People of German speaking culture, hear my call!

[:| Hi]

I'm currently working towards minoring/double majoring with a degree in German. As such, I have to write a short paper about culture in German speaking countries, heres where you wonderful, wonderful people come in!

The assignment is to gather information from somewhere about the culture on a particular subject.

So you get to choose which you'd like to enlighten me on.

1. Beer - Who makes the best beer? What laws govern beer-making and selling?

and

2. Religion in the education system, is it there, do people frown upon it? etc.

If you'd like to ask about another subject, I have a whole page of them, I just picked the two most interesting. 


If you do reply to this, please add the area & country you are from and include your first name. If you don't want to include your first name, I will be fine giving you a fake name 0:

[Surfbird]

That's pretty cool, I'll see if I can help you out.

1. Relating beer, the most interesting law is probably the famous German Reinheitsgebot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot) which limits the ingredients to the classical basics of making beer and it's pretty old. Beer has a huge tradition in Germany, and there are tons of beer types and brands. Usually every region has its own beer, usually "Pils". As I am from Cologne I'll just tell you that our infamous "Kölsch" is the best beer, but everyone outside the radius of 100km around Cologne will disagree though We love it though and it's usual that you drink Kölsch here. They also sell it only in that ~100km radius around Cologne, in some cool pubs you get it from further away too though. Note that Kölsch is a real type of beer and it's being sold by a good bunch of different brands. All from Cologne.

Basically everyone has his own favourite beer. Often the regional beer type, but there is also a good bunch of beer of bigger breweries that sell it all over the country. Note that the beer in the North of germany is tarter for example or that the "Weißbier" or "Weizen" (wheat beer) from Bavaria differs from Pils type of beer. I recommend to come to Germany and test everything for yourself, there are big differences in beer and it's worth it

2. Religion in the educational system depends a lot on where you live. What I can tell you is that I had religion more or less permanently for 10 years at school and was able to choose philosphy instead after 10th grade. School ended after 13 years for me. (They change it for 12 years next year) They always tried to split the religion lessons into Protestants and Catholics, but because of the lack of teachers to do that we had ecunemical lessons quite often. People with other religions, were usually in the Protestants lesson, as it had and still has the reputation of being more tolerant.

Bavaria for example is a very Catholic region and on a lot of schools there religion lessons have a lot more importance than where I live. I am Protestant and we usually discussed the religious themes ina philosophical or social way. And we usually tried to do themes that make people with other religions take part properly as well, but that was teacher dependend.

First name: "Steffen" Location: "Around Cologne", North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

I hope this was more or less what you wanted to know, cheers

[hslan.Corvax]

Biggest difference between US and EU education system are the classes. You dont "take" classes like oyu know it, you "are" a class. Means you are stuck with the same people for 4-8 years, every class has its own classroom and the teacher comes to you, not you to his room like it is in the US. Imo that helps at building a class-community a lot and gives you a lot more social skills since you have to get along with people for hours every day in the course of several years, not like you guys only see some people for a few hours a week maybe in a particular class.

It has its advantages and disadvantages, but imo it excels at community-skill-training.

[:| Hi]

Thanks, you guys are awesome!

[DLFReporter]

Or relating to the class system you could also choose to write about our 3 pronged school system with main, middle and high school leading to the different possibilities in your worklife.
It's quite controversial (building class society etc.) but also works well in getting qualified people for every kind of job.
http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/germanschools.html

[[130.Pz]S.Lainer]

@Corvax:  Damn sure US schools are like that as well.  I left school in '95 (I think) and as I recall my K-8 education was with the same 13 kids in my class.  I think we did split apart a bit on math classes in my last year but otherwise it was the same kids all day long.  Things got very split up as I went to high school (8-12).  But on the average it was a mix of the same 120+ kids in assorted classes.  As far as religion in US schools I don't think we spent more then a day talking about the different religions in all my school years.  In fact the only mention of god that I can remember from my K-8 years was the pledge of allegiance every morning (I left out the god bit myself because it made me feel a bit uncomfortable  )

[Butcher]

1) Well, I think you can google about the Reinheitsgebot anyway. You are only allowed to use hop, yeast, malt and water in beer. Nothing else. This is why you can´t get Obamas beer that has honey in it as beer here.

Concerning the beer Surfbird is talking about. I´m originally from the area around Düsseldorf, 40 Kilometres north of Cologne and now I´m studying in Cologne. I can tell you that the beer "Kölsch" is (jokingly) frowned upon in Düsseldorf. You usually drink Altbier and some Pils around here. Neither will anybody in Cologne admit to have ever drunk Altbier. Reason for that is an old rivalry between Köln and Düsseldorf as carnival stronghold or big cities around the Niederrhein-area, also both cities have their own breweries and they want to sell their own local beer.

My buddies usually referred to Kölsch as "Pisswasser" because it´s not as bitter as Altbier and doesn´t seem to have a real distinct taste if you compare it. But now that I have drunken both beers I must admit Kölsch isn´t bad at all. It´s just the old rivalry.

