If you go to Frankfurt, Germany go to a&nbspub called Kyalami its in the Sachsenhousen area ( main bar area ) they have a wide range of beers and also a spirit called Rhino Piss which is extreamely strong. 5 euro a shot plus you get a badge with it.
 
the bar is warm and welcoming with an afircan style decor.


[image]local://79794/BEBFCD8E9B7F424BB3360F690EB6707D.jpg[/image]

Depends on where you are going.  Try going to a monastary that makes their own beer.

Monastaries making their own beer??
 
where abouts do they do that?

Most beer making monasteries are located in belgium….try a web search, or else contact a Belgian tourist office in your home country.  Many offer tours, as well as the all important tasting!!!
 
Enjoy
 
P.S.  Also try tours of beer factories – sometimes they are free.  Went to Carlsberg/Tuborg in Copenhagen (free), and Guinness in Dublin.

http://belgianstyle….

http://www.ricksteve…

Maybe you’ll find something here.
http://www.budweiser…

Czech beer is world famous, and its proven that they drink more beer per capita than anywhere else in the world.  I think they have something like 150 breweries in a relatively small country.  I can’t remember how many I’ve tried, but I know I’ve yet to find one I don’t like.  Poland also has some good brews, and I hear the same about the Baltics.  Bavaria is of course well known for its brewing.  So is Belgium, as forementioned.  I’ve never really liked guiness, but having guiness in Dublin is absolutely blissful. 

Hofbrau haus in Munich!
IT was great, i loved it! and im from a city know for beer.  Seirra Nevada is made here (a good American Beer) And i must say the HB was the best i have ever had!

ahh thanks guys im totally stoked for this trip now. sounds like europe has wayyy better beer than the states. especially germany haha

Carlsberg and Tuborg are really nice, especially Tuborg Classic. There’s a trend in DK (and elsewhere?) toward microbrews. Of course when the big national brands (Tuborg and Carlsberg) are the competition, the micro-brews will have to be really good. Nørrebro Brygghus, in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, has some very nice brews. www.ratebeer.com/brewers/nørrebro-bryghus/3992/ … and of course if you’re making a beer trip to Copenhagen, you MUST do the Carlsberg Tour. It costs 40 DKK and includes 2 vouchers for sampling. www.visitcarlsberg.c…

Belgium is my favourite place for beer however the Belgian styles are not for everyone. A person who drinks Heineken, Molson, or Bud could possibly have trouble swallowing a Trappist or Abbey ale from Belgium. The Kulminator bar in Antwerp is considered one of the best bars in the world for beer lovers.
 
England is the place to go for real ale. Google ‘real ale’ or ‘cask conditioned ale’. Try the Whitehorse and Jerusalem Tavern.
 
As Don mentioned Denmark is getting into microbrews. It’s one of the few places in Europe where you can find decent American microbrews. I believe Garrett Oliver of the brilliant Brooklyn Brewery has made a few trips there of late to promote microbrewing. (Certainly beats Carlsberg and Tuborg).
 
Although beer geeks like myself rank Heineken down there with other  corporate lagers – Bud, Labatt’s, etc. – I recommend a trip to the old Heineken brewery in Amsterdam. Though they don’t brew there anymore the “Heineken Experience” as they call it is good fun and widely recognised as an innovative way of visiting an old brewery. It’s located at Stadhouderskade 78 about a twenty minute walk south of Dam Square. It’s basically a Heineken museum with a few wierd aspects to it (that quirky Dutch sense of humour!). There’s also a souvenir shop and a couple of half pints of Heineken are included in the price of a visit. Closed on Monday if I recall correctly.

In the immortal words of on Homer Simpson….
 
 “Hmmmmmmm, beeeeeeeerrrrr!!! “

The French have their vine, we Germans have our Beer!
And we dont drink beer, we drink:
Weizen, Pils, Kölsch, Alt, Export, Pilsener…..

Every type of beer has to be served in a special glas!
Every part of Germany has his spezial Beer!
All of them taste great, only Berlin’s beer sux!

Drink whatervery you want but: 
DONT MIX IT WITH COKE, JUICE OR OTHER BULLSHIT!!!
Only girls do that!!! 
Men drink it pure! 

And please, DRINK it!
Do not only make your lips wet.
Bring the glas to your lips and let it roll….

How to order beer:

In Cologne:
-“Bitte Kölsch!” (“bring me a Kölsch please”)
Spell Kölsch like Kolsch, the “sch” like the “sh” in “bush”, the “Ö” like an “u” in “to burn”.
You will get a very small glas with a very light beer.
Usually a guy walks arround in the bar an refills you empty glas without asking you. If you drink less than five glases you are a girl.

In Munich:
-“Eine Maß bitte” (“please bring me a Maß”)
A “Maß” is a liter of beer in a glas looking like a pitcher.

In Stuttgart:
– “Bitte ein Weizen” (“bring me a Weizen please”)
You will get a halfe liter of a Beer, that is not to bitter.
Important: If you hit your glases togehter (sorry, dont know the english word) do this with THE BOTTOM of the glases! Only tourists use the top…

In North-Germany:
“Bitte ein Pils” (“Bing me a Pils please”)
Pils is normaly served in a half-round glas.
Best drinking-temperature is 7°C.


