We’d underestimated both the temperature and the distance when we set out to walk the banks of the Ilz from Passau in the summer of 2012 2010. After several hours, we reached our destination, only to find the beer garden closed
We nearly gave up but, consulting our maps, decided to push on.
We got redder in the face, sweatier and wobblier on our legs, until we were almost delirious. Eventually, even the sheltering trees disappeared and we found ourselves on a plain in the midday sun. The only thing that kept us going were worn-looking signs every few hundred metres: “Biergarten.”
What we found at the end of the trail was a village with chickens in the road and no sign of life. The signs directed us to what looked like the back of a residential property where there were two patio tables under the washing line. Sure enough, though, an old lady in a pinny appeared and we gasped our order: “Zwei Pils, bitte!”
Can you imagine how good the beer in the picture above tasted?
You might start to notice a theme emerging here: that the most memorable beers are often not, in themselves, especially distinguished. Time and place and all that…
6 replies on “Memorable Beers #5: Hasselbacher Pils”
summer of 2012? 😉
Oops!
Was similar to walking up the mount in Prague and that first beer at the monastery brewery. “total first pint refreshment”
I had a very similar experience, when walking the 10km back from Tyne Cot Cemetary to Ypres on a roasting Sunday afternoon. I plonked myself down at the first cafe I found and supped a lemon iced tea and a pint of lager. Can’t even remember what it was, but it de-lic-ious.
Likewise in Granada. Baking hot and a first glass of Alhambra hit the spot foolishly making me think I’d enjoy all subsequent glasses of Alhambra equally.
It’s great to be able to remember individual beers, good or bad, it shows you care about what you’re drinking.
I have often said that ol’, fizzy and yellow Dixie Lager, drank exclusively on my honeymoon in New Orleans, was some of the best beer I’ve eve had!
It’s pretty hot in Louisiana in July, too.