And the sweet aroma of hops and fresh beer hangs thick in the cellar air, and it's embalming and clings to the pores in a cozy embrace. What a place. The beerhall that ll beerhalls strive to be. The godfather. The ancient Olympus, persevering and stumbling through the centuries to hold us in it's belly now and present us a romping good feast.
Three young, doe-eyed German girls eye us as we pass and make room at their table, beckoning. They're a few tables away from the band. It's lovely and we're subdued by their pretty Bavarian faces, but as soon as we sit down one of them asks in a soft, alluring German accent (they already know we're American just by the look of us, I guess), "Hey there... could you buy us some beers?" Eff. "They won't serve us," she says puppy-dogging.
"Why not?" I ask.
"Ha, well, we're not quite old enough..." one of them says with a side-smile.
"Isn't the drinking age eighteen?" Grant's putting the dots together.
"Yeah..."
"Well, how old are you gals?" asks Max.
"Sixteen."
"Sixteen."
"Seventeen."
"Sixteen and a half."
We all look at each other, our eyes in a team meeting that says, "Really? REALLY? Okay, why the fuck not. Oh, and is eighteen also the age of consent?" One can never be sure in a foreign land. Still, sixteen is young, even sixteen and a half and seventeen really, so I breathe a little sigh of relief when the waiter refuses to serve us beers at the girls' table. We bid the girls adieu and snag another one nearby as a family leaves. We're ready for some fucking beers. And bratwurst! And the Hofbrauhaus does not disappoint.
[hungry, I'll be back]
Nothing's so satisfying to a grumbling, travel-starved stomach than good old-fashioned German beerhall food. There's something dubiously American-feeling about a heavy-set plate of buttery potatoes and plump, grilled bratwurst. A plate almost too big to shove down my gullet, but I do, bite by precious savory bite. A liter of hardy Hofbrauhaus draft lends a helping hand. To someone such as I, of whom (especially these days) hunger seemingly always holds in a leering embrace, the taste of prepared food and the splash of beer from the tap, why, those are a pair of life's grandest pleasures. So I eat slow and take the beer at sips so to prolong the feeling for as long as possible.
"You still working on that, kiddo?" Grant asks over a polished plate. Max is finished too.
"Mmm. Hmm. You jealous?" I say mulling thoughtfully over one of a handful of savory bites I have left.
"There's no rush, right? We're sleeping in that train station tonight no matter what."
"Ah fack, that's right. Another liter of beer sounds like the call then. Could you spot me, Grant? Add it to the owe-board."
"Oh, I got this guys. You want another one too, Bri-guy?" Thank goodness for Grant, but I see something cheaper and I don't particularly like to owe people money unless I absolutely have to.
"I'm all right actually," I say. "A couple beers just opened up over there." I point with my nose and eye a group of fairly well-to-do's at the next table over. The good thing about eating in a beerhall is that pretty much everyone orders beer. And here, beer only comes by the side-handled liter. Lucky for me, well-to-do-ers can sometimes be pansies when it comes to drinking beer, and the next table over was no exception. Their meal concluded pleasantly enough and three of the clear mugs still had around a third of a liter left in them. And when they got up and departed, why, I just slithered over and very discreetly emptied the rest of the beer into my goblet before the busser came to clear table. It all fit in with just a little room over the light head (I have a decent beer pour).
"Really, dude?"
"Yup. That just happened," I say with an air of prowess.
"Bro, that's how people get sick."
I feign a moment's pause, "Eh, I think I'll take my chances," I say. "Besides... what doesn't kill me's just going to make me stronger right? And I've got an immune system like the Iron Curtain."
"What? Ok, but-"
But I cut Max off. "AND, well, they looked pretty healthy to me," with a glance at the now clean table next to us. There's a sly grin on my face because it's funny to me that something so trivial could evoke such polarizing responses. It's not a matter of good or bad. I think it'd be difficult for such an action to define a man and by such thinking be fruitless as well to level judgement against a man by it.
