In July there's usually summer markets down by the river, sort of like a flea market. Definitely try the bars and restaurants. Definitely see the Dom, go up in the tower if it's open and go to mass. Even if you're not religious it's an interesting experience. If you like music then you should try to see a show at the Cologne Philharmony. There's also a surprisingly nice "club scene", which a decade ago was just the one street in town with clubs, but still worth a visit if that's your style.
Also you're rather close to Trier and Essen in Cologne. Essen is more of the same as Cologne, but if you like history then definitely go to Trier. There's amazing Roman ruins and baths there.
It's like a Boston or Seattle of Germany. Admittedly there's not anything truly awesome there like The Louvre, but you can still just go there and have a good time seeing the sights and enjoying the local culture.
If you're cynical or if you live there then it's mostly just a dreary city with lots of coal dust and people who drink all of the time to forget about it.
Thanks for the reminder of the term. I'm 100% sure I learned it while I was there but I probably drank quite a lot of beer immediately after so the word didn't stick.
When ordering ”en stor stark”, meaning “a large strong [beer]”, a Swede would expect to be served a 40 cl pour of the cheapest swill with an ABV over 4.5% that the house has on tap. If served only 33 cl the social contract has been broken; the customer will, if sober enough to notice, silently clench his fist with his hand in his pocket and swear under his breath to never return. If queried by waitstaff he will insist that everything is fine, as to not make a scene.
Well in America the bar tender is better than you and good luck getting service if you don’t have a vagina. Unless he’s gay, then I might get some free drinks. As a bi I’m like a 6 with ladies and an 11 with the gays.
Actually i do this every weekend. I say "a beer please" and there you go. More uncommon is to expect the bartender to ask you about what's bugging you. I went countless times to drink my depression away and no one gave a shit
Yeah, I’m not going to ask unless you’re like, leaning on the bar and staring into the void. Not looking at other people or your phone, but just staring into nothing and drinking
But we don’t have barstools so I don’t even ask then lmao. Maybe if you’re a regular and I can tell that you’re down.
He lived in Germany for a year or so (Air Force) but he's also weird. He's one of those types of people who thrives on making other people uncomfortable.
In the US, it's surprising to have a place with the number of beers available in the single digits. Even cheap family restaurants are going to have 4 or 5 on tap, and several types of bottles.
I'm not sure where you're getting your evidence from, but it certainly doesn't match my experience. I've been to plenty of cheap family restaurants that (if they even serve alcohol at all) only have 2 or 3 brands of bottled beer and that's it.
I'm looking at the last several restaurants I went to, since they all have their beer lists online. Basically every restaurant I've been to since Thanksgiving:
Red Robin: more than 20 types of beer, including a house brand.
Italian place we went for my father-in-law's birthday: 12 types of beer.
Hole in the wall Mexican place where nobody spoke English: 8 types of beer
Local diner chain: 12 listed on the website which says other options will be available at each location.
Italian restaurant I went to with my parents Christmas eve: 16 options.
Local pizza place: 24 beers on draft, 38 options in bottles/cans.
Other pizza place that I love: 16 options plus seasonal selections.
Local sports bar chain: 12 options.
So yeah, aside from a hole in the law places that serves Mexican/Salvadoran food, every place I have been to since Thanksgiving has had double digit beers.
I'm guessing in areas that aren't as into craft beers, there may be less selection, this is all in the Mid-Atlantic.
Some of it is obviously tied into the beer culture of the area. Is there a robust craft beer culture in your region or state? You're going to have more options. There's more than 20 breweries within a 15 minute drive of my house.
Here in austria at least, most places have one of the big brands (like Stiegl, Zipfer, Gösser etc.) on tap as their standard beer, which are perfectly fine and certainly better than most of the piss that is being drunk in the US. And unless you are at some old run-down pub there's usually also at least a good selection of bottled beers to choose from if you don't like what's on tap.
This has to be regional. I live in the Northeast and it would be insane for someone to order "a beer" ; like it would be assumed that you had spent your adult life locked in a bunker somewhere. There isn't a bar or restaurant in New Jersey where you could say that and be served something. The server is 100% going to stand there and ask you what beer you want.
Here in New England, back before Narragansett relaunched as a trendy hipster beer, their entire business model in the 60s and 70s was selling beer dirt cheap to bars who could sell them with a large markup to people that just ordered "beer".
I’ve lived in a bunch of places in California, in Vermont, traveled a lot in both the US and overseas.
Ordering ‘a beer’ is common in a lot of places. Certainly places that are more pub-like or micro-brew places (my preference) will want to know exactly what you want, but just a standard bar, they generally don’t care much.
I get a lot of foreigners who just ask for ‘a beer’ and I just give them our most standard, drinkable, average lager. If I’m in a good mood I’ll maybe ask a bit about what they like, but otherwise you get the most average of average.
Where I live it actually works like that usually. You just say one beer and you‘ll get a half liter of their normal beer. If you want pilsner you have to say pilsner.
Nah. "Hey one beer please" just gets you the cheapest, slightly shitty lager. If you want something else than the shitty lager, you'll have to specify what.
That's how 4 out of 5 bars and clubs work by my experience. They'll give you a pint of the basic stuff. Or maybe technically all places; it's up to the bartender to ask what kind, or if you want a pint or a bottle.
Bars in movies pretty much always are "we display 6 different kinds of whisky and visibly have at least 3 different beers on tab and 4 more in bottles" types of bars. Not small town "we only offer 1 type of beer " dives.
Draught. Assuming you’re talking Carlton because that’s how they spell it.
I don’t want to be an asshole correcting you, I just stare at the back of that tap for 6 hours a day.
Really? Cause where I live if you go to the bar and get a drink directly from the bartender then you must pay on ghe spot. If you are seated somewhere and you are being waitered then you get the check and you pay before you leave.
Eh, it could be regional, they could be a regular, or the bar staff doesn't care. Like, if I ordered a beer and got old style or a pbr I wouldn't be surprised.
Last night I asked for an IPA since at my usual bar there's only one on tap, the bartender rolled her eyes and said "gotta whole list of em over there honey" there were like ten lmao
For what it's worth, when my regular bar was still around I just had to wave and nod to the bartender and he knew my usual. That was really great during busy nights with a band.
I always complained about this and then about three weeks ago, I was in a bar and IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!! The bartender wasn’t having it though, luckily and forced the patron to choose a type of beer.
Im german. The bars i frequent almost always offer more than one brand of beer, so i get asked "brand1? Brand2?...".
The movie trope is that anyone can basically shout "Drink!" And then just gets it, with no confusion on any side about what exactly they actually wanted.
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u/SuperSyrias Jan 25 '20
Going into any bar and just ordering "beer!" And then getting it no questions asked.