The Bergkirchweih

(Post Updated: New pictures added.)

Yesterday, the first of June (I think) was spent at the Bergkirchweih , the Beer festival of Erlangen.

Originally, the beer festival was a celebration of the christening of the local church (about 250 years ago), but all religious relevance has long since been foregone, and it remains a place/time for people to gather in the thousands, drink and rejoice.

This post should, for clarity, be preceded by a long post detailing the beer brewing history of Bavaria, and an estimate of how fond people are of beer, but time constraints prevent this; I will try and illustrate this, instead, with an account narrated to me by a fellow hosteler:

There are no water dispensers in Germany. These machines are neither made nor imported- because they are not needed. Bottled soda water is available, but why, reasons the average German, would you want to drink bottled water? Seeing my fellow hosteler drink water from a faucet, he queried: "Does that taste just like beer?"

I was dragged by the professor, and the company I work for, on an official visit to the beer festival.



To capture the atmosphere of the place in words is far beyond me. I'll try, instead, with imagery:


This is the entrance:



This is Martin, a very nice chap who works at the office,(The adventures of Martin & Me is a tale for a later time) in traditional Bavarian attire:

This was most of the gang:

So what do you do at a green table at a beer festival? Why, you drink beer, of course.
I drank orangeade :)

(Dominik thought it looked funny.)

(And you drink them in one liter mugs!)

I've now seen more kinds of cheese than I can care to remember:


Including, as the 42nd calls it, the Tom & Jerry variety:

The professor finally found a parking slot, (private joke: He parked where the pessimists park, despite claims to the contrary!) and showed up at the party. This is all of the gang:

(Except me, of course.)

One round of beer later, most of the gang was still sober, which is when the food showed up. I have never seen so many cooked animals together on one tray:


The interesting thing to note, though, are the yellow potato balls in the plates- they're actually edible, although, I was told, they are equally useful in a game of football.

And then my food arrived:

You know you're having a strange day when you have one of these for lunch:


Fresh bread, and unprocessed cheese; a lunch unlike any before (and hopefully, unlike any after)


Lunch was followed by, you guessed it, more beer:


The professor gathered us around and explained the history of the beer fest; apparently, they have a beer pipeline running into a cellar in the mountain- I didn't believe it until he showed it to us.


This was followed by a discussion on, among other things, combustion and candle flames, instability in fluid flow and the Ohr-Sommerfield equation:


Martin, the eternal prankster, thought it fit to shove us (three Indian students) onto one of the amusement rides- the craziest one at that.
I tried, I really did, to squirm my way out of this, but to no avail. The expression I wear before boarding the ride says it all:

(Martin promised to meet me in the afterlife, and I assured him that I'd return the favour then.)

I'm somewhere in there:



I survived, much to the amusement of others (See? Amusement ride), and even managed to get a gingerbread souvenir around my neck.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner echoed in my ears as I wore the albatross- I mean, the gingerbread, and managed a vacant stare:


This picture sums up my Bergkirchweih.