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Varieties of beer

Here are a few varieties of beer among the wide range of beers that we supped over the past few beer travels
Alt: Alt beers are top fermented, dark beers from Germany. It is a malt, smooth beer with a tangy character. Alt beer is copper or amber to dark brown in color. One of Dereks' favourites -last drunk in Cologone I think.
Blanche: a Belgian wheat beer, often enriched with flavoring. It is unfiltered and is characterized by its cloudy consistency and its light, acidic taste. Another of Derek's favourites - drunk when he is particularly thirsty.
Gueuze: a Belgian Beer that is produced by mixing old and new lambic beers and is filled in Champagne bottles. I've yet to try this, but I bet it's one of Derek's favourites.
Lambic: a Belgian beer made of barley, wheat and perennial hops by quick fermentation.
Kriek: a lambic-wier in which cherries are allowed to steep for several months. The success of this fruit beer has resulted in a series of further varieties, for example, strawberry, currant and even mirabelle and banana beers. Was one of Charlies favourites - God Rest Him
Pils: this beer is named after the Czech city of Pilsen where the first pale beer was brewed with bottom fermentation.Czech pils possesses a complex but balanced malt character, a fruity hop aroma and an astringent aftertaste. Found all over Europe and a particular favourite of Mike and leedsscum
Rauchbier: smoked beer is a Bamberg specialty in which green malt is kiln-dried with beechwood fire. This gives the malt, and with that the beer, its typical smoky taste. It is dark amber to brown in color. Norm loves this.
Stout: a British beer, almost black in color, top fermented brewed with strongly roasted malt. The Irish style is very tangy and thick but not too strong, while the flavor of the English stout is sweeter and more well rounded.
Weiße/ Weizenbier: white or wheat beer is a German top fermented beer brewed with wheat and barley malt. It is golden and somewhat darker than the Belgium Blanche. Wheat beer comes yeast-free (Kristallweizen) or yeast-clouded. German wheat beer is very carbonated, moderate to light and very refreshing, which has made it a popular summer beverage. The northern version, the "Berliner Weisse" is in contrast considerably more acidic and is therefore sweetened with woodruff or raspberry syrup to compensate for the sharpness. Unsurprisingly Derek names this amongst his favourites.
Bockbier: bock beers are strong but 'rounded' in taste and are exclusively a top fermented, malt-based brew. They are gold to dark brown and malt-sweet with a defined body.
Kölsch: Kölsch is a light blond, top fermented beer. It is moderately carbonated, accented with hops but hardly bitter.
Schwarzbier: black beer is bottom fermented. It is an extremely dark, almost black beer. This beer is full-bodied, has a malt aroma and a characteristic bitter chocolate flavor. One for me, Norm and JP
Steinbier: stone beer is a German specialty brewed by a method from the dim and distant past. Very hot stones are added to the mash to bring it to a boil. Caramelized sugar forms on the stones. The stones are then returned to the new beer during the aging process to initiate a second fermentation. The beer has a smoky but sweet flavor and is golden brown. We sampled quite a quantity of this in Saltzburg a few month ago.

Haus Der 100 Biere -The House of a 100 Beers - Berlin

A group of us visited Berlin in October 2007. We stayed in Charlottenberg and one the first night we found this place just round the corner at Mommsenstrasse 45. It's right in the middle of a load of restaurants and near to an Irish bar.

The name of the bar says it all and we were never dissapointed. It's true there are 100 beers although only about 15 or 16 of these are on draught. Some of those we tried were JP's favourite, Andechs Doppelbock dunkel, Duckstein, Klostriker Schwartzbier, numerous different Pilsners, a Kolsch, Weihenstephen Hefewiessbier which was fantastic and some beers from smaller breweries whose names escape me at the moment. Theye seemed to have a weekly? beer that was selling cheaper than the others but as we spent a few nights in there I can't really remember which one was the special. The bottels beer was not just from Germany. Thre were dozens from all over the world but why the hell would anybody want to drink something from the UK or USA when the German beer was so good
The staff are young girls with a good knowledge of English and some knowledge of the different draught ales. One poor bloke spent all night pouring the beers while the girls served the beer and smoked tabs.
The food is good and filling - a lot better than the bog standard sausage and pork knuckle that we seem to have been fed all over Eastern Europe. Derek had the most enormous cheese platter I'd ever seen. Needless to say, he couldn't finish it so we all piled in.
The decor is similar to a lot of bars in Bavaria , dark wood and huge, heavy tables. There was also room for a few hundred drinkers outside, although as it was the end of October, we didn't bother sitting there.

Prices? The normal price was 4 euro for 0.5 litre or 3.25 for 400ml. I'd tried some of these beers before but this was the first time I'd tried Konig Pilsner, Kostritzer Schwarzbier, Flensberger

and Jever. My overall favourite though was probably the Kostritzer because I never saw it anywhere else and it was different.