TwoGuys & Beer
The Two Guys & Beer Podcast is a laid-back conversational show that combines the love of beer with a wide range of topics that pique the hosts' interest. These two guys, use beer as a launching pad for discussions on anything and everything that grabs our attention!
TwoGuys & Beer
Moosehead Memories, Linkin Park's New Era, and Oktoberfest Adventures
What happens when you mix a love for beer with a passion for music and spontaneous travel adventures? Join us on a nostalgic journey through our podcast memories as we sip on Moosehead Canadian Lager, the beverage that started it all for us over a year ago. Discover how this smooth lager became a staple in our home bar, sparking countless conversations about the diverse world of beers. We promise you'll gain insights into the art of brewing and the challenges of picking a favorite amidst the wide array of styles available.
Our journey doesn't stop at hops and barley; we venture into the world of evolving musical landscapes, spotlighting the transformation of bands like Linkin Park after the tragic loss of Chester Bennington. Uncover the bold moves and creative decisions that bands face when lineup changes occur, and hear about the excitement surrounding Linkin Park's new female vocalist. We've seen the enthusiasm firsthand, with sold-out shows and an energetic fanbase eager to embrace this new chapter. It's a testament to the resilience and artistry that keep the heart of music beating strong.
But wait, there's more! Join us as we recount our whirlwind escapades in Germany, where Oktoberfest's vibrant atmosphere left an indelible mark on our souls. Between the camaraderie of singing along with strangers to the delight of savoring Berlin's culinary diversity, our tales paint a vivid picture of German culture. From driving on the Autobahn to strolling through medieval Rothenburg, our adventures were filled with spontaneity and discovery. As we plan future episodes, we're excited to take you on a global beer exploration, featuring unique brews and perhaps even seltzers and CBD beers. Cheers to the journey ahead!
So good evening, everybody, or morning, I guess, wherever you're listening to it, whether it be morning, night, afternoon, overnight, middle of the night, I don't know. 2 am, 4 am, whatever it is. Greetings and welcome into the Two Guys in Beer podcast, andy Beckstrom, sean Field, with you once again, as always, from the Two Guys in Beer podcast studio. What a great place to be able to bring you all sorts of different episodes here over the course of a little more than a year now.
Speaker 1:Although we haven't celebrated it, but it's been a little bit more than a year.
Speaker 2:It has been a little bit more than a year and you know it's been a fun ride from where we started to where we are now. It's been pretty crazy and I guess we did. We're kind of just picking any random beer tonight. We'll talk about some our experiences in germany and octoberfest, but I just happened to pull out some moose head which is owed to our very first episode, I suppose you could say and andy also decided to grab a can of Moosehead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we're just going to drink some beer and bullshit about our experience in Germany, oktoberfest and whatever else might have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll probably spend a little time talking about some of the favorite moments of the last year or some of our favorite episodes, you know, or just kind of generally, kind of going down the old memory lane. If nothing else, just the a video now where you can see what we look like. You know, you can you get that, but you know, the studio, the table out, like all the different things you know, like at one point uh, yeah, I don't even know if we ever posted pictures of like the original the og. When we recorded the first time it was just set up, kind of like I got a little small home bar here and we just set the stuff up there and like held the mics and it was just kind of hanging out you know much in a recliner.
Speaker 2:I think you were sitting on a baseball bat stool. We're just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's been, you know it's been, you know, kind of a crazy year, year plus now. So but before we get to, you know we're doing we don't have a specific beer or brewery that we're talking about, but kind of reminiscing back to Moosehead. But before we get too deep into it, got to get the best part going. Open it For those who don't remember the Moosehead canadian lager a a, a, I say a, I say super good beer.
Speaker 2:I like moosehead. It's one of my favorite loggers and I'll tell the story how I first tried it. I was building my home bar in my house, which is coming along pretty nice. It's pretty nice home bar and I was looking online for some different bar signings, like some beers. But I didn't want Miller Lite or Corsair. I wanted some cool type of light or sign or something different. And I was thumbing through eBay and all of a sudden a Moosehead light popped up and I'm like, well, that's a sweet-ass name, it has a sweet logo and it just happened to be the round light that spins in 360. Oh nice. So I'm like that is awesome, I want that light. So I bought the light, got the light home, checked it out. Like you all, I've never had a moose head before in my life.
Speaker 2:So gotta at least experience it, gotta try it yeah, as I got in the car I went up the liquor store, found some lucid drank it and I'm like damn, that's actually a pretty good lager. It's it's got good flavor. It doesn't taste like watered down crap, piss water, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean it's nice and smooth, but it does still have some uh, some body to it there's some flavor there.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I absolutely probably in my top five one of my favorite beers I suppose. I don't know if I could make a top five, so I'm just spitballing, but this would definitely be up there. You know, widow maker moosehead are definitely in the top five somewhere and there's a handful that you know.
Speaker 1:same thing, like I don't know that I could make a five, a top five, top ten. People ask me all the time what's your all-time favorite brewery? And I have a couple that stand out, but I don't know that I have like this is number one or this is the top, because there's so many that are good out there, and it's the glory and the fantasticness. I don't think that's a word, but that's what I'm going to say and you know what I'm trying to say. So technically it makes it a word. It works here.
Speaker 1:But it's the best part about breweries that sometimes there are breweries that have certain styles, like there's German style or whatever it may be. You know like they only do stouts or things like that. Some of them have that, but for the most part some of them, more so, have a theme for the brewery, but then they'll have IPAs, stouts, porters, lagers Not all of them have lagers, but they have, like, a light ale or they'll have a width and breadth of different types of beers there. And so it's pretty rare, at least in my experience, that I go to a brewery and I'm like there's nothing here that I like there's some of them that only have one or two a little bit. It's not very many, but at the same time those one or two are good enough for me and they're they're really good. They are, and I've been to some that is like that's one of my favorite beers.
Speaker 2:the rest of it's all crap, but that one's one of my favorite so what else is catching on too is you're leaning off all the different styles of beer at breweries. It seems seltzers are becoming more of a thing at local breweries too now, so it's not just lagers or stouts or ales, so that's another one coming.
Speaker 2:I don't typically choose to drink a seltzer, but that seems to be coming on too. And with going along trying to pick a favorite beer, like you said, why it's so hard? It's like trying to pick your favorite band or your favorite movie or something that's like it's just not going to happen. Yeah, I love all of these right, but and it is kind of fluid, I suppose you know, for a while, like lincoln park was my favorite band, but then for a while corn was or godsmack or tom petty you know what I mean, so it kind of the top five kind of fluctuates what's number one to what's number five.
Speaker 1:Like you said, it's what's going on at that time. You know what I mean. Same thing Linkin Park was probably one of my favorite bands of all time, but obviously it waned quite a bit when they kind of stopped, didn't make quite as much music and then, of course, when Chester died it became such a different vibe and then they didn't put out any music and I still listen to it. But Shinedown has far surpassed that in my mind. But does that mean that I don't like Linkin Park as much? Like no, I still do. Just it's, you know it's at this time that's kind of been more of a thing because it's it's accessible. You know what I mean. There's new stuff that's out there or it's the stuff that, like I can buy a concert ticket to be able to go and see Shinedown. I guess now I could go buy a concert ticket to go and see Linkin Park. Now you're cutting it out. I've listened to some of their new stuff or whatever, and some of it's pretty good. It's a much different vibe, though it's a different deal overall.
Speaker 2:I think she does a decent job with some of the older stuff, but it's it's a different era. Yeah, I agree, I think, when referencing lincoln park, listening to her sing chester's parts in their music prior to her joining the band I, it's still a little goofy to me. I think she's a fantastic singer. It's just goofy to hear her sing his parts. But the album they've come out with, which releases here and well, sometime around November 15th, I was going to say it's got to be pretty close, pretty quick.
Speaker 2:You know I pre-ordered it, like the three singles that they've released off that album. The music itself sounds like Linkin Park. Of course it's a female singing, not Chester, but if you were to strip the vocals and just listen to the music.
Speaker 2:The basics does sound like that. And just listen to the music. The basics does sound like that. It's Linkin Park. Of course, now there's a new singer there. They have some bangers. Two of those three singles are bangers. She does an amazing job. So I kind of view Linkin Park as a whole new band. You're going to have to try to differentiate the two eras, which is going to be incredibly challenging.
