The (Beer) Garden of Earthly Delights!

What do I miss living up here in the North? Beer gardens, real Bavarian beer gardens! Having lived in Munich for several years, cycling to a beer garden at 11am and sipping the cold brew in the shade of traditional chestnut trees was not decadent but a part of daily life. Many beer gardens allow you to take your own picnic as long as you buy their beer and so often after work, people pack their bread, cheese and sausage and head off for an afterwork beer garden visit instead of eating at home. 

Here is a traditional Bavarian ''Brotzeit'' platter, (translates as bread time!) comprising of various types of German sausage, hams, cheeses, radishes and a large pickled gherkin. Germany has hundreds if not thousands of local sausage specialities and I'm always amused by the fact that most Germans turn their noses up at Scottish haggis but eat all sorts of parts of pigs stuffed into natural ''intestines'' or into pigs stomachs, they also eat offal (hearts, brains, kidneys, tripe, liver and lungs), pretty much a vegetarian/vegan nightmare! Of course beer gardens offer cheese platters for those who are not into sausage (like me) and for vegans you can also try sliced ''radi'' which is sliced white radish. 

This is Ziebeleskäs, a Franconian speciality, a kind of mixture between cottage cheese and cream cheese, eaten with lots of onions, salt and pepper and of course fabulous fresh, crusty sourdough bread. All of the foods offered in beer gardens are salty or very savoury because you drink a lot more beer then. 

In summer the beer gardens are usually packed on sunny days, so don’t expect to sit alone at a table (this year with corona everything is different!) people will plonk themselves down, chat, toast you with a cheery ''prost''.

If you are visiting and pop into a beer garden don’t forget Germans learn English at school from around Primary 3, so don’t make the mistake of talking about them in English and thinking they don’t understand ...... they do!