Dear beer enthusiast,
giving sequence to the series of altbier/Düsseldorf related posts, I bring you Düsseldorf's oldest Altbier - Schümacher Alt
giving sequence to the series of altbier/Düsseldorf related posts, I bring you Düsseldorf's oldest Altbier - Schümacher Alt
The Schumacher brewery has been producing this 4,6% dark beer since 1838. It produces also other two variants that I still haven't had the chance to try, but are definitely on my "to drink" list. The Schumacher Alt is produced in a smaller scale than the Gatz and it doesn't belong to a big beer conglomerate, standing proud as a "home-brew tradition". It is served in four points inside the city, including at the brewery itself.
Schumacher Alt - Düsseldorf's oldest Altbier
And it was at the brewery that I acquired this 1 liter bottle, in the year of 2008, while backpacking through the region.
When buying your beer directly at the brewery, you'll always have some advantages. The biggest thing in favor is that the prices are cheaper than in a supermarket or regular bar/pub, mainly if you are buying in quantity. If you are not buying in quantity, though, you might see some confused faces as you kindly ask the gentleman loading 50 crates of beer in a truck for a single bottle...
Another issue for me in 2008 was the language barrier... my lack of German at that time caused the communication in between me and the aforementioned gentleman to be a bit faulty.
When buying your beer directly at the brewery, you'll always have some advantages. The biggest thing in favor is that the prices are cheaper than in a supermarket or regular bar/pub, mainly if you are buying in quantity. If you are not buying in quantity, though, you might see some confused faces as you kindly ask the gentleman loading 50 crates of beer in a truck for a single bottle...
Another issue for me in 2008 was the language barrier... my lack of German at that time caused the communication in between me and the aforementioned gentleman to be a bit faulty.
Most germans can speak english, but not all of them are confident about their skills. Nevetheless, they try their best to communicate and that guy loading the truck was no exception, he mustered the words and told me in quite good english that the single 1 Liter bottle costed "two euros fifty eight cents"
The price struck me as a bit odd... quite a broken number, but I had already seen people in supermarkets counting every penny of their change, so I gatherred the coins I had and gave him exactly 2 euros and 58 cents... and he shook his head saying "no no no... fifty eight cents!"
For a few seconds we looked at each other, I looked confused and he was probably thinking something like "who's this crazy foreigner who comes here to buy ONE bottle and can't even pay for it properly"
Let me tell you, dear readers, one thing about the German language... on top of all the grammar rules and declinations which make this a quite hard language to learn, they also count their numbers in a bit odd fashion... they don't say twenty one... it's one and twenty.
Don't ask me why, I think the British used to say it like that also in an older form of the English language, all I know is that a small silence was in the air until I could gather my scarce knowledge of German and say something like "Sie meinen 'zwei Euro fünf und achtzig?'" (you mean 'two euros five and eighty').
A positive shook of his head showed me that the language barrier had been broken and that I could take my beer with me now...
That is not my only story with language barriers and numbers... if you think the Germans say their numbers in a bizarre manner, then you should hear how the French do it... but that's for another post
Cheers!!
For a few seconds we looked at each other, I looked confused and he was probably thinking something like "who's this crazy foreigner who comes here to buy ONE bottle and can't even pay for it properly"
Let me tell you, dear readers, one thing about the German language... on top of all the grammar rules and declinations which make this a quite hard language to learn, they also count their numbers in a bit odd fashion... they don't say twenty one... it's one and twenty.
Don't ask me why, I think the British used to say it like that also in an older form of the English language, all I know is that a small silence was in the air until I could gather my scarce knowledge of German and say something like "Sie meinen 'zwei Euro fünf und achtzig?'" (you mean 'two euros five and eighty').
A positive shook of his head showed me that the language barrier had been broken and that I could take my beer with me now...
That is not my only story with language barriers and numbers... if you think the Germans say their numbers in a bizarre manner, then you should hear how the French do it... but that's for another post
Cheers!!
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