Speaker 1:Especially because when you go to a show you still want to hear. I Came to See Lincoln Park, and so I still want to hear some of these other songs.
Speaker 2:Which they're going to have to play, because that's their entire capital.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead and bring me Breaking the Habit or something like that. Like I'm going to need to hear that, right, but that's so. I guess I've read some things no-transcript, so we'll get a little bit more into some other stuff here in a little bit. But in regards to that kind of separating it as two different bands, I've read some different things about a lot of the pushback that they're receiving, not only Lincoln Park but especially the new lead singer, as far as having a different sound or having a different voice and disrespecting the memory of Chester or things like that.
Speaker 1:And I guess in my mind, how do you reconcile with? In the end, yes, you want to respect that and you want to make sure that you, whether the new person, can do that, or if you have to get two new people and you get somebody that's really good at covering that or something like that, you know what I mean. But at the same time, they're all still musicians. Should they just stop making music altogether? Right, because he's not there? I mean, yes, it's a different sound and you can take it in a different direction and in a way, that's why a lot of bands end up breaking up, you know, like because they creative differences, or you know they're trying to do something different with the, with the bit, but you know what's kind of your take on that. Like them now deciding to do something different.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the argument is more so. Do they still call themselves Linkin Park, as opposed to a new name with a new band? A lot of people get upset about. You know her singing Chester's music and taking his spot in the band per se, but it's not his music. Okay, there's other members of the band. Lincoln park was formed before chester even came a part of the band. People need to remember that he was the last member in the band lincoln park, so it's not just his band in his music. Granted, he is an iconic voice metal, hard rock, new metal, whatever you want to call it which is super hard to replace, and I think Linkin Park isn't trying to replace him. Yeah, it's just a new era of Linkin Park and these people with these criticisms of her and the band and what they're doing, they almost act as if no band in the history of music has ever replaced a band member. It happens all the time.
Speaker 2:All mainstream bands, godsmack Metallica, you know. Three Days Grace they've all changed singers and drummers and guitarists and bassists. That's incredibly challenging to replace a singer.
Speaker 2:And I think for Linkin Park to continue on picking a female was the way to go. I think she's going to take less flack than some other guy trying to sound like Linkin Park. So they're not trying to keep the Chester sound anymore per se, it's a whole new deal Like look at Static X. You know they're pretty mainstream. Not not hugely mainstream, but they had a massive following. Yeah, they're known. Wayne static has a very unique sound, passes away. They didn't do anything for a while. Now they've been touring again for three or four years with zero. The masked man that they won't refuse to say who it is, although we all know it's Edsel Doe. But whatever I mean, I don't. Well, I do.
Speaker 2:Fair enough they haven't said it, but everybody seems to know that the people are into them and they did a fantastic job. You know, they sound great. They sound just as good as the old Static X. They're not trying to replace Wayne or ditch him or tarnish his memory or legacy or anything. It's just the bandmates want to carry on. They wrote the music too. They crafted the music as well, you know.
Speaker 1:And I guess that that takes me back to, you know, a comment that you made of they're not trying to replace Chester himself and keep it the way that it was, and I guess that's. I guess maybe that's a decision that every band needs to make. If you have somebody leave or pass away or something that changes like that, that, do you go that route like Static X, or you can name a bunch of different bands that have had, you know, the lead singer take off? You know there was some eighties bands that you know, like Van Halen, exactly Van Halen, like some major changes and stuff like that. Or do you go like the journey route, where I don't know that they created any more new music? They have, they have, they have.
Speaker 1:Ok, I didn't know that there was really anything, but they picked a guy who looks much different but sounds exactly the same. Yeah, so do you. Yes, so do you. That's kind of what the decision is. You know, like you mentioned, that they're not trying to recreate that. They're trying to recreate their new sound with somebody that has that capability, but that's not who they are anymore, and I guess that's the tough part is, I think everybody wants them to be that. I think everybody wants them to be Journey. You know where you're like. No, just get whoever can sing karaoke, the same way, you know. But then you, then you kind of close yourself off that you either can't or you're very limited with what new music you can. You can't have any other ideas or anything. So I don't know. I mean, people fought back on different albums that people you know, like there's Metallica albums that people didn't really like that. Well, this is a direction we wanted to do. That's all up to you. You know. That's that's. Everybody has that right to do.
Speaker 2:They do. As a band they can do what they want. It's their music, it's their creativity. They can do what they want and, quite frankly, that's kind of Linkin Park's MO. You listen to the first album, awesome, awesome. The second album, awesome. The third album I thought was awesome, but now we're not. Like the first two albums were more poppy, slower, and then they just kind of progressed every album afterwards to like a completely different sound yeah, it definitely became their own right, and it didn't slow them down.
Speaker 2:No, they were still putting out hits after hits and selling out shows, and selling out shows. And this new version of Lincoln Park with Emily singing their shows or stadiums are selling out in like 30 seconds, like you can't even get a ticket. One whole show sold out just from Lincoln Park underground fans because they get the pre-sale option first. Right, no, general public even got a ticket because the underground Lincoln Park fans that signed up for that bought the whole stadium out.
Speaker 1:And is there six locations? It's not like 175 locations across the world or something like that. It was something pretty small, but I mean I don't want to say ease back into it, but I mean they haven't really toured for quite a while. So this is a way to kind of like all right, here's some new music. I'll let you chomp on that for a little while. Let's see if you guys like it. Then you can. Here's the rest of the album and here's the rest of the next tour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in 2025,. They said they're going to tour extensively, so in order to get tickets, I already signed up for the Lincoln Park Underground like a month ago I for the Lincoln Park Underground, like a month ago.
Speaker 2:I want to go see the new Lincoln Park. I've been fortunate to see the old Lincoln Park twice. I want to see the new one and I want to hear the new music live. I think Emily does a good job with their new direction and their new music. Two of those three singles, man, are bangers If you haven't heard them the Emptiness Machine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I've heard two of them. Both of the two that I heard were were really good, so don't forget me when you do that. I'm I, I'm gonna try to sign up for the underground thing, but don't forget me.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, we'll just get four tickets and we'll figure it out after that yeah, I won't forget yet, provide I can get in there and get some tickets. I can't remember the. Why can't I remember the second single? Now I don't, I know it, but I don't know it. Yeah, I can't remember the second single now I know it, but I don't know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't remember off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:But it's more of a banger than the first one, which was the Emptiness Machine. Whatever video game that came out, they did the song and it's on that. The music video is this video game?
Speaker 1:I mean she's great though it's fun to listen to. But yeah, I mean, I guess that's kind of a recap of some music stuff. We go from beer to music and that's what we do here, like I said, it's, you know, kind of the tangent Tuesday. But yeah, like I said, we're not really doing a specific brewery today. You know, we are kind of, I guess, semi unintentionally, maybe intentionally, I guess, I kind of grabbed the same thing as you did, just because not recap, but a memorial, no, that's, they're still there, that's okay.
Speaker 2:They still make it.
Speaker 1:But just kind of, you know, looking back on you know, like that, it was the first episode that we did you know again, and think back to some of the other great episodes we've had over the course of the year, you know, I think that probably the Widowmaker is probably one of my favorite ones that we did. But yeah, there's been some that you know, some breweries you know we were able to get some answers back from the ownership or whoever it may be. Some breweries had a lot of information online and you know some good, you know discussion points and some of them it was kind of like pulling teeth and we were just kind of grabbing whatever information we could from, even from news articles that you know, the daily dabbler or something like that you know like, ok, well, it's at least it's kind of an overview of the thing.
Speaker 2:But and some of them are interested in coming on the show. We just haven't figured that out yet. Well, the one in Amana Iowa, they want to come on. You know, they said they were. We just haven't figured out. We'd rather not do remote interviews, because we have this nice spot right here for somebody to come on.
Speaker 1:Kind of a little difficult for some people out of state to be able to come to the studio. We will have to wait just a little while. We haven't taken delivery on the two guys' jet yet, so we're still waiting on that. Maybe when that happens we can do that.
