Travel and Tourism

We began with a tour of the Spaten brewery, less than a 15 minute walk northwest of our Hotel Jederman. Spaten is one of the over 200 breweries owned by InBev, which had not yet begun its takeover of Budweiser.



Lowenbrau is another InBev brand, and they were represented at Spaten’s brewery museum with a bottle of beer that had survived the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. Yes, Lowenbrau was served on the Hindenburg.

The museum tour was followed by a VIP tour of the brewery, and then a trip up to the taproom of their silo tower where we had beer, pretzels and Leberkase. We got all this because the bar owner who put together this tour is one of the biggest sellers of Spaten in the whole United States. I’d looked forward since I heard about this trip to having Spaten Optimator on tap at the brewery. However, we found that it is only for export, due to something about competing brands. Who would think that something we get all the time back home is not available at the source. But we relished our time up there and enjoyed the fine views, and other brews.

It just so happened that Fruhlingsfest, the Spring Festival, was going on in Munich while we were there. It was held at the Octoberfest gounds, just a few blocks around the corner from our hotel. While Octoberfest has around 10 giant beer tents, Fruhlingsfest has only a few. However, it is just like Octoberfest, only on a small scale, just perfect for a fist-timer.



There was a huge midway with maybe 50 rides and funhouses, and there was a shooting gallery with an American Old West theme. We headed into the first beer tent we came to. It had a fancy beer hall look on the entrance, and inside it was like the giant beer tents shown in Beer Fest.



We found some empty tables and benches by the one side of the tent, and were aghast when a beer maid came over right away to take our order. I should have known that German organization would prevail, even in a beer tent. Sections of 6-8 tables were roped off, and one beermaid would oversee each one. She brought us a menu and even got me something that I didn’t see on it, sauerkraut. We hoisted our liter beer steins, sang “Ein Prosit,” and had a great time. We sat across from a German saxophone player, who had stopped by after work. It was great to be hanging out with a local. Until closing time at 11p, he regaled us with German wit, as well as a bit of beer poetry: “Nur ein Schwein Trinkt allein,” which is “only a pig drinks alone.”
                                                                                               
                                                                                                      Day 8 

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