Berlin, Germany
Kyrsten and I made our 8 hour long bus ride out to Berlin from Munich. We both slept for a good 5-6 hours out of the 8 hour trip from Munich on the Flixbus. We had to be at the Munich bus station, 3 miles away from our Air BnB, at 8:15am. We got there right at 8:05am after having just missed our first metro earlier that morning. This was her first bus ride in an international country and my first in a double-decker Flixbus.
We arrive in the Berlin bus station, a good 4-6 miles away from our hostel. We hop on the U2 Metro and it takes about 20 exits to get to ours.
We arrive at our hostel (St. Christopher's Hostel) around 6pm. We were unsure at first that it was our hostel because it was attached to a sports bar called Beluchi's. We find the reception desk and then go upstairs to our beds. It was definitely one of the nicer rooms I've stayed in.
We were starving so after cleaning all the travel stench off us, we headed downstairs to the bar/restaurant and ordered a burger and some beers. It was seriously one of the best burgers we both have ever had!!!
We ended up getting about 3 more beers each and then I switched over to jack and coke before meeting two German guys that we became friends with.
They showed us a beer hall, that was an extension of the original Haufbrauhaus out in Munich that we had visited earlier. We each ordered a liter of beer as the DJ played good music and people were dancing up on the tables and up on stage. At about 1:30am, we eventually went our separate ways to live another day.
The next morning I felt really hungover due to drinking some hard alcohol, I usually only drink beer nowadays. Kyrsten doesn't like to wake up before 11am usually and I'm usually up around 8-8:30am, but I give her the benefit of the doubt due to jet lag.
I busted out my laptop and started working on my Munich post before I forgot what I had done in there. I finished my post, edited my pictures, and marketed my post all before she was even up.
Eventually, I woke her ass up so she could get ready so we could go walk around and see the city. We ended up going out to the Alexanderplatz area. We saw a few awesome museums and historical buildings along the river, along with a whole bunch of nice shop before walking even more into the heart of Alexanderplatz where they had a little fair type area with a couple bier halls and many pop up stands selling food and merchandise.
We then stopped at one of the bier halls to have a nice crisp pilsner. It was cold so we were both sort of in a rush to get home after having had walked around for the last 3 hours. We get home around 5pm to eat ANOTHER burger from Beluchi's because we liked it so much the first night. We also got 25% off the food there because we were staying at that hostel. We grabbed some beers/jager before grabbing that burger to put us in the right mindset. After the food we went upstairs to shower and get ready to grab a craft beer from a place right around the corner we saw on the way in.
We get there and the place was half full, and they had beers ranging from 8-10 Euro per pint... The beers we had were NOT that good and wasn't worth it at all. I wasn't a happy camper so we left after that beer to go back to the hostel and pass out.
The next morning I woke up at 8:30am and tried to go downstairs to book a couple more nights at the hostel but apparently the hostel was completely booked up, on a Monday night.... I had to find a new hostel, which I did, and had to pack up all our stuff and be out of the hostel by 11am.
We went to the restaurant and ordered some breakfast, a couple Irish coffees and a beer while waiting to go check into our new hostel. We take a metro across town to our new hostel and they let us check in an hour early at 2pm. It was called Three Little Pigs hostel and was also pretty cool. It was attached to a church. We had an 8 person room but it was huge, lots of free space compared to your normal hostel.
That first night we grabbed a couple beers after having to do laundry for 3-4 hours, some yoga and meditation, and made a phone call to my beloved grandma. We went to BRLO Brew company which was recommended to us by a homebrewing friend of mine from Cologne, Germany. We ordered a pint of their West Coast Pale Ale and their NEIPA.
After Kyrsten woke up and got ready, we headed out to go sight see some more. I sadly forgot my camera this day when we went to go see the main tourist attractions in Berlin Including the arch, parliament, the soviet war memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin wall, the Jewish Memorial, the US embassy, and a super nice university.
We ended up walking nearly 7 miles that day just sight seeing. It was pretty amazing getting to see all of that history in the matter of a few hours.
My favorite thing to see was probably the Soviet War Memorial because they had a couple tanks and artillery there.