Speaker 2:Mark Cuban hello, we can use a jet Exactly.
Speaker 1:I heard he's got four. Go ahead and drop some you know Shark Tank money in on us or something like that. Growing the brand. Yeah, no, it's been a lot of fun. But yeah, we're hoping to, you know, get out there and if we can figure out a way to be able to do, you know, maybe some remote stuff. Otherwise, there's a couple of breweries even locally you know, 320 in Pine City and we did talk a little bit with some of the bar manager beer tender at Mora Beer Club just north of here, and we didn't the logistics didn't really work out on it so much but we were going to try to get hooked up with them. When we were at Oktoberfest not the Shell's Oktoberfest, it was fantastic also, by the way, that was when we think back of some of, like, the best times that we've had or whatever, like moosehead, getting it kicked off, widowmaker, just because I love that beer and it's one of my favorite. I've never been to the brewery but it's one of my favorite beers of all time I was, I made the trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you drove up there, I made just randomly took off and did that, but then I think shells is probably the other one you know probably stands out, you know, to me as one of my favorite, you know. I mean yes, the episode, but like the trip that we, you know it was kind of fun that was. It was almost in the in a vein of back in the day, the Chicago trip that we took, but it was more of a. We sat here and we're like, oh, that was a good episode, this is good beer. I wonder when their Oktoberfest is. Oh, it's tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Well, let's see here. Well, I got hockey tickets to go watch the Gophers. You know, play hockey, but well, we could maybe make it work. Let's see if it's online, and you know, whatever. And sure enough, you know, the next morning, you know we're packed up at, you know Sean's and taking off and doing live on location from Shell's Brewery out there and Buddy Kyle went with and you know the wives, and you know it was a good trip and a good time, but it was kind of, you know, like that Chicago trip where it was just kind of last second.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's kind of how I roll, personally. When I do things, I just kind of spring it, do it the next day, whatever, oh, that sounds fun, let's go Super spontaneous. I spring that stuff up on my wife all the time, like we're going to this coming weekend, we're gonna go see yachtly crew, and then sunday I sprung on her, oh, we're gonna go see manheim steamroller, by the way oh nice like well, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:I'm like yeah, I just bought tickets for that. We're gonna go check that out this weekend. She's like what is that? I'm like you've never heard of manheim steamroller. She's like no I like manheim a lot like as big as you are into holidays, what do you think? You haven't heard of them absolutely. So we got tickets to that. So this saturday we're gonna watch yachtly crew whatever that is I don't even know what that's about yacht rock or something they look like they're on a yacht that's all I know they play like 70s and 80s classic rock, stuff like that, and then on Sunday we'll be at Mystic Mystic Lake.
Speaker 2:That's where the Mannheim Steamroller is, and that's where we're going to watch them.
Speaker 1:That'd be cool. I've seen Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which I'm not sure if you've seen that, but that's a pretty good time for that one.
Speaker 2:Mannheim. I have not seen but trans, the beer and or so I think a little overhyped for me. I guess I was expecting more christmas music right, I'm shredding the guitars doing stuff. It was more of a story, right, they would stop and the guy would tell his story and they would do different things.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking it was more of a band just shredding guitars and drums, yeah, so which they do a certain amount of that they do.
Speaker 2:When they do, they do a good. Oh, absolutely it's awesome, but I thought it would have been more of that, yeah but yeah, it was fun, it was, it was cool.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'd like to see manheim sometime. I'd that'd be pretty cool to be able to do. That remember growing up, you know like mom would always have the cd on during november, december and then, whatever, you pop one of those cds, I have the red album.
Speaker 2:I don't know what they call their albums, but the red one came out in the early 2000s. Well, back then I had subs in my car. You pop one of those cds in there and the bass from a real bass violin and like real bass, not electronics, it's like, wow, that'll get after. It's pretty sweet.
Speaker 2:So you're driving down the road, you know, banging your head and enjoy to the world, or there you go, hark, the herald angels sing or something you know, it's just so yeah, speaking of octoberfest, of shells which, by the way, I think shell still has the best octoberfest beer ever made that I've personally tried right at this point, which we have to go next year because we failed to go to shells this year.
Speaker 1:We did talk about it but, yeah, the logistics didn't come through quite as well this time. There was some other stuff that came up, but I'm a little disappointed in myself.
Speaker 2:Well, we got to use our leader holes in the gun Exactly. It can't be a one-time use thing.
Speaker 1:Where did we use our leader holes in the first time?
Speaker 2:In Germany, munich, germany.
Speaker 1:So why don't you talk about that? Yeah, if you haven't seen the video that we posted to the social media, there's a little short. That's got there where we're talking out. Was it Hofbrau that we were talking?
Speaker 2:in front of Laufenbrau.
Speaker 1:Laufenbrau.
Speaker 2:The one with the lion. There we go, the Laufenbrau.
Speaker 1:I don't really remember, because I think even in the video I think I said I was already like three ish liters deep, which I didn't realize at the time. I think Sean did the math for me later that uh, you know the leaders, it, you know you put about three of these in one of those and so, yeah, I was already three liters by my math is a lot, um, and so, yeah, you could tell on the video, I mean, had it been there for a little bit, but it was. I mean it was such a great time, the you know, kind of it was almost not quite spur of the moment, like the shells Oktoberfest, but in a way, kind of you know it was. We thought, you know, like God, that'd be really cool to be able to do something like that.
Speaker 1:And then my wife and her sisters signed up for a lottery for the Berlin marathon and then they got in which they were kind of surprised about, and they're like, well, now we have to train for a full marathon. They've run, like they've run all run at least one marathon before, so it's not like first time or anything, but they're like, well, now we got to train for that, we got to get going on that. And hey, do you want to go with? Like, well, I don't know about going to a marathon, but when is it again? Well, the end of September.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Let me think about that for a second.
Speaker 1:You know what else is at the end of September, the beginning of October. So, yeah, it just became kind of a discussion and I think I brought it up at one point or whatever. I'm like, but you have interest like legit going to the actual Oktoberfest, and I think the next week you showed up and you're like so we're looking at tickets, and so it just yeah, that kind of spiraled, not out of control into control, spiraled into success, I guess.
Speaker 2:Very successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it was just kind of, you know, not spur of the moment, but in a way kind of spur of the moment of you know, just kind of, let's go to Germany. Why not? Right? You know, and I don't know about you, but I always I'm like I would love to go to Oktoberfest, really want to do it. It's kind of a life goal, dream, never going to happen. You know what I mean? Because there's got to be something else going on, because am I really going to pay that much and spend that much time on a plane just to go drink beer?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I mean after that experience, the answer would be yes, and so, like before, I'm like that's just never really going to happen. So when this situation presented itself, I'm like when is this ever going to happen again? I mean, now that I've been there, now, it's like we're looking at like maybe we go get next year why, you know, why wouldn't we? But yeah, you know. So a little bit different experiences, I think, for the two of us, just cause we had two different things going on, but we all met up at uh, at Oktoberfest, and uh, wow, that was. It was just a fantastic day.
Speaker 1:Just an amazing experience.
Speaker 2:It really was. It was a lot of fun. It was more than I expected, I guess. To your point, um, going to Germany, or specifically Oktoberfest, never really crossed my mind in my life. Like you know, I travel a lot. You know I'm all over the place. You know that, mostly within the United States, but I've been out of the country I don't know a handful of times and never thought twice about going to Germany of all places. I was never opposed to it. I'm a huge history guy, you know so. Obviously World War II, a lot of history you know over in Europe, with the kings and queens and princes, you know so I'm really into that stuff. Never thought twice about it on my list to go, but man, it was so worth it. I'm glad we went.
Speaker 2:You know the Oktoberfest, the beer's good, like Andy mentioned. You know every stein of beer is a liter, which is three American beers in one liter and we both had about three liters when we did that video. Our plan was to do a little few more videos than that and we were going to try to run around and interview people. That just didn't work out because we were busy drinking and Andy's family, unfortunately for him he was probably four liters in on that and I was only three because they kept adding more to his beer. So you're, you're probably not wrong, you know that's.
