Drinking beer - the German way

I never gave much importance to beer in my life. I am a Vodka person. But keeping in line with my new philosophy of trying local food and drinks, I visited a beer bar during my visit to Hamburg, Germany.

This was an old fashioned bar with bookshelves and a cigarette vending machine. It was almost as if time had stood still. The music was from the 1970s and 1980s - music I had never heard during my stay in the US.

Now, pouring beer is an art. A good German beer from the oak casks powered by carbon-di-oxide takes about 7 minutes to pour into a glass. This is how it is done. First the bartender pours the beer, waits for a couple of minutes for the lager to settle down, pours it again, waits, and so on till we have a glass of strong German brew ready to be drunk.

When barmaid at the bar was taking long to pour me a beer, I was confused that perhaps she did not understand what I had asked for. Me and my British colleague gave each other nervous glances for the entire duration of the German ritual of pouring beer. Little did we know that the barmaid was trying her best to give us a good brew to savour.

So what does German beer taste like? It is nothing like the beer we get in India or the US. It tastes much more smoother and rich in flavor, at the same time the "stink" that one normally associates with beer is totally absent. I think there is no beer like German beer and drinking beer the German way is the only way to do it.