We get back to our hostel that afternoon after grabbing some Italian food where I got some of the best spaghetti carbonara I've ever had. Kyrsten takes a nap and I work on my computer for a little while longer.
I was set to meet up with an editor and writer for Zymurgy Magazine, the number one homebrewing magazine in the world, at a German inspired craft beer bar on the outskirts of town.
We get there at 5:45 after having got on the wrong metro at first and having to correct course. We meet him and his wife at this place and instantly hit it off, talking about homebrewing and life. We share a few beers together and make a good connection where he said he'd be willing to help me out or hook me up with publishers if I wanted to write something for homebrewing. A great friend to have made, especially in a different country!
After that we hop on a bus to finally go visit Stone Brewing, Berlin. It was located in the outskirts of town, in one of the more run-down, sketchy areas of Berlin.
We had to walk on a path that was gated on both sides, almost walking through brush. On one side of the fence was an un-used train station. We felt like we were going to get jumped out there. After walking for about 10 minutes we finally see the stone entrance and walk in, safe at last. Their brewery was HUGE, and the taproom was way too big as well. They were only at about 10-15% capacity it looked like. We ordered some soup and bread, along with some sausages and a couple beers. The beers were good, but definitely a little overpriced...
I still choose BRLO as my favorite brewery I visited in Berlin.
We had to take an even sketchier, 20 minute walk to the next metro station where it was so confusing. We missed our metro twice and by then it was almost midnight. We were both extremely tipsy and coming down so we were just exhausted.
We finally make our way to our hostel and pass out pretty much right away.
The next morning Kyrsten didn't wake up until roughly 11:30 and I was up at like 7:30am. After working on my laptop for 2 hours, I was getting hungry so I went downstairs to pay for the 6 euro all you can eat breakfast where I had some scrambled eggs, cereal, warm bread rolls, yogurt, and salami and cheese, along with about 3 cups of coffee. I was the most stoked for the free ketchup though! They charge you for EVERYTHING out in Europe, especially the ketchup! So for it to be free, I was happy and used as much as I could on my eggs.
Kyrsten grabbed a pastry on the walk to Mikkeller Berlin where we arrived around 1:30pm.
We ordered two beers each, and was really saddened by the quality of their beer compared to what I knew back from San Francisco Mikkeller. I had an 2 IPA's and a wasn't really impressed by either of them... Oh well. We left there to go right down the street to Brew Dog, the first one I've been to on my whole Euro Trip. I was way more impressed with Brew Dog then I was with Mikkeller.
We met their tap room manager who I was told to meet from a friend in the Homebrew Network over Facebook. We had one beer each and split a pizza. It was fairish priced.
After catching a little buzz we wanted a little more so went around the corner to a place called "Taproom" and had a craft beer. It was dead in there so we ordered one mediocre "craft beer" pounded it and headed down the street to one more hostel/restaurant that apparently brewed their own beer.
We were the second people in there as it had just recently opened for the night. I look at their brew system and it looked like the most professional 1/2bbl brew system ever, because there are not many at all! I started asking the bartender questions and I could instantly tell he knew nothing about the beers. They only had one beer on tap and it was a dark lager, which I had two of before leaving. I was sorta drunk by this point so we grabbed a small bite to eat and 2 more to-go beers for the little metro ride home.
We get back, Kyrsten snags some spaghetti carbonara from the Italian joint down the street from our hostel and I go back to the room to drink her pale ale she had been lugging around for a few days and pass out hard. I apprently snored like my dad that night... extremely loud... oops!
We had to check out the next morning at 7am to make our way to the bus station via the metro to hop on a bus to Wurzburg at 8:15am.
Berlin was QUITE the city. They are known for their crazy night life and I didn't get to quite go out and rage my face off all night but I sure had a great time drinking craft beer, eating good food, and seeing some of the most historical sights I've ever seen.
The vibes were very liberal, independent, and hippy in Berlin and I loved it! I would recommend anyone to go see this gorgeous city and all of its glory!
Thanks for the read and stay tuned for my next post which will be about Wurzburg, Germany!
Cheers,
Ty Stevenson