Speaker 1:It's been known to happen. You know, if I don't pay attention too much or whatever, and sometimes even if I am paying attention or whatever, mando will especially like if my beer is almost empty or lower if I look away, she just does the old swap a doozy and then I'm like oh, wow all right, look what happened here. I mean I'm really turning it down, so it's not really a problem. But yeah, that doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2:You were probably four liters in Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, that makes a lot more sense. I think the picture of me at the end of the night made it out there too, somewhere.
Speaker 2:I have it. I haven't posted it. I was going to share everybody with it, but he's on the train ride home sleeping. Yeah, we'll have to do it before Oktoberfest and after Oktoberfest.
Speaker 1:And I still argue that and I'm hoping that everybody out there feel free to comment and chime in on the socials and everything like that, but I'm hoping that somebody will back me up on this one. I still maintain that I was just tired, sure, at that point. Jet lag, because I mean, mean, yes, the jet lag, but like, if you drink that much beer, like I, you know you can drink beer all day long, but once you stop drinking beer, my mind, you know, like once I stop drinking beer, then all of a sudden I'm just like sluggish and tired and just kind of half fall apart.
Speaker 2:Right, all that work, all that, the chin lifting, exactly yeah, so I.
Speaker 1:That's just how beer is always effective. If I keep drinking it, then I'm fine and I can stay going or whatever. But yeah, once I stop, then it's kind of hard to like get going again. And so, yeah, that was. You know, we went out to dinner after that and that didn't go well either. Definitely was kind of like I was like falling asleep at the table and they were making fun of me and I had another leader there. You know, of course, why. You know why not, but yeah, it was. I mean it was still fun, it was a blast and it was so busy though I like I mean, we knew that it was going to be busy, but I, I just I don't know that I was prepared for how many people would be there on a Tuesday.
Speaker 2:Right, and it was, and everywhere, like being at the state fair. It was shoulder to shoulder, nuts to butts. Everywhere you went, you were nuts to butts in the so-called tents, which really aren't tents, they're buildings that hold 6,000 people at tables, but that's how packed it was and by 1030, people were already standing on tables and sloshing their beers around to that post song I don't even know what it's called, you know and beer was sloshing and music was a blaring and pretzels were a flying and beers were being drank and chickens were a wagon, chickens were flapping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, it was unreal, it was. I mean, it was just an amazing experience. But yeah, to get that many people in there and, like you said, like these structures are, you know, you conjure the idea of a tent, like even a big tent I'm thinking like the wedding tents. You know what I mean. You know the soft side, the poles, you know stuff like that. And then I'm like they get how many people in there? And we get there and we go in and they have like I-beam girders and big six by six timbers holding stuff up and second level patio seating or like overlooks and you know, like stuff everywhere and when we first got there, there was like carpenters running around like nailing down floorboards and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So you know it's, it's stuff. It's not like it's like a I mean it's a temporary structure, but it's not like it's. I don't know. It's so weird to even conjure like what to compare that to. But yeah, to use like that. See, if you're a comparison, it's like okay, well, this entire block is now Lofenbrau. It's a gigantic tent. Yes, the roof is soft side.
Speaker 2:One big ass beer hall Roof is soft side One big-ass beer hall.
Speaker 1:But it is like the floors, the posts, everything holding it up, the structure is all appears to be fairly permanent. It's already down at this point, so it doesn't take very long for them to tear it all down. But it's unreal what they're able to get built in there and they pack people in. This is not an Americanized all right. We need to make sure that people have their space and you're not bumping into each other and stuff like this. This is like Minnesota State fared down by the grandstand after the band is let out. We're talking when he means nut to butt, that's when you're sitting down. It doesn't matter where you're at. You're trying to basically tactically sit in between people or use them as like a backrest or your backrest, right, and it's not a matter of when you get there.
Speaker 1:You don't have a server. I mean, you kind of do, but you don't have like a dedicated server that you're like okay, what can I get for you tonight? And were you looking for some appetizers? And oh, how about some zingers for you know, for the table, or something like that? No, no, you show up and you just hope to god you could find a spot in there, because early in the day. It's pretty easy to get there. But when we got there a little bit later on, we started moving around. There was what eight of us, seven of us, I think, seven, something like that but we got to a couple places and like you can't get in there, you can't get in there, you can't find a spot. We there was a couple of them, we around we did like two laps trying to be able to find anything, and we find like three tables kind of somewhat adjacent, with like two, three spots each. I ended up partying and drinking with a guy from Madrid, which I got a story about that here coming up too and maybe we already discussed.
Speaker 2:Oh, I did tell you about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did tell you about that one, just the creepiness of Facebook and Meta and Mark Zuckerberg. But you know it's what you do. You know what I mean. Everybody's just jammed in there and when you get seated down, you know like there's servers, I guess, that run around, but they're not coming to your table. You have to wave them down. This is what I want and it's also not you don't have.
Speaker 1:Like, can I get the tap list? Can I get the? You know what? What seven beers do you have? And it's like no, they have two, some of them only have one, and you just say seven, yep, that's all it is, and they don't have any more time for that. Beyond that, if you take, if you dawdle or take any longer than that, they're already gone. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And they come back with seven of them in one hand, seven liters, seven liters and like they're just like bam and you just you pay cash right there at the table and then you just move on with life. You just start drinking your beer, start drinking beer, yeah, and you know the best part about it.
Speaker 1:You go to something like that. You go to the state fair, like most people are in a good mood and most people it's not an issue, but every so often you run into some kerfuffles and some different issues, stuff like that. I don't know that I ran across anybody that was even upset the entire time there. That much beer and that much alcohol you'd think that some people would be. You know, like hey, you ran into me or you know whatever. It's like. No, you run into somebody who's like hey, cheers, like whatever. It's like. No, you run into somebody who's like hey, cheers Like they're just right back after it Bathroom's this way. You know, like it's just, it's absolutely unreal.
Speaker 1:You know the experience and it was. Everything was positive about it. The food was great, the beer was great. You know the. You know the atmosphere. You know the. You almost want to call it uniforms. You know, but like the, the outfits, you know what I mean. We we got the leader holes in and the girls got the dwindles and you know kind of went with the thing and it was kind of well. Are we going too far with this? Are we getting this? Are we taking this too seriously? Swear to God, if you go there and you're not dressed up.
Speaker 2:You're the you're going to be. The patrons that show up at Oktoberfest were dressed for the occasion Lederhosen or the dresses. We went on Tuesday and it was like kids' day. In the morning there were school buses dropping kids off there. They were all dressed for it too. And before you get too crazy about kids showing up at Oktoberfest Oktoberfest, yeah, there's a lot of beer drinking there and there's a lot of beer halls there. I think there's six main breweries that have the big tents there, and then there's like 30 offshoot ones of smaller breweries, but this place is like carnival rides and games, and it's basically like an oversized county fair Probably not quite as big as like the Minnesota State Fair, but it's massive, yeah. So that's why you have kids running around having a good time. And and another thing you got to think about, that too, is, in the german culture, beer is just part of their way of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can dress with your 14 there.
Speaker 2:That's just a social thing. It's like to your point. I didn't see many people getting drunk at all. I mean there probably was, yeah, but if they were was no crabbyness, it's just a part of the thing. You just have a good time. But even then, personally, I really didn't see anybody drunk drunk there at all like I would here in town at a local bar, yeah, yeah. You were buzzed up pretty good. I was getting a pretty good buzz, but it wasn't. Nobody was stumbling around puking, acting like a fool.
Speaker 1:Well, because you didn't go to puke hill, there is a hill that literally is named puke.
Speaker 2:I did not go out there.
Speaker 1:Apparently, I walked past it. I didn't even know that it was there. But you know, that's what I was told after the fact. But you know, that's one thing, I didn't step in anything.
Speaker 2:Is puking. Oh yeah, we did miss out on that Two a little bit more. Right, we kind of just went from tent to tent, drank and drank, and drank, and that might be a reason to go back there again.
Speaker 1:I was going to say we're going to have to go back again, just for the experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't do any of the where you sit in the middle and that saucer spins and you fly off, or that belt. Oh the belt.
