Scowl, Nu?

Fasching has come and gone, which signals the start of Starkbierzeit. Last Friday, we were fortunate enough to get seats for the opening night of the Starkbierfestival at Löwenbräukeller.
So, what the hell is Starkbierzeit?

Ok, so way back when, the monks would fast furing lent. That meant liquids were ok, but solids were definitely out of the question. Since the monasteries funded themselves by brewing beer for the masses, they decided to make a stronger (which means higher calorie) brew to help them make it through until Easter. This beer was called a Doppelbock, had an alcohol content of about 7.5% (normal beers ran at 5% or less), and provided enough oomph to keep them all happy (and tipsy). Doppelbock beers, are strong (stark), so this time was called the Starkbierzeit (strong beer time).

Talk about a time to be a monk.

Every year, on the Friday after Fasching, Löwenbräu releases their Triumphator Starkbier at their Starkbierfest, which runs from then until April 4. Every night, the festhalle is filled with revelers, listening to traditional music, watching traditional dance, participating in a 500 pound stone lifting competition, and finally relaxing to the same band, now playing Elvis and ZZ-Top.

Now on to the pictures…

Our crew this year for Starkbierfest.

A picture of the hall

Traditional Allgau dancers, chopping wood and dancing

The stone lifting competition. To the left is the stone – 500 pounds of rock. Each day, there is a winner, and at the end of the festival, the winners compete to determine the festival winner. I was less than a centimeter away from qualifying this year. Next time…

This really was a picture of the band, but Barbara just looked so darned happy..

The beer. Ok, this is actually a Helles, or a lighter version of the beer. I ended up having a full gallon (3.75 liters) of the normal Doppelbock (Dunkles Starkbier – or dark strong beer) over the 5 hours we were there.

More of the “shoe slapping” dancers.

Elvis has arrived.

And this year’s winner, lifting the stone over 56.5 centimeters, then pausing – while keeping the stone up with one hand – to drink some starkbier before setting it back down. The second place winner lifted it 0.5 centimeters. Third place 0.3. The others couldn’t even really get it off the ground. In retrospect, I think I am happy I didn’t qualify.

For the last few days, we were in Finkenberg, Austria to hit the slopes before starting the 2004 work year. The hotel? Amazing. The view? Amazing. The mountain? Amazing. The ski instructor (since we haven’t downhill skied in 15 years or so)? Amazing. Even the place where we rented the equipment was inexpensive (17 Euros for both of us) and while not amazing, they were good, fast and cheap.

We’ll talk more about the trip later – we just wanted to get the pictures up for everyone to see.

New Years Dinner, January 1 2004.

Duck Breast – marinated for 2 hours in a combination of fresh clementine juice, Chinese Black Bean paste, Chiu Chow Hot Pepper Oil, and a touch of soy sauce – simply pan-roasted.

Mashed Potatoes – simply with butter, fresh garlic, horseradish, salt, pepper and a little whole milk.

A salad – with blue stilton cheese, löwenzahn (lion’s teeth), treviso, feldsalat, arugula, pear slices and dressed simply with clementine juice, olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

A perfect meal to start off the new year.

This afternoon, we decided to head downtown to the Christmas market. Every year, over 140 huts are put up in the center of Munich and filled with various handcrafts, candles and ornaments for christmas trees. Even if you are not in the mood for shopping, the Glühwein (warm mulled red wine), lebkuchen (gingerbread), bratwurst’l and every sort of sweet that you can imagine are enough reason to head out of the house to take a look…

A Glühwein hut

The Christkindlbaum

Handcrafts

Pewter decorations

Lebkuchen!

Glass ornaments

The milchbar – home of the best cocoa at the markt

Another shot of the Christkindlbaum with the Rathaus behind…

Janet, bundled up with a Glühwein

Handmade bells and ornaments…

The symbol of this year’s Christmas market

This afternoon, we went to Das Derby – the match between München’s FC Bayern and TSV 1860. These tickets were the last part of my birthday gift from my colleagues, and Stefan and Christiane were there as well to enjoy the match. FC Bayern won the league championships 4 times in the last 6 years (if I can remember my facts) and even though they are in 4th place place right now, they played like they are still number one, beating TSV 1860 1 to 0.

Things are different at a German soccer game in comparison to an American game: the match is much more active, there are more aerial moves and there are less pauses in the game play. More importantly, the crowd of 69000 people actually were focused on the game – not picking fights with others in the crowd. Oh, and the beer: half liters for only 3 Euros.
Afterwards, we decided that instead of braving the crowds at the U-Bahn, we would stop by at one of the kiosks for a glühwein (mulled hot red wine) while everyone cleared out of the subway station. Truly, a great end to a birthday.

The first snow of the season…