Berlin International Beer Festival 2013

I'd like to think that I know 'what's going down' in Berlin - at least the main things. However, this one snuck up on us.

Coming home from a day out on Friday we popped out at our local U-Bahn station and saw a seemingly endless line of parked trucks and beer tents being set up.

What's this all about. Back home we checked it out and it was the Berlin International Beer Festival, running for this weekend only. How didn't we know about this? There's been no signs or nothin' in our area, and social media has been quiet. Though - of course when you mention it to people they all of a sudden know all about it. Regardless we had to check it out...it is pretty much on our doorstep after all!

The description on the Internet sounded pretty impressive - a 'Beer Mile' would be set up between Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz. That's 1.6 kilometres of booze'ing. I like to validate these types of claims, so measured it myself on the map...yep its pretty much a mile :) (well specifically it's 1.5 km's but with a bit of overflow I'm sure they made up the extra 100 metres).

For Saturday night we already had plans to catch up with our friend Mackenzie, who after almost a year in Berlin is heading back home to Sydney this week. Sad Face :(

Mackenzie had heard of the Beer Festival already and after a local dinner we went to check it out. Mackenzies brother Joe is visiting at the moment so he came along too.

We started out at Frankfurter Tor and the place was super busy. All located on one side of the street, on its ample Soviet Era flagship boulevard. 

The central walkway was jammed with people and all kinds of stands on either side. Mostly beer, but sausages and other food stuffs. By the roadside were lots of beer garden type set ups, it was so cool. Scattered around the mile were heaps of little stages full of live music - a great atmosphere.

We walked a way along trying to find a place that wasn't charging a 'pfand' - a deposit for the glass, and also had a place to sit. We found a place that was selling its beers in bottles (most places were doing glasses and steins which attract the pfand). We got our four beers from Cologne, 3 euros each, and four of these cost 9 euros...the guy was having a bad math day.

As we sat we got a chance to people watch. Lots of stag and hen's nights and a few rowdy Englishers, but everyone was well behaved.

You could appreciate having trouble keeping up with the punters when you see how busy it was.

We went to another place and got another round of beers. This lady could add up properly.

We finished the time at the Beer Mile with another beer, this time one from a glass which attracted the pfand. As we were still drinking these, at around midnight, the stallholder guy came to tell us that we had to drink up and get out, the 'ordnungsamt' (municipal police) required that everyone comply - and those police guys were starting to gather in force.

We left the Beer Mile and walked to Alexander Platz to finish off the night and say our sad farewell to Mackenzie.

On Sunday we went back to see how it was during the day. Still busy but nowhere near as jammed as the Saturday. In the evening it would no doubt pick up again, but thunderstorms hit in the late afternoon so I'm sure we saw it at it's peak.

On the Saturday night we had seen a stand selling the Dutch treat, Oliebollen, pretty much a very heavy donut the size of a softball. we sought it out, and got ourselves 4 for 5 Euros. The lady put 5 in our bag, not sure why though one of them was a bit smaller than the others.

Once last walk down the mile...

A pause to listen to a rock'n'roll act...

A look back to the start of the mile at Frankfurter Tor (where the two towers are), from about a third of the way up...

A last look at the ample, well spaced toilets lining the mile...essential at a Beer thingy...

 We were so impressed with this event that snuck up on us. So well organised, lots of variety and lots of fun.

Wonder if I will hear about it next year?