Speaker 1:We didn't do the belt, but we just got into drinking and it was so much fun it was just kind of everything else went haywire and that's one of those things that, like I mean, for me personally, like that was such a whirlwind trip, you know what I mean. It was only like seven days long and two and a half of it for me was flying, and so really it was only like five days, and so I was get there, get checked in and get to. You know, the hotel and I was going to stay at the next day was the event, the open house, not the open house, but the thing for the marathon to be able to get bibs and stuff like that, which was. It was so big that it was held at an old airport, a Soviet area Well, I suppose not Soviet communist era airport that was no longer in service, but it's just a massive, huge building with, basically, they just run you out onto the tarmac and they just had it fenced off to be able to be there.
Speaker 1:The expo is what it is. So we went there to be able to check that out, and then the next day was, you know, getting ready for the marathon and getting all the final preparations, and then me and my brother-in-law ran. The 5K marathon is what we like to call it and what did?
Speaker 2:you do halfway through the 5K marathon is what we like to call it. And what did you do?
Speaker 1:halfway through, halfway through. What did we do halfway through?
Speaker 2:Well, you stopped? Did you not stop and drink a beer?
Speaker 1:No, there wasn't any beer on the road.
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought you did. No, they had non-alcoholic beer.
Speaker 1:at the end it was terrible.
Speaker 2:Oh, I misheard, I thought for sure.
Speaker 1:No, I wanted to. I thought that's what you had said. I'm like what? That would have been great and you're like cheers. Yeah, no, there was like a non-alcoholic beer stuff at the end and we went and found a beer like regular beer, like right away, but they had Berliners, like the little stuffed donut thing at the end or whatever for us to be able to have, and so that kind of ate up most of the day or whatever. And so me and Alan are already kind of, you know, like getting after it and you know the girls had to get up super early to be able to get ready for the marathon.
Speaker 1:And then the next day was the marathon, which was a whole different experience. My God, if you've ever seen 60,000 people in one spot, it was an experience just to see that many people going and running and stuff like that. And so we use the subway system and the transit system is just phenomenal there. It was absolutely great. That's the other part about Munich too, that like you could get completely tore up and you're not driving home, Nobody's driving home, Like that's not really part of the thing, Like there's so much transit that there's not that even that much parking really there because not as many people have. I mean, they may have vehicles, but it's just not.
Speaker 2:Mass transit is such a different thing culturally, there too well, and germany's been there so much longer than the united states and it's so much smaller.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, all those old towns weren't built for your f-350 and all those things, so it's a lot more confined so, yeah, so we, we use the uh to trade the trains, to be able to like skip ahead, you know, during the marathon, and be able to, you know, cheer the girls on a little bit, and so that ate up pretty much that day. The next morning we drove down. It was about a five hour drive, I think is what it was, maybe it was six hours, I don't know. It was forever in this tiny little car on the Autobahn which, let me tell you, three lanes of six, but the three lanes on your side for the Autobahn, the right lane is for the big trucks, because everything is trucks. They have trains there, but they don't really have freight trains, so to speak. Most everything is trucked all around there, which is fine. We have a million trucks here too. So there's there's trucks there. You want to kind of live in that middle lane and you want to. You still have to get after it.
Speaker 1:I don't know what speed we were going because it was in kilometers per hour and I didn't do the math at the time, but I know at one point in time, like you, you want to like, if you're going to pass somebody, you kind of take a look and you make sure that there's not anybody for like a mile and a half behind you. And then you just got to can it to be able to get around them. Because even if you can't see them by the time, you get past them, because that's the sports car lane. For, like you say, you know, like the German brands, like a BMW or something, there's a German brand. So they don't have like Ford and Hyundai or anything over there, they have the Volkswagen and the BMW, so like that's what they have, that's what they're, just what it is.
Speaker 1:So we definitely got a little bit of a hill downhill and we're like, well, we're passing, like two people, and so let's, let's find out what this car has Little T-Rock from Volkswagen, you know, tiny little four banger, you know it got after it, it got pretty good or whatever, and I think that we were probably going. I want to say I did the math. It was like 165 or 170 kilometers per hour, which is a little more than 100 miles an hour, I believe like maybe 105, 110. I don't, somebody can correct me on that.
Speaker 2:It's around 120 or 130.
Speaker 1:Whatever it was, we were flying and we had to still get out of that lane because somebody just came rifling up behind us and, like we were standing still, it was just unreal. So that was, you know, kind of a its own experience. And then the next day was oktoberfest, and then the next morning I flew up, so there wasn't really a whole lot of relaxing, you know. That's why I was saying like we had a little bit different experiences, you had a little bit more. But that's where I'd like to go back and go to oktoberfest, like two or three days. You know, spend one day where maybe I don't have one beer. I was going to say don't have a beer, but I don't think I'm going to say that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Have a limited beer.
Speaker 1:People will hold you to that on the next show Exactly Limited beer limited intake on that one, but it'd be fun to be able to yeah, like you're saying be able to experience all the different things and be able to experience all the different things, Do the different games and stuff.
Speaker 2:And another good. One of my favorite portions of Oktoberfest was the bands. Listening to the bands do that, maybe German polka, if you want to call it that. I'm not sure what style of music you would call that. It's kind of polka-ish. But then they would do Sweet Caroline, which is what Neil Diamond.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do current songs.
Speaker 2:It's all over the place and all 6,000 people are singing it, All 6,000 people singing it. And then they're singing John Denver, you know, take Me Home, and I kind of got a chuckle out of that, because you have a whole host of Germans in other countries singing from Carolina to. Texas. You know I'm like right. Beers are sloshing, just having a good old time. You know they they don't care, it's just all about having a good time and drinking some beer, you know. So definitely the music was one of my favorite parts of.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 1:Being at Oktoberfest there, so for sure, and it is you mentioned before. You know, like with the kids. It's such a cultural event too, Cause there was even the one that we went to, like we were listening to when we had, I think, when we were sitting next to the people that kept trying to like get Lorelei to eat things. Weird, the older gentlemen, like they were. They were super cool. They look like, oh gee, new local folk, you know for that, and they were super cool, a lot of fun to be able to hang out with. But we were watching the one band over here and then, as they started kind of winding things down, they had a whole procession where people were in different garb where they would come through. They did some like traditional dances in the center and then they had another band that started off on the other side and like it was a whole thing. It wasn't just like a you go to the VFW on Friday night and you got gel playing, all the bangers you know, like that's that's a great time.
Speaker 1:It's a good time, but it's this is more of like I'm not going to say it's like going to church, but it's more of like going to like the local community holiday program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I forget the name of that tent we were in, but that one was the in the traditional portion of Oktoberfest, Cause they have they kind of have it separated to more traditional things with those dances and how they dressed and stuff versus the other ones, like Laufenbrau isn't necessarily more of a traditional one like that. So we didn't get to see that those dances they were doing in the center and those two other bands and that food that was they were trying to get us to eat.
Speaker 1:And it might've been at Laufenbrau, because some of those have a big tent and then they do have a smaller tent in that that traditional that'll like hold those traditions but and then they do have a smaller tent in that traditional that will hold those traditions, but then the big one is just here's our giant beer hall. And when people say and this is another question that I've gotten, I don't know about you, but I've gotten this question about they serve the beer warm, they don't really serve the beer warm. I mean, it's not freezing cold because they don't have chilled mugs, but it's because there's so many people and they only have like essentially one beer or maybe two. They just have a whole group of people that sit back by where the taps are just filling pints and they just have a giant table that just pints are put out, or liters, not pints. Leaders are tossed out on and then whenever you know that's like when you order beers there, it takes three minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get like super fast. Yeah, it's not a whole transaction with the bartender and do you have a tab and stuff like that is you just like I'll have five? They go back, they grab the five off the table that are already poured, so I guess they're not freezing cold. But I don't think nothing was like warm and nothing was room temperature or anything. It was still chilled chilled?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree too. I got that question a lot. Well, how was the warm beer? I'm like well, I didn't have any warm beer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anywhere I was in Germany for those 10 days, I never had a warm beer, even the small bars that we went to, yeah.
