Andechs

The organisation I work for is one of these EU type things with tax free salaries and about 50 or so paid holidays a year. As yesterday was a public holiday and tomorrow the weekend, they unilaterally decide it's not worth worth working today so they declare it a "bridging day". Whilst wandering past Viktualienmarkt my peripheral vision started tugging at me, and I turned to see, in a shop window no less, a "bar" with a row of Newkie Browns on it. Huh? Brown Dog in a bar in an upmarket furniture shop?

Turned out that they were flogging something called an "Oxford Bar", and so had decorated it with various British style drinks to give it authenticity. It's price? €18.95. Oh no, that's wrong, I mean €18,995. Decorating a bar worth the best part of 20k with Gazza's tipple of choice perhaps shows a lack of understanding of the British beer scene but I suppose you can't blame them. Luckily as it was 10:30 a real bar was just opening, namely the Viktulianmarkt open air pub.

Luckily Augustiner is not one of the Munich breweries which have had corporate takeovers and subsequent hemorrhaging of flavour. It's your average Munich resident's tipple of choice.
I hope these surgeons are aren't doing any operations today...

A trip to the Andechs Kloster is a fine way to while away a lazy friday afternoon. You can either be sporty and hike up a hill from Ammersee, or be bone idol and get a bus.
It is universal from Japan to Jerusalem that every religious institution up a hill will have endless stalls selling tat and crap lining the road to it.

 But once you're up there you can check out the rolling fields.

Their dopplebock is so malty it's like eating a side of beef.

Bierzwerg may have a much wider choice of online beer than Bierkompass, but they're a lot slower at getting it to you. As my previous stash had run out I had to pay a visit to Galeria to stock up.

Shop at Galeria,

Their stuff is very dear,

But if you like good beer,

Then you will surely cheer

This is the first time I've seen Duckstein, the splendid North German red ale, available in Munich. Bravo Galeria.

Fruity whoppers

Galeria in Munich is getting slightly more adventurous in its selection of non-German beers. The other day I spotted a couple of Samuel Smith beers I didn't know existed - organic fruit beers.

They seem to be some sort of collaboration; on the blurb on the back it says the base beer is brewed at Melbourn Bros', a Stamford brewery, using organic barley and wheat, and then Sam Smiths add the fruit juice and mix it with more beer in Tadcaster.
The bane of most fruit beers is excessive sweetness - far too often they taste like some shitty alcopop. I don't even think the better lambic based ones are worth bothering with.
With these fellas the first thing you notice is the massive whiff of the fruit which bludgeons your nostrils into a pulp. That's followed up by a massive fruit burst all over your tongue, finished off with the maltiness of the beer. Clearly this started off from a decent foundation for the fruit to work on. There's a tiny bit of sweetness but it doesn't at all feel contrived.
At 4 euros a shout I won't be making these regulars, but they would be awesome on a hot summer's day, and certainly raise my expectations of what a good fruit beer can be like. Nice one Galeria, Melbourn Bros and Sam Smiths.