Altbier is darker and more bitter. It´s drunken from normal glasses, while Kölsch is lighter and is served thinner and higher glasses.

2) Religion

I´m Catholic and in my elementary school and the secondary school we were seperated into catholic and protestant religious classes ever since. I attended religion classes from elementary school up until grade 11 (so I had religion for 11 years in school). It never was more than an easy grade for me. We referred to it as "Laberfach" - chatterbox times. Just put your finger up regularily and get an A. I really hated those classes, they were just boring. Later (From grade 10 on) on you could choose to attend philosophy classes instead but I was afraid it would turn out to be as boring as religion classes and somehow I got around attending both classes in grades 12 and 13. I think there was a possibility to avoid them by attending two language-classes, but my memory fails here.

What you could mention is the new introduction of Muslim lessons on some schools in Germany now. It´s in the german news at the moment. If you ask me, religion doesn´t even have a place in school. Neither the Muslim nor Christian. Kids get seperated from each other and people wonder why we have some parallel-societies. I would put all kids together into some ethical-courses (there´s also a discussion about this).

Hope I could help.

First name: "Martin" Location: "Around Cologne", North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. - Ha, I could copy paste it from Surfbird.

Edit: Out of curiosity; what are the other subjects you are going to write about?

[Slayer]

Biggest difference between US and EU education system are the classes. You dont "take" classes like oyu know it, you "are" a class. Means you are stuck with the same people for 4-8 years, every class has its own classroom and the teacher comes to you, not you to his room like it is in the US. Imo that helps at building a class-community a lot and gives you a lot more social skills since you have to get along with people for hours every day in the course of several years, not like you guys only see some people for a few hours a week maybe in a particular class.

Interesting. I'm not German, but since we're neighbouring Germany, I'd expected a schoolsystem which is somewhat similar. However, what you describe here as American is what we have.

You "are" a class up to 3rd grade. After that you are still a class, but you don't take all lessons with them, just the ones which everyone has, like English and math. Other classes you take with different groups.

In 5th grade you lose all aspects of "being" a class. It is really individual from now on. In the school I teach we have two types of education, one which is 5 years and one which is 6 years long (12-17 years old and 12-18 years old). Both are of the individual type from 5th grade on, with the difference that one has that for only one year while the other has it for two.

In our schools, classes go to the teacher, not the other way around.

[Aggroman]

I'm from the former DDR (East Germany), though I was born when the cold war was already over for a few years.

1.) About beer, in my region, near Magdeburg, we don't have a specific one around, but a various mix of all breweries around Germany. Though I guess our most famous east german beer is "Radeberger", which comes from Dresden.

2.) I came to school in 2000, and had to choose between religion class or ethics class in the 2nd grade. In my area, evangelic lessons are by far more popular than catholic ones. Also, it's open for everybody even atheists, because it's more about the human being and behaviour, kind of philosophy lessons I'd say. Parents ususally decide for the religion class until their kids are old enough to choose on their own, probably because it's known to be easy and relaxed (painting pictures of Jesus, lots of talk). I tried ethics class first, but changed in the 7th grade to religion, because it really was easier and a true "Laberfach" like Butchter already said.

[:| Hi]

Edit: Out of curiosity; what are the other subjects you are going to write about?

@Butcher, I only need to choose one of the topic from the list, there are ~25-30 topics. I figure beer and school would be the more interesting ones for you guys to help me with 

Thanks all!

I'm going to do it on the beer topic now, since I homebrew with my father (Also @Butcher, we are almost done with the obama honey brew right now actually ^^) I know plenty of the local ordinances and what not about it, now I know about the German ones too.

----------------------------------------------------------
So, next question, what is the best beer? 

[NTH]

Hoegaarden without a doubt. Best beer comes from Belgium, not Germany, write that in your report.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

NTH, shame on you

[NTH]

You are young an inexperienced Nighthawk and must be slowly released from the lying and deceiving womb that is known as "German beer culture".
It will be painful, there will be blood, but we must cut the zhee Germans free from the umbilical cord that is chocking their taste buds.

This must also go in your little report, Hi.

[|7th|Nighthawk]

Young and inexperienced. You got a point there I have to admit.

[Dukat]

In 5th grade you lose all aspects of "being" a class. It is really individual from now on.

[...]

We got the same, but usually starting at 11th grade (in the tripartite school system). Still, teachers have no own room. 11th, 12th, 13th grade take the available rooms of classes that are off to special rooms, like gym, chemistry lab etc. The only room for teachers is the teachers lounge. This results in teachers having to hurry between lessons when changing the room and causing them to be late all the time.


About beer then:
There are several ways to sell beer in germany. We have basically two price brackets, around 29 cent per half a liter or around 90 cent per half a liter.

As a brewer you either go for a good/extraordinary taste or for a low price. Of Course both together sell best.

And then it is a question of your turnover. Are you a very small business or a global player? Many of the 1350 german breweries are old fashioned, traditional and long term family enterprises with low quantity focussed on regional markets.

The big players in the business however usually compete on the level of sales prices. It is all industrialized here like in all other countries.

What makes german beer famous are the small local breweries creating good beers in low quantities.