Speaker 2:That was never a thing, so I don't know why that's a stereotypical. Their beer was cold, like you said, it wasn't in a frosty mug at Octoberfest, but it wasn't warm when it got to you. You still got to drink some cool beer, a cold beer.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing. If you put three beers I mean you get yourself a Stein, go get yourself a Stein sometime Leave it out, obviously, don't chill it and then just grab three beers, toss it in there, wait about four minutes and then start drinking. By the time you get to the bottom it's not going to be cold, right, but that's I mean when you drink in that size. I guess sometimes it's better to have a pint just because it stays colder longer. But no, it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never really ran into warm beer at all, so that was in a way kind of surprising Cause I guess I don't know that I necessarily anticipated it. But when people would ask, I'm like oh yeah, that's right. No, I didn't experience that. You know what I mean. Like I thought about it after the fact, I didn't think about it at the time that I was like I wasn't expecting it to happen or anything. So but yeah, no, it was. For me it was. It was a phenomenal trip. Like I said, it was kind of a whirlwind. Sean, you did a little bit more touring of the rest of the nation.
Speaker 2:We did. We did. My wife and I were there for, oh, about 10 days I think. We were there. We stayed in Munich the whole time, the outskirts of Munich, because they have different suburbs, just like we do. So we were there about 10 days. We pretty much stayed in the whole Bavaria portion of Germany. So we were out in the country. We got to see the rolling hills, the trees. You know, we went on the Romantic Highway. We went to several different cities Augsburg, of course, munich. We went to the Christmas Village, rothenburg, which is super cool. If you ever go to Germany, go to Rothenburg.
Speaker 2:It's a medieval city that still stands. It still exists. It was built in like 1850 or 900. The original walls are still there. All the buildings inside are original and they take a lot of pride in that and preserving the exteriors of these facilities. So they look the same. Of course, when you step inside of them they're more modern. You know they've got electricity and stuff. They still look old, but they plumbing and electricity, things like that. That was a super, super cool city.
Speaker 2:When you get in there you have to drive through the gate. Uh, that presumably that's how they entered the city back in the day and initially that's where the gps was taking us. And I turned out of there right quick because I'm like this doesn't seem right'm driving through this gate on this cobblestone road and my plan was hey, tammy, we're going to go around the backside and go in another way. She's like oh, okay, we ran around the backside to a dead end with the GPS and we couldn't get anywhere. So I'm like, well, I guess we're driving back around and we're going to go through the gate and see what happens, because the GPS was taking us to our hotel.
Speaker 2:I surprised my wife we're going to stay in Rothenburg one night, because the plan she kind of had laid out it would have taken us about six hours to get there from Munich, stopping at these other cities along the way on the Romantic Highway. I'm like, well, that'll be fun and all, but my wife's most important thing she wanted to do there was go to the Christmas village in Rothenburg. She's a big holiday nut. So I'm like, well, we're going to stay in Rothenburg one night. So that's what we did.
Speaker 2:So the GPS is taking us through the gate and I'm like driving through, you know, and I'm in this little twin go at this point in time I'm off. Explain how I got this thing. This little twin go manual putts them through this thing and if you've ever been to Rothenburg anybody out there listening or watching there's a sea of people in there, huge tourist attraction. So I'm driving presumably through Main Street Rothenburg, if you could call that and the sea is just parting the people ever so slowly. So I'm in first gear probably, driving three miles an hour uphill through Rothenburg and I'm like, oh my God, am I supposed to be in this road? I don't know if I'm supposed to be there. I'm like looking at all the people, like they're not yelling at me.
Speaker 1:Maybe this is okay.
Speaker 2:So I'm creeping my way through them and then there's a few side streets in there, not many. But then all of a sudden a car came down a side street and went in front of me and I'm like, oh, all, right, I must be okay. So then we made our way up to the town square, took a left, took another left and that's where the hotel was. So, yes, you can drive through there. That's how people get in and out of there in their cars. You just have to drive slow. And that's one thing about germany everybody has a right away, but people and vehicles, so you, you're the one that has to wait.
Speaker 2:So awesome, awesome, cool town rothenburg was. We went, did some of the christmas shops, we got some christmas ornaments, had them shipped back home. We did like a knight's watchman tour there. When it got dark out, a guy dressed up his old old Knights Watchmen would tell you some history about Rothenburg and he has a lantern and he would lead you around the city and you'd stop and he'd talk about it and stop here, and talk about it and stop here. So that was really cool. And then in the morning of Rothenburg we went to Medieval Torture Museum. So that was interesting right there in Rothenburg. You get to go in there and see all the devices that were used back in those times to torture human beings. Oh wow, and there were a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, I bet there wasn't just a couple in there.
Speaker 2:So there was like shame masks, shame boots, barrels that they would put people in.
Speaker 1:These days, you just get shamed online, exactly.
Speaker 2:Isn't that the truth? Just crazy stuff in there. They had books from like a thousand eighty, like open for you to look at, like who's seen a book with that type of penmanship and that type of gothic writing and german writing from back then and they did write them and read sometimes too, and that was just.
Speaker 2:That was just mind-boggling to me to see a book that old talking about torture, you know. So we did that there and I ate at some good restaurants there, everywhere you eat. Food in germany is super good. The next day we went to nuremberg. We mostly went there for more of the historical world war, so a lot of Nazi stuff there. That's where kind of the Nazi party formed and started and held rallies. So we did a few things there pertaining to that, just to kind of fill my cup up of some that type of history stuff, since I was over there. So that was interesting to see some of those things.
Speaker 2:And now it's a park, but they call it the Nazi Party rally grounds and if you watch a lot of documentaries, a lot of what's depicted there is when Hitler is standing out on that platform, you know, with his arm up doing his salute or whatever you want to call it, and you can see all the SS and rows underneath them, and then it's kind of like a stadium, like looking thing. Well, that area still exists and you can actually stand on that platform right where he stood. So I took it upon myself to stand in that spot and I was just kind of taking pictures and then comparing it to what it looked like then to now. There's trees and stuff like that, and the building that's right behind him when he's standing there is the one that has the swastika on top, that a lot of documentaries famously get blown up when you see that, where the swastika just goes. So that's that spot. I forget exactly the building, what it's called and stuff, but just to kind of be at those historical, super significant moments in history was kind of pretty cool.
Speaker 2:So we did the Nuremberg thing and obviously I'm a big fan of auto racing. You know that. Well, the Nuremberg ring is there too, obviously in Nuremberg, so that was super cool for me to actually walk on part of the track and stuff. Oh wow, and that was a good time. We went to some castles. I can't pronounce the names of them so I'm not going to try, but the castle that's modeled after the Disney or the Disney castle, the castle that they got the idea from there's probably the most famous one in Germany everybody goes to I know which one you're talking about, because I want to say that.
Speaker 1:So, after we had left, brother and sister-in-law and Amanda stayed, did the same romantic road, did they get down? To those. I don't know if they got to that particular one, but they were talking about going to her. So I'm aware of what it is. I just don't remember.
Speaker 2:I can't remember the names of them and I can't say anything in German. Anyways, I would butcher the shit out of beer, so beer yeah.
Speaker 2:Beer are. So we went to a couple castles, toured them. Those are a lot of fun, super cool, super interesting to to be in a real castle. You know the architecture is awesome. Interesting thing to me about the castles like they're big but they're not that big. It's kind of that was my take on them. I'm like they're big. I'm not trying to say they're not because they are. They're obviously bigger than my house and your house combined and stuff. But I guess you would think when you walk inside of them they would be more grandiose than they are.
Speaker 1:Just going to say the exact same word. Yeah, you conjure this idea of a gigantic, grandiose ballroom with all the things, and it's no, it's just a big house it's a big, big house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some of the rooms aren't that big, like some of the main sitting areas are pretty big, but I guess I thought it would be bigger inside and some of them are the two that we toured anyways. So that was a lot of fun. We went to Augsburg for a minute. We toured Munich, took a day and just drove around Munich, check Munich out. We pretty much found the Rodeo drive of Germany. We pretty much found the Rodeo Drive of Germany.
Speaker 2:When we were over there, I walked by Ferraris, lamborghinis, here's Gucci, here's Louis Vuitton, here's this, here's that, while I'm wearing my white plaid shorts and my Miller Lite T-shirt. So I felt a little out of place there because that's not what I do, but super neat area. One thing that really stood out to me about Germany is how clean it is, especially the Bavaria portion, the cities we were in. There is no trash. There's next to no graffiti. Germans like to smoke their cigarettes versus Americans, I've noticed you don't even find a cigarette butt on the ground. It was super clean. They care about what's going on there. You don't find McDonaldcdonald's bags pop tops.
