We returned to Germany for the tenth time to watch the World Cup. It had been a dream of ours for two years to watch the world's greatest sporting event in Germany. Arriving on the last day of group play for both the United States and Germany, we embraced the German's passion for the 'beautiful game.'

On our 12 day trip, we visited two new cities, Leipzig and Dresden, and revisited Berlin and Prague, two cities that we first experienced in 2001. Our Irish friends joined us in Berlin to watch USA v Ghana and Germany v England. Lastly, we finished the trip with our German friends in Mannheim, watching Germany demolish Argentina. Beer, football and friends, the perfect trio.

Nineteen new breweries, fifteen in Germany and four in Prague, were added to our brewery list. Both Merideth and I are at 568 total breweries, well within reach of our 600 goal by the end of the year.

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Two Years in the Making

This trip was conceived two years ago during the Year in Beer. Merideth and I were in a pub in Carlow, Ireland watching Germany play Turkey in the 2008 European Football Championship. With a scant  nine patrons in the pub, Merideth and I  seemed to be the only people watching what turned out to be an incredible match. I was texting with our friend Ute in Germany who said there were hundreds of German fans at the Zentrale, her local in Mannheim. Thinking about the Zentrale and looking around the almost empty pub we were in, we decided that night we would be in Germany for the 2010 World Cup...

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Giving Berlin a Second Chance

We last visited Berlin on our first trip to Germany in 2001. Earlier on that journey, we visited Munich and completely fell in love with the Bavarian capital. During our stay in Berlin, all we could think was that it wasn’t Munich. The warm and cozy feel we got in Munich was not present in the sprawling construction zone that was Berlin. Now, we return to Berlin nine years later to give it another chance.In 2010, Berlin still feels like a huge construction zone. While not like 2001, cranes still dominate parts of the skyline. But this is not the Berlin of 2001. We were introduced to the new Berlin on the walk to our first brewery stop of the day, Lindenbräu in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz...

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Berlin Is Growing On Us

We had two more days to explore Berlin which gave us time to venture outside the city center. We called it ‘traveling off the map’ as a number of our brewery destinations weren’t on the free Tourist office maps. Armed with the not-always-reliable Google maps, we hopped on the U-Bahn ready to explore Berlin’s neighborhoods...

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Anything Gose

I’m pretty good at coming up with brilliant ideas. Recently, one of my best ideas was in planning our train trip from Berlin to Dresden. I noticed that one of the intermediate stations was Leipzig, which I remembered was home to one of the few Gose breweries in the world. Realizing that this was a good beer travel opportunity, I planned for us to get off the train in Leipzig, visit the two breweries in the city and get back on the train to continue our journey to Dresden. After confirming that Leipzig Hauptbahnhof had luggage storage, the train tickets were purchased.But even great ideas can have flaws. We got off the train in Leipzig and quickly found the luggage storage lockers. Opening the door to one of the available lockers, I slipped my bag in only to have it be several inches too long. Panic set in as I realized that I wasn’t going to be drinking Gose that day...

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Dresden

Our stop in Dresden really didn’t have much to do with beer. For years, I have been fascinated by the city and its resurrection from the fire-bombing by Allied planes February 1945. It is estimated that 25,000 civilians died in the raids and subsequent firestorm.My recent interest stemmed from our first visit to Munich in 2001. We were at our very first dinner in Germany and Merideth and I were struggling with the Bavarian dialect menu. Nothing seemed to be in our Germany dictionary...

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A Short Visit to Switzerland

After almost a week of pounding the pavement of various German cities, we needed a nature break. Southeast of Dresden is Sächsische Schweiz, (Saxon Switzerland), a  national park along the Elbe River. Known for its rock formations, the park is popular with everyone from your average tourist to avid rock climbers.Despite the projected 95 degree heat, we forged ahead with our plan to get some exercise. Hopping on the S-Bahn with hordes of other tourists at Dresden’s Hauptbahnhof, the ride to Sächsische Schweiz was a short 40 minutes...

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Returning to Prague

I’ll admit we were reluctant to return to Prague. One of the beer meccas of the world, our first and only visit to the Czech Republic capital was back in 2001.  Since that visit, we have been to the Czech Republic only one other time. In our first beer adventures with a video camera in 2007, we traveled to Ceské Budejovice to tour the Budvar brewery.We find the Czech Republic a difficult country in which to travel, a place we just don’t feel comfortable.  Neither Merideth nor I can get a simple grasp of the Czech language beyond ‘please’ and ‘thank you’...

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Braving the Prague Tourist

HordesOn our little taxi excursion from the train station, our tour guide driver on several occasions gestured in the general direction of the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. In his Czecho-Germano-English language, he indicated that’s where all the tourists were. Merideth and I smiled and nodded knowingly. We would tackle that beast the next day.The plan for our second day in Prague was to cross the Vlata River to search out beer in the Malá Strana (Lesser Town). As our taxi driver had indicated, this part of Prague is the epicenter of the city’s tourist trade...

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Germany 4 Argentina 0

We began our trip in Mannheim watching Germany play in the World Cup. And if everything went according to plan, we would be watching Germany play a quarterfinal match back in Mannheim on the last day of our trip. Well, everything did go to plan as Germany won Group D. They then went on to beat England to set up a showdown with fellow world power Argentina...

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Video from the post game celebration>http://www.thebeergeek.com/blog/?p=3192