In Berlin:
“Egal was, nur keine Berliner Weiße!”
(Bring me wat you want, but NO Berlin-White-Beer!)
Berliner Weiße is a VERY light beer, flavoured with citrons, usually mixed with syrup. Tastes like limonade. Made for girls.
Would you serve such a beer a guy from south-Germany, you would be hang up at the next tree…
 
Hope i could help you, sorry for my bad English…

perfect man! i couldnt have asked for more. its great to hear what a local’s taste is.

hah, just be sure you don’t ask for enie Mab in Munich.  ß = ss   pronounced “mah-sss”

what are the best white beers in europe? also, is it acceptable to take yours w/ a slice of lemon, or is that an american thing?

Only if you’re a lady.

American beer is like having sex on a canoe. Fucking close to water

This is too generalized, and too “wide-open” a question…  There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of good biers in the world these days.  For the experienced bier drinker, it seems that Belgium, Germany (particularly Bavarian region), Czech Republik, Ireland, England, and perhaps Holland continue to get the highest marks – year in & out.  However, other countries, such as:  Canada, Scotland, and even Japan have been brewing great biers for centuries.  Also, the U.S. is making a HUGE comeback, and has done very well when put-up vs. the International brewers.  Yes, it is true, our mass-produced biers like Miller, Bud, & Coors – are watered-down crap!  However, you have to look deeper, much deeper, into the cities and small towns where the so-called “micro-brews” have made it back big time!
 
 

So….in other words American beer is like German war strategy to you?

Drink whatervery you want but: 
DONT MIX IT WITH COKE, JUICE OR OTHER BULLSHIT!!!
Only girls do that!!! 
Men drink it pure! 

Ahhhh….The Joyz of the gender challenged Beer enthusiast.
 
In the Pfalz, a person may drink a Krefelder w/o being subject to having their manhood (or girlie-hood) impuned. Thats a draft of your favorite Alt with a couple of shots of coke in a small or large straight glass. Hmmmm….
 
In Bayern (especially at a fest), a Geissen Maas is the order for the enthusiast who is in a hurry to achieve a state of altered consciousness. Thats a liter of your favorite Doppelbock (really about 2/3), topped off with coke and about 4 shots of Asbach. Again, I don’t recall anybody ever having even implied that I was less than a man-then again, I don’t recall much of anything so it’s certainly a possibility, however remote.

If a beer can’t be drunk straight, what’s the point?

The best beers in my opinion are brewed in Belgium, if you want to know more, just send me a message, I can go on and on about Belgian beers.
 
Other great beers are the ones I make with a friend (A)
 
But you will probably end up drinking lager, the best beers to drink in any place (except southern Europe including France, they just don’t know how to make beer, but they’re experts in wine) are the local ones.

wow my bad i thought threads died after a year of stagnation….

anyways, when i first asked the very generalized question of this thread, i was referring to germany, austria, etc., but now i am going to italy for a few weeks and down to sicily.

so lets revise the question.

What should I know about Italian wine? Different than the imported stuff here in the states?

I have been drinking some great beers of late, many of them from the United States (Portland & Newport, OR) areas…

Best (or worst) Low-Budget “College” Mass-Quantity beers of all time?
 
1.  Milwaukee’s Best Light
2.  Natural Light
3.  Schlitz
4.  Hamm’s
5.  Weidemann’s
6.  Old Milwaukee
7.  Blatz
8.  Mickey’s
9.  Pabst Blue Ribbon
10. Red, White & Boue
11. Carling Black Label
12. Stroh’s 
 

I’d rather spend the money on some Weinhards in my opinion. Other than that, good list my friend.

Before Christmas I completed drinking a list of 50 beers at my local in Australia…nearly all of them imported.  I learnt that definitely the best beers come from Belgium! Chimay & Leffe were my favs, German beers like HB and Schofferhofer not far behind.  The Asian beers on the list had a nice tang to them and can easily be differentiated from the European ones.  Some of you are right the American/Canadian ones seemed a little watered down but still fine…the English beers I’m sorry to say were the least great.  Haha I say “least great” because there’s no such thing as a bad beer! They’re just meant to be drank warm and in the climate I live in “Down Under” we need them cold as ice So Tetley’s for example didn’t translate well.  When I head to Europe and go nuts on beer I’ll be heading to Belgium first, including Leuven which apparently has the longest bar in the world…Bavaria, and then off to Czech Rep. where it’s still awesome and extra cheap

Chimay is a big seller, very popular here in the U.S.  It’s expensive, but worth it.

I’m planning a 3-4 month backpacking trip across Europe this summer, and of course am also interested in getting the most out of my brews.
 
I’ve already heard all the good info here…Belgium and Bavaria, avoid Berlin white…but what can anyone tell me about dark beers?  I know I’ll be looking for stouts and porters and black lagers (SO much more flavor, much richer)…but what are those called/referred to in some of these countries?  I know most pubs and restaurants just have the “house” beer, whatever that might be, but if I’ve got variety on my hands (Intl. Beer Festival is early August after all) I’d like to be knowledgeable. 
 
Thanks!

There are several good Porters & Stouts in:  Poland(Zwiek), Lithuania(Alderis & Utinos), the U.K. & I love Hacker-Pschorr Dunkel Weisse in Munchen area…

Excellent, thanks!
 
Question: should I search out good beer in Spain/France/Italy, or would I be better off sticking to wine (as in the beer there isn’t good anywhere…) haha.  Just trying to get some ideas.

Peroni and one or two others are good in Italy.  I cannot remember the name of the good Spanish beer I had in Barcelona (8 yrs ago)…  As for France, they make excellent red wine, but I have yet ti find any beers to jump up & down about.  Fischer is okay…