Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Beer School in Bavaria

The first portion of the class, the diploma course, finished up in Chicago and I have since arrived in Germany for the second portion, the associates degree, at Doemens Academy. I miss Chicago and all the awesome people I met while there who helped make my experience so memorable. I will be returning soon, I am sure of it.

I arrived in Munich on Saturday, a day ahead of all my classmates in order to get my internal clock adjusted to the time zone switch. I anticipated a poor flight over and wanted to get a good night's sleep Saturday night. Sleeping on a plane as a 6'3" male is as annoying as you would imagine, especially when you get stuck with the window seat and have no place to extend your legs. I have recently developed an extreme annoyance with people who trade seats on planes as it has ruined my past two international flights. If you want to discuss this topic, send me an email but be warned, my rant could get rather lengthy.

I am staying at one of Munich's most famous hostels, the Euro Youth Hostel which is right next to the largest train station in town. It is a great location in terms of access to the downtown and for the price and the quality, it is a phenomenal deal. So far, they have been very accommodating and extremely nice which is not always the case at hostels. The room reminds me of a college dorm (I am thinking freshman year).





I am rooming with Mike (pictured above) and Shaun from school.

Sunday the rest of the class arrived and all the guys staying at our hostel decided to go out for some traditional bavarian food and beverage.





You can't get much more Bavarian than wheat beer, pork and sour kraut.





Classes have been going very well at Doemens. It is the real deal in terms of Brewing schools. The school is nestled away in a small town outside of Munich on the S6(S Baun - the Munich rail system) at Grafelfing. The faculty are all top notch and the facilities are amazing. The school has its own brewhouse which we brew in as well as cellar and bottling line. It also has a cafeteria for students which is run by an "all business" lunch lady (pictured below)!





The lunch lady serves students with authentic bavarian/austrian lunch options which, to no surprise, consist mostly of starch and meat. I do notice that most of the Bavarian dishes I have seen do not include greens.





Tomorrow will be my first brew day at Doemens and I will update with how that goes.

Location:Senefelderstraße, Munich, Germany

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