to find it. You read it here first.

NOW PLAYING: on Beer of the Day— Some of our recent favorite finds. Scroll down below this entry to find the featured beer of the day. >>>>>

Later — in June we resume some great weekend destinations for beer travelers that we’ve found researching our guide to breweries and inns of the Mid Atlantic. Whether you’re looking for a turn of the (20th) century 100 year old quaint and slightly rickety hotel, an engaging B&B or a magnificent survivor of the great era of railroad hotels, we’ve found hem– within walking distance of a brewery. We’ll present more previews of the book’s best here rolling up to Pennsylvania before we’re through.

At Pub 27 in Pompeii

Sometimes We Just Stay Home and Drink: #21: Moustache Lawn Beer Cream Ale, Riverhead, Long Island, New York.

Date: June 20 , 2019 —

The Story— This is another prize from our semi-annual beer gathering excursion from Boston to Baltimore. We’re pretty sure we picked this up at Half Time Beverage in Poughkeepsie, NY. and we’re grateful for Half Time and a handful of other really good beer stores– for allowing us to try all sorts of breweries we’d never encounter any other way. Moustache (sic), for example, is located near the eastern end of Long Island; its taproom is open Thursday through Sunday but it’s well out of the way for us and we’re not likely to visit soon.

The Moustache can recalls the Utica Club Cream Ale brand of the late 1960s so evocatively that we’re pretty sure it has to be an homage to one of the great cream ales of its day. While it’s hard to recall very precisely what attracted us to the Utica Club above all others (and especially Genesee), we’re pretty sure it was a mild fruity hop and very clean and mild malt. Not much by today’s standards. This one brings back the memories but with enough balance to hold its own in the current craft beer explosion. Hats off to the Moustache guys for a fine beer in a nearly impossible style to do well.

The Beer– Hops show in the aroma and some in the flavor but only enough metallic biter to balance the tangy pale malt. Nicely reminiscent of upstate New York in the 60s. Also, props for not calling it a kolsch, which hundreds of breweries do with a hard to define gold ale. It’s a lawn beer indeed, and I could sit in a lawn chair and drink this all day long.

Value — Good to very good.

Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Sometimes we just stay home and drink beer — hundreds of them over the course of the year as we hunt for a new favorite. The searching for the beer of the day never stops, so for a while, there will be fewer travel-oriented posts and just some to-the-point descriptions of beers we’ve enjoyed.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests. Not all our notes, though. The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same. (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”) All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter. Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys. At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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