On Fridays we have a half day at Doemens. This week was ALL chemistry and microbiology, so we definitely needed to blow off some steam when Dr. Ritter let us go at 12:30. After spending the morning distilling beer samples to determine accurate original gravities, and plating up and examining beer spoilers under microscopes, a bunch of the brewing students hopped on the train and headed to Kloster Andechs.

I actually headed downtown to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to meet up with a couple Milwaukee guys who were on vacation and traveling around Germany for a week and a half. Clark had contacted me through Twitter a few months back. I tweeted that I was gonna be in Munich this summer, and that I'd be happy to play tour guide if anyone else was in Munich or wanted to visit. Clark is the only one who's taken me up on it so far.

After introducing ourselves, Clark, his buddy who's name I forgot cause I'm shitty with names. (let me know what it is and i'll plug it in. sorry.), and I took a commuter train 45 minutes to the end of the S8 line at Herrsching. When we got off the train, a friendly old German woman noticed we looked lost and told us it was a beautiful hour and fifteen minute walk to the brewery. I guess she could see in my eyes how badly I needed a beer. We tried to grab the bus, but it was a 90 minute wait, so I paid for a cab.

Our cab driver, Warner Huber was also super friendly. The only reason I remember HIS name is cause I saw it on his business card, and my brain only remembers things I see. Anyway... He's been to the States six times and told us some stories about his adventures through the South. Warner laughed as he told us he KNEW rednecks, and displayed a pretty devious grin as he shared that, "in San Antonio women either like you all the way or not at all."

We were dropped right at the front door, and headed in and each ordered a liter of the Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel. It's their most famous beer, and at 7% alcohol is one of the strongest beers you can get in Munich. At least it's the strongest that's worth drinking. It rates a solid 99 on RateBeer.com. It was worth the trip. That and the AMAZING view of the lake and farm fields below. Definitely the best place to have a beer that I've been to in Germany.

I also grabbed some food. A huge portion of pork belly, a GIANT pretzel, and a healthy serving of potato salad were only €7,50. I think the liter of beer was €6,40. Then we went and sat with the rest of the Siebel guys that were there. Andechs was pretty busy even at 2pm on a Friday afternoon. 

Long story short... one liter lead to two, which lead to a third liter and a bottle of schnapps. I ended up drunk off my ass trying to hitchhike back to the train station. After only about 10 minutes, some couple picked me up in a Mercedes and offered me a ride. I couldn't really understand a lot of what they said cause they spoke too quickly. I started to get nervous after about 20 minutes into the trip. We should have been to the train station by then, and were headed in a totally different direction. All I could think about was Human Centipede, but I figured If I was going to die as a part of some bizarre sexual experiment, it may as well be in southern Germany. 

After another 15 minutes of driving and some awkward but friendly conversation, we exchanged business cards and they dropped me off at some completely different train station on an altogether different train line. I stumbled to the train platform, and on the ride home I stuffed €10 of vending machine food in my face to soak up the three liters of Doppelbock Dunkel and the Schnapps. I slept twelve hours, and woke up without a hangover. I'm pretty sure that the Reinheitsgebot was developed to keep the German workforce free of hangovers caused by the crap put in cheap, mass-produced American beer.