Joe’s Blog

Short answer to Mike - go to Franconia (northern Bavaria, in German: Franken). In Berlin, Becks seems to be the beer of choice. There is a beer known as Schultheiss but it was more of an old-mans beer. Berliner-Pilsner was a good alternative to Becks. I heard of Berliner Kindl too but can’t remember it being any good. Certainly didn’t try any green/red Berliner Weisse

Giving an uninformed guess, the beer in East Berlin was horrible and in West Berlin, you were happy if you had coal during the airlift. So a proud, continuous brewing tradition is unlikely. Even the new, hip, organic drink of choice, “Bionade” isn’t from Berlin.

The beer culture in Bavaria and Franconia is much stronger and even the wikipedia page reflects this EN. The German Wikipedia goes into more detail and states that Oberfranken (Upper Franconia) has more breweries than any other European country! Only the US (1383), China (420) and Russia (404) have more breweries but Oberfranken is much smaller of course and there are approx. 200 in Oberfranken and approx. 300 in all of Franconia). See:
Bierland-Oberfranken
List of breweries in Bavaria
www.franconiabeerguide.com

Looks terrible, tastes sinfully good - chocolate, biscuits, baileys, brandy, butter and some condensed milk. I finally got around to making it and thanks to Tom & family for the recipe.

PS: It looks very dark because I used plain chocolate, which I love, but it’s normally made using milk-chocolate

Val’s Kitchen has done a nice review of Donkey Ford’s - the famous eatery in Limerick


Last of the summer whines

and to find it - here is a map
View Larger Map

Giant Lego figure appears on beach

Turns out that there is a crypt worth visiting in Dublin - St Michan’s Church & Crypt via Elly and Maryrose

Also via Elly - Nokia Announces Battery Recall

GSpace - a firefox addon (not from Google) worth trying perhaps

Aaaah - the hippies are threatening our jelly babies! Next it will be chocolate…
UPDATE: Feic - the cost of chocolate is shooting up too;

Correct cheese coverage formation - a tip for the shop in UL?

Transport 21 has gone tits-up already - 2yrs delay for Citywest Luas after 18 months. Would Enda have stood for this? It wasn’t announced either - websites were simply updated…

Many other people have posted this but I was there too - John & Patrick Collison of Auctomatic share their experiences of setting up Auctomatic, ycombinator and Silicon Valley.


People were quite excited to be part of an interactive webcast too - we were getting feedback and questions from the people watching the live stream

The entreprenuers from Limerick that were turned down by EI and raised $400,000 in Silicon Valley at Limerick OpenCoffee on Thursday - Auctomatic

The butter mountain is gone, the Bavarians sound more agricultural than the Irish and milk is becoming a sought-after commodity - a very interesting article: Getting Milked

Via topgold - The New York Times asks is cutting food miles is really beneficial

And what can make Germans cut through bureaucracy and punctuality - beer; Train Halts to Replace Beer Tap

Pencil stuck in brain, mostly removed after 55yrs

Via George/Damien - Forget Transformers: “A Gentleman’s Duel” by Blur Studios
(UPDATE: content removed but google it if you can) or have a look at the teaser http://www.blur.com/gentlemans_duel.html