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INTERNATIONAL BEER DAY

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Ten times Germans proved they really, really love beer

We all know Germans love their beer - but did you realize just how much? Here's a look back at some of the times they proved that nothing could come between them and their favourite beverage.

Ten times Germans proved they really, really love beer
Photo: DPA

1. When they elected a Beer Queen

Actually, this one has taken place every year since 2009 in Bavaria: would-be Queens are quizzed on their knowledge of beer and must also take part in a taste test. Prost!

Dirndl's on show: the seven finalists. Photo: DPA
Photo: DPA

2. When Merkel went for a beer instead of watching the fall of the Berlin Wall

What do you do when history is being made? If you're future Chancellor Angela Merkel, the answer's obvious: have a pint.

The Chancellor has said that, aged 35, when she heard the announcement of the fall on television, she did wonder about going along to watch.

“But it was Thursday, and Thursday was my sauna day so that's where I went,” she told foreign reporters, adding that she then went for a beer with a friend before getting swept up in the crowds pouring through from the West – and joining them for yet more beers.

3. When a 94-year-old broke out of hospital for a birthday beer

The pensioner still had the IV drip in his hand, so determined was he to celebrate his birthday at a local beer hall.


Photo: DPA

4. When Munich celebrated Lent by cracking open the extra strong beer

For most, Lent is a time for abstinence, but almost nothing can convince Germans to give up their beers.

In fact, in Munich it has become tradition to instead brew extra strong Starkbier, with the more potent varieties hitting supermarket shelves. Read more on the tradition here.

5. When they declared their beer purity law worthy of Unesco World Heritage status

The law guaranteeing high quality of beer is over 500 years old, and has been submitted for Unesco World Heritage status not once, but twice.

6. When students worked out a way to get their caffeine fix through beer

A group of students came up with the perfect solution for those times when you need the caffeine hit from coffee, but also the sheer pleasure that only comes from beer.

“We are not trying to save the world,” one of them modestly said.


Photo: DPA

7. When they declared beer to be just as good as therapy

No, this statement didn't come from the advertising department of a brewery or one of the Germans propping up the bar of their local beer hall, but from one of the country's top healthcare officials. He said that many people's problems could be best solved with a bottle of beer.

8. When firefighters were brought in to rescue someone's stash of beer

When two friends stepped off a train for a smoke break, they were distraught to see the train pull away without them.

But they weren't bothered about being delayed in reaching their destination – they'd left a bag of beers on board. In their distress, they set off the emergency alarm, calling firefighters to the scene.

9. When German firefighters built a fire truck out of beer crates

This was definitely an earnest attempt to win a Guinness World Record, and not an excuse to drink a lot of beer.

Proof that in Germany beer is not just something you drink in order to get drunk, but an important part of many people's social lives: parents were not pleased when children were barred from a local beer garden.

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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