Deutsche Technisches Museum Tour (Saturday 1/7)

Hello!!

First off, your daily trauma story. Last night we went to a very fun dance club and had a BLAST! At a point in the night I had to use the restroom, and so did a few others. Keeping in mind that women's has a D on the door, I was very happy when I found the door marked Damen. So my friend Emma and I go in and I rush strait into the stall when I hear Emma talking and the response was a male voice. We asked if the bathroom was multisex, but turns out the sign on the door says not for ladies, but the "not for" part was in German and smaller print. Great. So I tried to play it cool, but rushed out. As I'm going into the real ladies room to meet Emma, our guy friend walks out and has had the same experience.

Today was another fantastic day in Germany! We started off with breakfast, then class. Today we brushed up on some chemistry, it took me back to junior year of high school IB chemistry (I even remembered a few things.) Discussed causes for your beer aroma to end up smelling bad, i.e. cheesy, skunky, like paper...etc, which can be not sanitizing properly (or sanitizing with the wrong materials), keeping your fermenter at a bad temperature, and bottling with the wrong color of glass, and much more. After class we took the U-Bahn (Underground subway, a lot like the max in Portland) to Deutsche Technisches Museum where they have a brewery that was made in 1910, and was used until 1990. It is very cool, four floors, and very well thought out. The whole process would take 10 weeks, and 1,400 liters of beer is produced at a time. The whole museum was HUGE, so many people go in and out of the brewery quickly. The security guard noticed that we were genuinely interested in the process and gave us a tour! It was funny though because he only spoke German, so he would explain each step to our professors, and then they would relay the information to us.
After the tour we took another half hour to explore the any other part of the museum we were interested in, it was pretty neat.

After that we took the U-Bahn to get lunch at a restaurant called Altberliner Weikbierstube. We ended up walking a ways because the train had to stop a few stops before ours for some reason that was explained in German, I just went with it. It ended up being great though because we got to see a lot of what we saw on tour up close. The most memorable spot being the Bebelplatz, where there is a memorial under ground that can be viewed through glass that is on the ground. Inside is a white room with empty book shelves, in remembrance of the Nazi book burnings that took place in that very spot.

When we found the restaurant I ordered another Berliner Weisse, to prepare myself for Emma's presentation. I learned that since it is fermented with lactic acid bacteria it is very sour. To balance that out they put syrup in it, raspberry or woodruff (I got woodruff a few days ago and raspberry today). The aroma was very fruity. It is said to be a good summer drink, and I believe it. Since it has lower alcohol content, one can indulge in a few more of these than other beers. 

Last night Emma and I got currywurst, fries, and gluhvine for dinner

This is a picture of the whole process that the beer goes through at this brewery. You will notice that everything is connected by orange tubes.

The big piece with an open door is where the grains are mashed, then everything is sent up to the piece that is in the left corner through pipes that are directly underneath it. It then goes back down to the same piece to boil, and hops are added. (See steps 2, 3, 4 above)

Learning about how the wort is cooled. It first goes to a big basin type thing which is on the floor above, then sent down here through a pipe. It is then sent over this contraption, where there is cold water water flowing through all of those pipes. This process cools the wort from 60 to 6 degrees Celsius (yes, they use Celsius here). (See both step(s) 5)

Once the wort is cooled it is then sent to the fermenter. Then to a secondary fermenter. (6 and 7)

This is how the beer is bottled!

Emma and I under a train, thumbs up!

We got to go on that boat. All over the museum there were these things that looked like phones that you could pick up and listen too. We decided to pick one up and listen to get more details about the ship. Didn't help, can't understand German yet.

The book shelves underground

Dinner! The Berliner Wissen with raspberry is served in a fishbowl type glass with a straw

We took the S-Bahn (above ground train) back to the hotel