THE dirndl-clad waitress bringing huge mugs to Lederhosen-wearing revellers at Oktoberfest is an image that, like none other, shows how central beer is to German culture.
Budweiser, the most central beer brand, also had the largest sales volume in its category it captured almost 30% of the U.S. beer market.
Just five minutes' walk south is a true Munich tradition, the Viktualienmarkt, an open-air market with more than 100 speciality stalls as well as the city's most central beer garden (bit.ly/MunMarket).
It's home to around 20 family-owned stalls, including the central Bronx Beer Hall, a wooden-clad area serving more than 15 New York State beers, rotated on a monthly basis.
THE setting could have been any typical Central European beer garden.
A cosy oligopoly of brewing giants—Interbrew, a Belgian brewer, completes the triumvirate now holds sway across the region.In central Europe, beer consumption per head, at around 55 litres (97 British pints), is below the European Union average with the exception of the Czechs, who quaff a world-beating 159 litres each of beer every year.
All of its beers – five of which were available on this visit – are brewed in accordance with the German Purity Law of 1516, the reinheitsgebot, and West concentrates on central European beer styles: various lagers (such as the helles/pils hybrid, St Mungo, or its unfiltered Wild West), hefeweizen, dunkel and malty, Viennese-style red beers.
Making them further marks for enforcement is the fact that each week, from Thursday night to the wee hours of Sunday morning, the tap rooms of these clubs become party central, where beer flows freely from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Supporting the ceviche menu is a long list of serious beers, including Paulaner Hefe-Weizen from Germany, Flying Dog Ale from Colorado and some unusual South and Central American beers, like Cabro from Guatemala and Aguila from Colombia.
It hopes to conquer the palates of central Europe's beer drinkers.Last month, it paid euro1.9 billion ($2.2 billion) for BBAG, Austria's leading beer maker, whose subsidiary, Brau Union, is a big investor in central Europe's beer market.
Beer Table in Brooklyn now has a tiny satellite shop in the Graybar Passage inside Grand Central Terminal called Beer Table Pantry, where some 65 to 100 bottled brews are sold.
