Beer houses
Movies be damned, it seems I’m here mostly to do culinary tourism (which is a very fancy way of saying Ricardo’s eating himself into either the poorhouse or an early grave), I’ve had the Brauhaus Lemke recommended on the Rough Guide To Berlin. The Guide seems to know only of the one in Charlottenburgh, which is way on the other side of town, but fortunately I decided to Scroogle before going – they have not only a website but a spanking new location in Hackescher Markt, not only closer to where I am but in an area I wanted to check out.
Mind the location of the photos, by the way, it’s not exactly within Hackescher Markt but a bit to the site.
The online menu looks very appealing, but when I got there they had a buffet lunch for 6.8 euros – very good goulash, vegetable soup, cheeses, paella (which was more arroz con mariscos than anything else), and some mushrooms in cream, as well as desserts. The start of the day were the beers:
I had the house beer (above) and a wheat beer. The latter was good but not impressive, and very close to an Oettinger (OK, so it was good beer, and I’m fucking spoiled); but the house beer really impressed me.
Good strong flavor without being overpowering – kind of like a middle ground between an Oettinger and a Guinness. Can’t wait to go back.
But since en la variedad está el gusto, I stopped by Lindenbräu at the Sony Center today after picking up my Berlinale tickets for the next few days. It’s a pretty good place, with an excellent goulash and a wheat house beer that is a bit better than Lemke’s wheat beer, even if it lags significatly behind Lemke’s own house brew. Also, while very nicely furnished, it had more of a mall feel, but I guess that’s to be expected of the area.
I guess I should start finding things other than drinking and eating to keep me entertained. Fortunately I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want to do tomorrow night.
