[Leica] Re: St. Pauli, beer quality

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

We always get Detmolder when we visit friends who live a little to the 
Southwest of us, an excellent brew with a lot of body, lasch is very 
much the description of most beers now.
As to Br?tchen, the standard is still the one with a longitudinal cut 
along the top, suitable for sweet or savoury stuff, the range these days 
is however immense
and the differences in quality too. There's a big bakery concern called 
Kamps which is trying to corner the market on bread, and is also 
branching out into other food segments, the quality suffers as a result. 
But everyone still has their local bakery (or at least one they swear 
by). Supermarkets mostly have their own ovens and bake "fresh" bread 
from raw dough.  Italian Ciabbatta loaves are becoming very popular 
here, and we still have plenty of excellent Turkish and Greek bakeries 
supplying flat loaves or Pita bread (why do ethnic stores always lay a 
lot more emphasis on quality?) Quite new are Russian breads, mostly 
simple stuff but tastes like home-made, a result of the influx of 
Russland-Deutsche, ie people who could prove that their Great 
Grandparents were of German origin. MIX, the Russian supermarket not far 
from here is quite amazing too, about 60 different kinds of Vodka (who 
needs Br?tchen), weird smoked fish, the most wonderful smoked salmon I 
ever tasted and colossal jars of pickled everything - and cheap too. A 
multi-cultural society does have a few things going for it.
Douglas

Douglas Nygren wrote:

> It is interesting to see others have noted the same trend in German 
> beer. I noticed it three years ago. There were some exceptions, for 
> example Detmolder Landesbeer had some taste. Others seemed "lasch."
>
> German bread also seemed to have taken a turn for the worse, though 
> there were some exceptions. I noticed, for example, that there is a 
> greater variety of the morning breakfast rolls, commonly called 
> "Br?tchen," but in Berlin, they went by the name of "Schrippen." In 
> the south they had another name, "Sameln," if memory serves me right.
>
> Br?tchen back in the 60s and 70s came in one variety, which tasted 
> fine. Since then, it would appear, Br?tchen have gone through, do I 
> dare say it, the same evolution that bagels have in the states, that 
> is, they come plain as before and in various configurations: if you 
> know the variety of bagels you can get here, you know what I mean.
>
> When I was in Berlin, I had to buy my "Br?tchen" early, but I've 
> noticed little supermakets baked them throughout the day, but I was 
> surpirsed to see they did it with prepackaged loaves and electric 
> ovens, just the sort of thing you'd expect here in the states. And 
> here in the states you wouldn't expect the quality to be very good. 
> The German "Br?tchen" seemed still to taste okay, but I'll leave it to 
> the Lug's correspondents in Germany to give us their report on the 
> issue of Br?tchen quality and the state of German bread making.
>
> Wishing you all a good day, sch?ne Gr??e--Doug
>
>
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