Miles Collins

Drinking for England, in Germany…..

Back in the early nineties life was generally quite pleasant, my life had two constants; cooking and drinking and both to a professional standard. Chefs and beer is a natural combination like strawberries and cream, tomato and basil, Rene and Renate…In England we still had the agony of draconian drinking laws which meant you went like a rocket from nine until ten every night just to get to the pub before last orders when you crammed as much beer down your neck as the ten minute drinking up time would allow.

I took this mindset with me to Germany and it took a while to shake it off. After the first couple of dinner services from hell I was desperate to go to a bar and drink as much as it would take to forget where I was. Given the location of the hotel in relation to the rest of the town this wasn’t difficult, I could have drank lemonade and still not known where I was.

The first time my Head Chef invited me for a beer I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quick enough. I cleaned my section as though the world was about to end and I had been promised four minutes with Claudia Schiffer. Having won the world record for speed cleaning I said I would be ready in ten minutes which included a shower, he said he would meet me in an hour and a half which included a football match. I was dumbfounded, “11.30?” I asked, “Congratulations, Herr Collins, you can tell the time in German, it’s a start, I suppose”

I spent an hour and twenty minutes laid on my medieval bed going cold turkey, I had brought two bottles of Newcastle Brown with me from England but that was for the purpose of celebration or commiseration and I couldn’t bring myself to drink them at room temperature.

Finally, we headed out into town and into the local Greek bar which seemed a rather strange introduction to German beer drinking but I would have settled for a beer of any description by now. Chef asked me what I wanted with my beer, I gave my soon to be mastered dumbfounded look. “Er, a glass?” “Nein, Englander, to drink with it?” “What do I want to drink with my beer?” I asked, checking my lips were still there to aid the process “Oh, well, I’ll have two seeing as it’s nearly closing time”

Chef gave up and said something in Bavarian which would later translate into a shot glass of Satan’s fire water which would later steal my soul, liver, kidneys and those other vital organs, my legs. What I didn’t realise was that the Germans took a longer view of drinking, in the months to follow we would sit at that bar until four or five in the morning, order food at two am just to get sworn at by the cook who was half woman, half bloodhound with an over productive saliva gland and tell the owner how much we loved Greece.

Waiting for a beer to be pulled in Germany is like Chinese water torture for a chef. They must have done it deliberately, I used to charge in after service, half dressed, tongue hanging out shouting “Bier, bitte” and I always got the same woman, a hippy who waited for Saturn to orbit the Earth before serving you.

Whatever you order, draught or bottle you know it’s going to take twenty minutes to get it. I once asked the owner if he had a fax or carrier pigeon facility so that I could pre order my drink. He laughed and kicked me out. Heike, the Janis Joplin wanabee would watch me walk up to the bar and then strike up a conversation with a customer. Five minutes later she would look at me and lift her head, which was new age German for “Good evening, what can I get for you?” By now I’d been sat there so long I could barely remember my name never mind my beer of choice. Next job, wash the glass in boiling water, tip glass under pump and pour 5mm of beer. Leave to stand, roll a cigarette and resume conversation with anyone but you. Serve somebody else, take a food order, return to glass and half fill. Light cigarette, smoke and flirt with anyone but you. Return to glass and finish pouring, glass should contain 5% beer and 95% foam. Watch me finish the beer in two minutes and raise the glass in her direction before ignoring me for another five minutes. Repeat nightly.

Chef obviously wised up to this long ago which is why he always ordered a campari and orange at the same time which slowed his beer consumption down. I couldn’t bring myself to drink campari in public or anywhere else for that matter. I listened to Motorhead and lifted weights, he may have looked like a girl but at least he was drunk.

One evening as I moaned about about getting jet lag in between being served chef said to me, “Typical Englishman, you have an island mentality” and it struck me that I had. In England we were, still are, so far behind the rest of Europe when it comes to going out it is embarrasing. Back then everyone thought of the English as beer swilling football hooligans and some still do. England seems desperate to adopt a cafe culture society akin to the rest of Europe but there is an entire generation brought up on an eleven pm closing time law which has more to answer for than one might first think.