Duff Beer Exists Here

December 6, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Beer, Bier, Courts, Duff Beer, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Law, Satire, The Simpsons Leave a comment

Homer Simpson is a cartoon character, right? And Duff beer is imaginary.

But in Germany you can enjoy Duff beer for real, brewed by two separate companies even, if you want to, because Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (the nation’s highest court of law) said you could.

I don’t make this stuff up, people. This country’s a freakin’ fantasia land amusement park or something. For cryin’ out loud.

“In dieser Zeichentrickserie tritt ein Herr Homer Simpson auf, und dieser Herr trinkt”, erläuterte der Vorsitzende Richter Joachim Bornkamm in der mündlichen Verhandlung. Wobei Bornkamm betonte, es sei wohl “ein eher billiges Bier”.

Oompah, Oompah, $12.30, Please

September 23, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Heconomy, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Beer, Berlin, Drinking, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Munich, Oktoberfest, Partying, Rituals, Satire, Tradition 2 Comments

€9.50 ($12.30) for an Oktoberfest beer? And that in September?

Damn that must be good brew.

Before long, even the most hard-bitten cynics can’t help but climb up on a bench (dancing on tables is frowned upon) and belt out the lyrics of newly learned folk song.

Happy Christi Himmelfahrtskommandotag!

May 17, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Health, Helplessness, High Art, Higher Education, Home Cooking, Humor Tags: Alcohol, Ascension, Beer, Berlin, Bollerwagen, Christi Himmelfahrt, Drunkenness, German, Germans, Germany, Holidays, Humor, Satire, Tradition, Vatertag 2 Comments

Vatertag is also Ascension here (or the other way around), and a real holiday. And a real boon to the German liquor industry, too.

And there really is some connection between the two holidays here somewhere, I think. Jesus is known to have drunk wine and wander around the countryside with his buddies, for instance. Although without the Bollerwagen (handcarts), of course. Nor did they ever drink and drive, as far as I know.

Not so here in Germany, however. Bild tells us that there will be three times as many alcohol-related accidents today as usual. And I believe it, too. Just ask these guys down here.

Herrentag ist Unfalltag!

PS: Christi Himmelfahrt is the Ascension. A Himmelfahrtskommando is a kamikaze operation.

Poor But Sexy But Drunk

April 9, 2012 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Higher Education, Home Cooking Tags: Alcohol, Bars, Beer, Berlin, Business, Clubs, Drinks, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Kneipen, Pubs, Satire Leave a comment

Traditional Kneipen (neighborhood pubs) are dropping like Fliegen (flies) these days in Germany.

The latest statistics indicate that their number has dropped nationwide from 48,000 to 36,000 since 2001.

But thank goodness Berlin and Berliners are standing up to buck the trend. While the number of Kneipen in other cities like Hamburg has dropped 48.1 percent during this period, the number of new Kneipen in Berlin rose 95.8 percent. Damn. You can’t set the bar much higher than that.

“Mit dem Wirtshaus verschwindet eine Einrichtung mit hohem sozialen und kulturellen Stellenwert aus den Gemeinden.”

58 Beer Mug Brawls

October 4, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes Tags: Beer, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Munich, Oktoberfest, Satire 6 Comments

Now that’s what I call another gelungene (successful) and jolly old Oktoberfest.

And this year’s lost and found items were pretty interesting, too: Along with the 500 wallets, 400 cell phones, the crutches and the wheelchairs (that beer really can work wonders) and the 1300 pieces of clothing (they won’t say what kind), some false teeth, a Wiking helmet, a megaphone and a Blattheuschrecke (grasshopper) also got handed in. One year somebody even showed up with a glass eye.

Zum Wohl!

Nix Beer Bikes Mehr?

September 8, 2011 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes Tags: Beer, Berlin, Bikes, Biking, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Satire 3 Comments

Munich and Düsseldorf have clearly overstepped their legal boundries by placing a ban on beer bikes on the grounds that they are obnoxious, which they are, and is the point, but still.

According to Article 1 of the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic drafted by the United Nations, a bike or cycle is “any vehicle which has at least two wheels and is propelled solely by the muscular energy of the persons on that vehicle, in particular by means of pedals or handcranks.” And there’s not a word in there about beer, is there? So what’s the deal?

“The world is calling for the abolition of these pedalling village idiots.”

Der Stein des Anstoßes

September 27, 2010 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Home Cooking Tags: Beer, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Oktoberfest, Satire 3 Comments

The stone (as in bone) of contention here actually is a stein this time. You know, those one-liter beer steins they use down there at the Oktoberfest? And the party must really be hopping this year. Attacks with beer steins are way up.

There have been 32 injuries so far, but it looks like the party just got started.

And it’s like sooo international. A Frenchman threw his stein into a group of Italians. The Italians then took their steins and charged the French and one of them ended up in the hospital with a fractured skull. In an unrelated incident, another Frenchmen took out an Austrian. A Serb tossed his beer stein behind him and conked his neighbor in the head. A Canadian got slammed in the head with a stein and the stein actually broke (the Canadian survived). And I guess they don’t even bother to report about all the German stein attack incidents.

Damn. This gives “getting mugged” a whole new meaning.

The large turnout at this year’s festival, brought on by warm weather and the commemoration of its 200th anniversary, could be responsible for the increase in beer stein attacks (of course the large turnout of beer might be responsible too).

Jubiläumswiesnbier?

September 15, 2010 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, History, Home Cooking Tags: Beer, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, Oktoberfest, Satire Leave a comment

Go ahead. Say that ten times really fast.

My oh my, it seems just like yesterday that the Oktoberfest began. 200 years ago, I mean.

And to honor this hallowed event, and to be able to charge even more than usual for the stuff, six rival Bavarian breweries are calling a beer truce to brew a speciel brew in beer-heavenly peace and love and justice together forever amen; that there Jubiläumswiesnbier thing mentioned up there.

The top-secret recipe being used will produce an “amber-colored special beer full-bodied in taste with a flowery malt aroma” and a beer, with an alcohol content of 6 percent, that’ll also knock your Ding in the dirt. But it’s all in the name of tradition, people, OK? Like, it took 200 years to get here, you know?

Even though the Oktoberfest tradition is 200 years old this year, the festival is only being held for the 177th time because it was cancelled on 24 occasions in times of war and during two cholera outbreaks in the 19th century.

“I underestimated how good German beer is”

April 20, 2010 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Home Cooking Tags: 4G, Beer, Berlin, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, iPhone, Satire 1 Comment

4G? Oh, gee. What do you mean it’s gone?

Who is Gray Powell – other than that Apple iPhone engineer dude who got a little too happy on German beer at a place called Gourmet Haus Staudt in Redwood City, California of all places and left his 4G prototype iPhone on a bar stool to get picked up later by somebody else who recognized its value and sold it for $5,000 to a gadget web site in New York that’s now making a big noise about it, understandably – and why won’t we leave him alone?

The website claims it bought the phone from a man Gizmodo reportedly paid $5,000 (£3,254) for access to the device. who discovered it on March 19 “lost in a bar in Redwood City” near Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Where have all the beer drinkers gone?

August 2, 2009 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes Tags: Beer Leave a comment

Wo sind sie geblieben? Old people. They just don’t drink beer like they used to, the Germans.

Sales are down 4.5 percent, apparently because most classic beer drinkers are between the ages of 18 and 45. And being that the population in Germany is aging and all that, well, beer consumption here is going down the drain, so-to-speak. Wie war Deutschland or something.

“Was ist los mit der Bier-Nation Deutschland?”

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Beer