Speaker 1:You know, yes, litter just flowing around all over the place.
Speaker 2:There's none of that over there berlin has more graffiti.
Speaker 1:But yeah, same thing, that really not a lot of trash necessarily super clean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, boy, what else do we do? The public transportation, like you said, super easy to navigate per se. I guess, compared to American stuff, you can get anywhere on public transportation there. But I had a little different experience than you when it came to public transportation. Our plan was to use that the whole time. Now, I'm glad we didn't. I'm glad we rented a car the very next day, saved time and we got to do more than we thought we were going to be able to do.
Speaker 2:But we woke up at 5 am to get on this bus, get over to this bus and this bus was going to take us to the castles. That was our first day in Munich and we got to the bus that said it would bring you to the castles 30 minutes before we're to get there. Well, the bus never showed up and we had tickets at 11 AM to get into the first castle and there's no refunds and you can't go. Two hours later they're like, nah, you're too late, and then it's right, boot you out of the line. So wait for the bus. The bus never shows up.
Speaker 2:Well, we thought well, there's a train station over there where we came from. Let's go back there and using the app so you can take this train. We'll take you out there. Okay, fine, the train never showed up. So now we're like, oh my gosh, we're gonna miss. We paid the money to go see these castles and we're not gonna be there. So we're like, you know what? We're just gonna rent a car, which was really my wife's plan. The whole time, of course, me it was like, oh, let's take public transportation, you know, because I always drive when we go on vacations and I like to drive, no problem with that.
Speaker 2:But you know, as a driver you don't get to see as much stuff because you're focused on what you're trying to do. So in my mind I thought, well, maybe I can relax on this trip.
Speaker 1:A little less pressure, a little less.
Speaker 2:Just enjoy what we're doing and be a little more carefree. Yeah Well, that didn't work out so well because the bus and train never showed up. So we went to rent a car. Got to Enterprise on the next city away, asked the guy at the counter like hey, what's up with that? He's like you know, germany has world-class public transportation. Every little city has its own and they're privately owned. It, owned, it, owned it. They're privately owned. They work really well. You can get every everywhere you want. But the public transportation where you go from, like, one side of the country to the other, or longer trips, he said there's one line that runs that and he said, said they suck. He said Germans don't like them, nobody likes them, they're terrible. And it just so happened the one that we needed to get to the castles, that was. It Was the one you're not supposed to take, right? So we rented a car from there and that's how we explored Munich from that way. First we had a Volvo XC90, so we were on the Autobahn for two days with that.
Speaker 1:That'll work. Yeah, that'll play.
Speaker 2:And then we had to bring that back because we initially wanted a compact and they didn't have any available. So they gave us this super, premium, fun, fast car.
Speaker 1:And then we ended up in a little Twingo, which is a little three-cylinder, five-speed under five speed, which and I you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I had heard at one point in time that if you're traveling to germany, like the, a lot of their smaller vehicles will sometimes be sold out. But otherwise they will also look at americans and be like, okay, we're going to give you a big vehicle because americans like big vehicles. I mean, we got the big giant suvs and trucks and things like that or whatever. Problem is that in germany there's no parking spots for them because it's all built for like the twin go type of size. So like did the twin go work out, at least from that standpoint?
Speaker 2:It was awesome, like I wouldn't have wanted anything bigger driving around. Germany. You could fit that thing anywhere you want park anywhere. It worked out superb for that.
Speaker 1:We didn't. We didn't have a vehicle. We rented it to go from Berlin to Munich. So have a vehicle. We rented it to go from Berlin to Munich, so we did have it, I guess the one day. But yeah, even when we got it, like there was minimal parking anywhere and all the spots weren't very big so to be able to get like everybody crammed in there and it was tight in the vehicle, don't get me wrong, it was tight and it didn't go great, but it was acceptable and it worked for what we were doing. But yeah, you don't want to have. If they try to upgrade you by giving you a big three-seat suv, I wouldn't do it. Don't take it, take the. Take the little cheap car it's.
Speaker 2:It's worth your time and your effort, I think it would make it a lot easier for you driving around germany with just a small little compact for sure. Oh, what else did we do? I don't know. We did so much stuff. We went to bavarian palace. When we were there most of the day, that was really cool. Going into the different rooms that was more huge than the castles. It's like more you're walking like, oh my gosh, you know paintings thousands of years old all over the place. The gardens were awesome. There's different buildings on the grounds that you'd take you like 30 minutes to walk to because the grounds were huge. We went to the BMW Museum. So if you're ever in Germany, even if you don't like cars, you go to the BMW Museum. Right, it was so interactive.
Speaker 1:We talked about that, but we were unsure. We ran out of time so we weren't going to be able to do it, but we did talk about that same thing. We're like man.
Speaker 2:maybe it's not anything uh, yeah, it is yeah perfect, if you don't like cars, you still go it's still worth doing it it was super futuristic, super modern, very interactive.
Speaker 2:It was probably five stories high by five, six blocks it was huge like it's an all day thing and they have every BMW car in there you can possibly want to see. They have many Coopers in their Mercedes Benz in there, the nine series. You know the $250,000 car sitting right there you can touch and look at and you can get in. They have old cars. They've got every engine they've ever built on a different floor in there that you can look at all stripped down. They have like an electric car chassis in there that you can look at stripped down so you can kind of see how they're put together. They have a hydrogen car in there stripped down to the chassis. Everything you can put race cars, indy car, anything bmw is made, floors of motorcycles, cars hanging from the ceiling, from the wall. Like there was robots running around in there. I didn't even know what they were for, but they're just walking around doing their thing in there too.
Speaker 1:It's like the movie WALL-E they're just cleaning yeah.
Speaker 2:That's probably what I was doing. Actually, there's bars in there. You can go up to the bar, get a beer and walk around with a beer in hand. You could drive a car in there If you were in there to purchase a BMW car. Part of the track where you test drive is inside this facility, so you could see people driving their cars around. It was something else.
Speaker 1:I want to say that I thought that it was I don't remember if it was that or Mercedes that I had heard, that I had heard If you order a car directly from them, that's part of the process of buying is they actually want you to come there and test drive the car. They want you to actually come to the factory and see all of the stuff. So kind of an impressive deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really was. So go there check it out. I was sold out. We were trying to get tickets, too, to go into the, because right next to this five six-block museum, the building over is the manufacturer line where they actually manufacture the BMWs. But those tours were sold out so we didn't get a chance to go in there and see them being built. But it was awesome in the BMW museum, like I definitely worth it. Well, I don't know what else we did. We did so much stuff, right, did some parks, all the food we ate of all the places we ate, I thought the food was awesome, except for those potato dumplings. Those things are terrible yeah, they weren't great but the pork is amazing.
Speaker 2:The roasted pork is awesome, the pork knuckles knuckle is awesome the italian food we had was awesome because you know italy's like right over there. I will say what I found interesting, though, about germany is the food options in the bavaria portion are super limited. You get german, chinese or italian, that's it. You know, there really isn't fast food there. I did see mcdonald's and the kfc, but it's not traditional fast food where you drive through. There's no drive-through. If you want McDonald's, you go in, you sit down and you eat your meal.
Speaker 1:You don't bring with you.
Speaker 2:They don't have to-go boxes and bags for all the litter stuff. But what I mean by the food options being limited is if you ate at a German restaurant over here and then you went five miles over here in a different, completely different german restaurant, different owners, different company they serve the same stuff. It's just two different places. So even when you go to different german restaurants like your, options are still limited you don't get like different german food here, different german food here, you know.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was interesting, like my wife wanted a pierogi, you know. Like your wife had a pierogi. Tammy's like oh, let's go find some Polish food. We went to our hotel clerk. You know, hey, where's a real good place to get some pierogis or Polish food. She laughed. She's like what do you mean? I kind of wanted to try like a real pierogi. She's like we don't have Polish food here. Well, what do you mean? Poland's like right over there.
