Beer and gemütlichkeit

"Webster's Unabridged Dictionary" does not actually mention beer in its definition of gemütlichkeit, a German word meaning "comfortable friendliness." That seems like an oversight, for there are few places more welcoming than a German restaurant or bar, complete with German beer, friendly waitstaff and customers.

It's not surprising that a survey by the German Brewing Industry Public Relations Association found that 78 percent of the German population considers a pub visit their favorite leisure time activity, and almost 50 percent have a favorite pub and publican. U.S. consumers can be equally enthusiastic about German restaurants and bars -- that is, those beer drinkers who have discovered them. Even though German bars were a sanctuary for beer drinkers before micros, brewpubs and imports began to flourish, they often go unnoticed by newcomers to specialty beers.

The Real Beer Page recently asked its readers which foreign country they were most likely to drink an imported beer from. Most selected the United Kingdom (26 percent), but a solid 23 percent chose Germany. Yet, in a poll the following month, just 4 percent said they most preferred to drink beer in a German beer hall -- one-quarter the number who choose an Irish or British pub.

It's not that they're hard to find -- after all, what would you expect to find in a place called Der Braumeister (Cleveland) or Zum Deutschen Eck (Chicago)? Or that they're limited to one region, although the Midwest remains most blessed. There's the Bavarian Inn in Eureka Springs, Ark., Bier Brunnen in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Kaltenberg Castle Royal Bavarian Brewhouse in Vail, Colo. And it's certainly not because they're not worth discovering. Perhaps it's just ignorance.

Link to the past

There have been periods of the 20th century when it was not particularly good business for a place to promote its German heritage. That's why, with the advent of World War I, a spot in Indianapolis known as The German House changed its name to the Athenaeum. Today, the Athenaeum is home to a delightful German restaurant/beer hall called the Rathskeller. It retains the attributes that made it a marvel when it was built in 1894. Das Deutsche Haus was a clubhouse for several cultural groups. Many organizations used the German-Renaissance revival-style building, including the German-English School Society, the German-American Veteran's Society, the Socialer Turnverein Women's Club, the German Ladies' Aid Society and the Turner Building and Savings Association.

The building still has ballrooms and a theater as well as a gymnasium. There's a beer garden and a bandshell just off the Kellerbar, a separate beer hall with stuffed animal heads. The building has a party hall and a dining room with a Gothic fireplace and stained-glass windows. The stone fireplace is flanked by 4-foot-tall figures of Faust and Mephistopheles and guarded by a bat-shaped gargoyle.

The restaurant serves outstanding German fare, with a more upscale menu in the dining room and casual fare in the Kellerbar. The beer menu features German stalwarts and other continental beers.

The great Jaegerschnitzel debate

So many Midwestern cities claim so many outstanding German restaurants that it is legitimate to debate who has the best rouladen in Minneapolis or the tastiest liver dumpling soup in Chicago. In St. Louis, the hard dining choice when it comes to German fare is generally between Schneithorst's Hofamberg Inn and the Bevo Mill.

Arthur B. Schneithorst, a longtime veteran of St. Louis restaurants, built the Hofamberg Inn in 1956. It has grown considerably since and is now a rambling German chalet that seats nearly 800, including the biergarten deck. The menu includes plenty of steak and seafood, but the real draw is the German dishes -- plus 32 beers on tap. The restaurant is decorated with antiques, woodcarvings, an old cheese press, fireplaces, carved wood breakfronts, leaded glass scenes, paintings, European artwork and steins.

The Bevo Mill offers a history lesson of another sort. It was part of August A. Busch's unsuccessful effort to stave off Prohibition. Busch, the second member of his family to guide Anheuser-Busch, built the mill as a high-class restaurant, serving only beer and wine to diners (there was no bar area). It is a replica of a Dutch mill, and the mill blades still turn in the wind. It shared the name with Bevo, another Busch project, which contained less than one-half percent alcohol.

The main dining room has the feel of a Teutonic hall, with antlers on the walls and plenty of dark wood. Just off it is the Mill Room, which was Busch's private dining room. The ceiling has groined arches which end in stone-carved gnomes, each of them holding a mug. The gnomes were originally exhibited at the Paris Exposition in 1889. On the walls of the Mill Room are two large, tile murals of angelic children frolicking with animals. Of course, Busch's efforts to emphasize that beer was enjoyed in civilized settings as well as wicked saloons didn't stop the implementation of Prohibition.

Part of the tradition

Wisconsin stills lives up to its reputation as a haven for lovers of German-style beers, be they any of several well-brewed micro products or German beers in traditional German surroundings. Madison, for instance, has three brewpubs, but one of the busiest spots remains Essen Haus German Restaurant, where all 14 taps pour German beers and the bottle menu is gigantic.

