How does one order a BIER beer in a pub?
BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
41–49 of 49 posts
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#42This would only be truely anti-establishment, if multiple companies were doing it using the same brand without any brand protection. Lack of branding is still a brand...
Some of the profit is used to fund "Bewegung für Inhalte, Entschleunigung und Reduktion (B.I.E.R. e.V.)" (loose translation: movement for substance, deceleration [think 'Slow Movement'], and cutback [0]. One of their planned activities is to buy outdoor billboard ad space and offer it to artists for free.
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#43In your average German bar you have maybe 2-3 choices of beer. In the south you say 'zwei mal helles', the north 'zwei mal pils' but throughout 'zwei mal bier'.
bier bier is around 3.50 in a club, so 0.20 more than the next pils, you pay for your laziness.
('mal' meaning 'times' is used instead of a plural)
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#44This would only be truely anti-establishment, if multiple companies were doing it using the same brand without any brand protection. Lack of branding is still a brand...
"One cannot not communicate." - Paul Watzlawick
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#45Reminds me of the movie "Repo Man." Harry Dean Stanton says "let's go get a drink." They go into a quick mart and they find six packs of white cans labeled "Drink" and that's it.
Generic beer really was a thing in the US.
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/general-generic-beer/7987/
I don't know if generic "Drink" was real or a projection of generic beer.
Dunno if it was intentional or not, but this was Mike Nesmith using the "cheepnis" concept Zappa developed in a different way. Zappa meant cheezy rubber-spider horror movie artifacts; I'd say Nesmith was identifying the permanent recession as a driver for punk culture.
It also has overtones of "victory gin" from 1984.
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#46Of course, that becomes just another brand gimmick, right? It would be interesting to see what would happen if another company started using the same packaging to make a clearly inferior (or even just different) beer. Last thought: reminds me of repo man (the one from the 80s), a great movie you should probably go watch right now, I mean come on, it's Sunday, relax.
Germany has VERY strict laws on what can go in beer - which means its all high quality but rather bland when compared to Belgium which has much more variety.
Even within the confines of water, grain, yeast and hops there's a ton of variation possible in the resulting beer.
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#47In your average German bar you have maybe 2-3 choices of beer. In the south you say 'zwei mal helles', the north 'zwei mal pils' but throughout 'zwei mal bier'. bier bier is around 3.50 in a club, so 0.20 more than the next pils, you pay for your laziness. ('mal' meaning 'times' is used instead of a plural)
I don't think I'd ever use that 'mal' phrasing. It would have to be "2 mal ein Helles" [~one light beer, twice] for it not to sound totally off to me. But "1/2/3 Helle[s]/Bier/Halbe[s]" [normal plural] is what I'd say. (I'm from Franconia.)
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#48Back in the late 1970s, one saw "generic" products in the store--the movie "Repo Man" has some allusions to this. I remember my folks buying "Generic" beer; I took it, from the shape of the bottles, to be Falstaff. But that may have been the case only with the supermarket chain where they shopped.
Re: BIER – Berlin’s no-brand beer
#49Meh, Quartiermeister is more fun — selling beer to fund community projects: http://www.quartiermeister.org/en/