Speaker 2:Right there. Yeah, so that was interesting that it was food options were kind of limited there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Berlin is. We talked to one of the bartenders which, ironically, like the bartender in the bar, in the hotel apartment, it was basically an apartment, short-term rent apartment. We were there like four days but the bar that was kind of built into the same building we went to was kind of like a pop punk or not pop, like more of a punk bar. It was a little bit odd but it was still cool. It was a fun place. Bartender was super nice, easy to talk to, whatever.
Speaker 1:He was actually originally from Louisiana and ended up in Germany via LA and New York. So you know, he just is. He had a buddy that was opening the thing. He's like you want to come and help run the thing, and so he ended up in Germany. So it was a little bit of a different deal but a very American experience, I guess, from that standpoint, but in talking with him. So Berlin has a lot more of that. There's a lot more variety of Chinese and Italian and we actually, me and Amanda, went to Mexican one night Like there was a whole wide variety of different types of foods there and when I was asking him about that, I'm like it was a little bit surprising, like I thought it'd be a little bit more traditional, a little bit more narrow, kind of like that. And he said so the more the southern region of Germany is very narrow, focus for meal options.
Speaker 2:Traditional type.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but northern mostly because of adjacency to certain things, certain different countries, but Berlin especially, mostly because of the long history of the political things that they've gone through, through they tend to be a lot more of. That's where, like, migrants will end up, that's where they go.
Speaker 2:so if they're yeah.
Speaker 1:So if they're going from somewhere they don't go to, like munich or other places in germany, they all go to just to berlin, and so the wide variety of cultural options that are out there in Berlin is a lot more than pretty much anywhere else in the country, because it's just, it's such a more large melting pot of a lot of it is, you know, whether it's oppression or, you know, just fleeing the homeland or whatever it is, like these debts. You know people will come here and then they'll be here for a couple of years and then they'll move on and then they'll be. You know the Turks will come here and then they'll be here for a couple of years and then they'll move out and then they'll be. You know the Turks will come here and then they'll be here for a couple of years and then they'll move on, and then Italians will come here Like it's a lot more of that that goes through there. It's a little more.
Speaker 1:He said it's very progressive and forward, except for when it comes to technology, which is weird, because in my mind I think Germans a lot more forward with technology. But I did experience that too. Where it's like, the technology seemed like I'm like it's just like the nineties or almost the eighties not a ton going, but it was. It was really cool, you know it was. It was a little different. Yeah, it's a little bit different than than Munich from that standpoint, but it sounds like similar to Seattle.
Speaker 2:If you've ever been out to Seattle, anything you could possibly want to eat is in Seattle, and a large part of that is a lot of people from other nations and they immigrate. They end up in Seattle. So it sounds pretty similar to what you're talking about in Berlin there, versus where we were at in Munich or the Bavaria portion of Germany.
Speaker 1:So it's actually kind of a good little transition here is we again don't have a specific brew, we're just doing a moose head today. I shouldn't say just doing moose head, it's more of an homage to the very first episode that we did. So we're not doing, we're kind of talking about Oktoberfest and some of our past episodes that we've enjoyed and things like that. But to kind of change gears a little bit, looking forward, you mentioned Seattle, like that's where our friends that had sent us some beer from Germany Was it Spotten the optimator that we got there? But upcoming in the next handful of episodes, some of the things to look forward, we're going to talk about Kona. We're going to talk about and now I'm failing to remember what the name of it is but there's a grapefruit Hefeweizen that we also got from them out in Seattle that they had found some, that when we were in Berlin we were traveling around or whatever.
Speaker 1:Me and Alan were like we're going to stop and get some optimator, you know, while we're waiting for the girls to show up there. And sure enough, on the shelf was this grapefruit Hefeweizen which was phenomenal, it was very good. You wouldn't even notice it was kind of a wheat, kind of beer. It just got grapefruit out of it, but very good. But those are some of the things kind of coming forward I guess for some of the future episodes and, as Sean mentioned, get some people in here. We got the extra spot to be able to get in here with kind of the upgraded table and studio space that we have here, likely take our show on the road in a couple of different places, be able to go live on location to a couple of different places. Well, logistically he's got some things to figure out, but we'll be live out at a couple of different places and, yeah, lots to look forward to as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's about that. Yeah, yeah, we have another beer coming too, from a brother-in-law that gave it to us. I don't know the name of it either, but it comes in a wine bottle and it's from Denmark, and you actually have to pull a cork to get it out. So that'll be one other one coming up here soon too, in the mix anyways.
Speaker 1:And we've talked a little bit about. Even earlier today. We talked a little bit about some seltzers and the potential of maybe doing a seltzer review or some things like that. It's not going to be White Claw or anything like that, something like that, or even CBD beers, so we've also talked about that a little bit. About you know, having that involvement with this. So, kind of, we're wide open. So if you have any ideas, we have a lot of ideas and a lot of plans. But again, I think we say it most every time if you have an idea or a thought or something you'd like us to talk about or do the history of you know, drop it in the comments and put it out there and we'll do our best to be able to track it down and find out what information we can and try to be able to help you out on that one as well.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, anything else that you got, uh well, I'm gonna ask you one thing real quick because, it's happening. This episode will come out after it's over, but who you got Mike Tyson or Jake Paul?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm going to take Mike Tyson, mostly because I just hate Paul. I know that he keeps winning all of his matches and so I get that he's got some talent. And Mike Tyson is also. I think he's got his AARP card. Yeah, it was like 60 now or something. Yeah. But at the same time, like I don't know, mike Tyson seems like the guy that he could just take a punch, and when he levels one out at you, like you're going to know that it's there. So I'm going to say Tyson on that one. But again, I don't know that it's necessarily skill related, it's more I just hate Jake Paul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I hope Mike Tyson wins. I mean, age is quite the thing. It looks like from his training videos. He looks like he's really freaking bulked up man. He looks like the Iron Mike he used to be. But you are 60. Jake Paul's what? 25?, 28?
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's hard to overcome that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I still bet you, if Mike Tyson lands one, I think Jake Paul's going to be feeling it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I don't know that he'll go down, but he may take a step back and be like why am I in here?
Speaker 2:Okay, got to make sure I watch out for that one. Yeah, I got mike dyson too on that for sure, so that's this friday.
Speaker 1:We'll find out if we're right here soon, won't we? There we go, yeah, awesome, yeah, that'd be an interesting one to be able to watch. I'll be at the hockey game that I mentioned before, so, but, uh, got some tickets to some some hockey, so I have to work, unfortunately. Oh, man, you look sick already. Yep, opt, yeah, spot an optimator, stop, stop that. Yeah, negative meter. I'm making stuff up at this point in time. So, yeah, that's, you know, unless you got something else, that's our episode of, I guess, the episode of randomness. You know it's just kind of a recapping mostly Oktoberfest. You know it's just an absolute blast and you know I highly recommend it. If you have questions about the trip, you know, feel free again. Drop that in the comments as well.
Speaker 2:The old like, share, subscribe, tell your friends tell your neighbors, tell whoever appreciate all that one thing, oh one thing. We're gonna be in the magazine soon too, so watch out for that article. When that article goes live, we'll post that on our social media pages of minnesota voyager magazine. Yep, so we'll be in there here. We just did our interview last week. They emailed me back today and said maybe another week or so They'll let us know when it's live and published and ready to go.
Speaker 1:So by the time this episode comes out, likely it'll be up on there somewhere, it should be out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, minnesota Voyager magazine. So that's what we're going to be in, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'll be a lot of fun, a great opportunity there to be able to kind of get our voices out there, I guess, or our mean mugs.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Rough mugs. So, yes, that's our episode today. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, tell everybody about it, you know, share the episode, you know, and make sure you mention it and then give us feedback as well, you know, if you like the episode or anything with that, but then also ideas of future broadcasts to be able to different ideas that we're always open to be able to add things to it going forward, and if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast. You know, if you got, you know maybe a brewery that you are involved in or something like that, definitely reach out. So I like to be able to talk to everybody and not everybody. Some people respond, but not not always people do. So, you know, definitely reach out to as much as you can. So, but yeah, until then. I'm Andy Beckstrom. This is Sean Field, and until next time, Cheers.