Essen Haus is located in a building that is part of the historic Germania Hotel, built in 1863. The hotel was a popular stopping spot for German immigrants new to the Madison area. The bar area has one of the original cherry wood backbars from the Fauerbach Brewery. Ceramic mugs belonging to mug club members cover the ceiling, and there's live oompah music much of the time.

Milwaukee is home to two of the most famous German restaurants in the country -- Karl Ratzsch's and Mader's -- but also to plenty of smaller restaurants with excellent German food and solid beer lineups. Kegel's Inn, well to the west, is one of these. It's elegantly woody with drinking scenes portrayed in the stained-glass windows.

If the bartender isn't too busy, he may charm customers with stories of the final days of Prohibition, when the owners weren't sure if the Feds or repeal would arrive first. Early in 1996, he talked while drawing a Franziskaner Hefeweizen for a customer. The year before, Widmer Brothers Brewing of Portland, Ore., had tested its own hefeweizen - an enormously popular product in the Northwest, which pretty much defines the American hefe style, as opposed to the traditional Bavarian style. There were even rumors that Widmer would buy a shuttered Blatz plant (which Miller eventually acquired).

"The salesman told me that this (Widmer) beer was going to take over the market," the bartender said. He shook his head. "I should have bet him," he said. "People here know what a hefe is. They drink Pabst or Miller and they drink hefe."

German-American beers

Brewpubs have primarily featured ales since Bert Grant opened the first modern-day pub in 1982. Sadly, some of them serve beers they call Oktoberfest or bock that are actually ales and taste little like traditional German lagers. Yet, there are also plenty of pub brewers who brew an occasional German-style beer. They may not have a German beer on tap all the time, but when they offer a maerzen or bock, the beers are well worth drinking.

Then there are brewpubs -- perhaps the exceptions that prove the rule, but too many to count on your fingers and toes -- that produce almost entirely German-style beers. You wouldn't mistake any of the dozen Gordon Biersch brewery restaurants for a German beer hall, but the beers are certainly true to style. Brewer Dan Gordon is the first American in more than 40 years to graduate from the five-year Technical University of Munich at Weihenstephan, Germany. Before earning his brewing engineer's degree there in 1987, he interned at Spaten Brewery in Munich and served as a technical translator at Lowenbrau Consulting.

Other brewpubs replicate the German experience, from décor to menu. Flags and artifacts from Bavaria decorate the beer hall at Weeping Radish in Manteo, N.C. The beer garden features a playground, decks, walkways, ponds and fountains. In Moore, Okla., the Royal Bavarian Brauhaus is decked out like a chalet and features Southern German and Bavarian cuisine.

At the Penn Brewery in Pittsburgh you can see the old cooling caves in the neighboring hillside. It has a separate beer hall, beer garden and rathskeller. Penn Brewery also bottles and distributes its popular beers, but they are still best mixed with a beer hall full of fun. Same with Baltimore Brewing in Baltimore, where its DeGroen's beers stack up with almost any American- or German-made lagers.

Let's party

Oktoberfest is a great excuse for a party. Bars that serve no German-style beers celebrate Oktoberfest. Towns stage festivals that may or may not include beer. The best German spots make the party last year-round. Chicago Brauhaus in Chicago features live music six nights a week (it's closed Tuesdays) and weekend afternoons. Blob's Park in Jessup, Md., is a hot spot for polka virtually every weekend of the year. It claims to have hosted the first Oktoberfest in the United States in 1947, but that seems almost irrelevant.

Max Blob emigrated from Vogenberg, Germany, in 1896 with his family and settled on 150 acres of farmland and woods in Jessup. They built the farmhouse that Max lived in all his life and that family members still occupy today. They added a small building containing a bowling alley in 1925, and on Sundays, Max would take a truck to the Baltimore ethnic community and bring back friends for dancing, dining and bowling. In 1933, when Prohibition ended, he opened "Blob's Park" for business.

The dance hall at Blob's Park is decorated with fake knotty pine, flags, beer steins, Hummel figures and pictures of Max. Heinrich and the Rheinlands is the house band, but national touring polka acts frequently appear, too. The regulars flat out know how to dance, but there are lessons for newcomers. The place is open weekends and some Thursdays, serving abundant portions of food at long wood tables and offering German beer on tap.

Any of these places would make an excellent choice for those who want to season their beer with a little gemütlichkeit.

This story orginally appeared in All About Beer Magazine in September 1999.

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