If you always wanted to know why we serve Löwenbräu, what exactly happened to great-grandpa, why a strange animal with a cloth around its head is hanging on the wall and why the mirror in the men’s restroom is hung unusually high, the book “Drei Bier auf die Vier” will help answer these questions. It was written by the owner’s best friend, Maria Rossbauer. It’s filled with funny and serious stories about the founding of Klinglwirt and the journey to becoming an owner of a tavern.
This is how it all started…
If we would have known that a glass of mulled wine can change your whole life, we might have had a couple a while ago. Well, maybe we wouldn’t have because mulled wine pretty much tastes like sugar water with a teaspoon of grape juice in it. Sonja made a face after taking a sip on it. But it was our own fault, we shouldn’t have bought it from that booth which had plastic chairs in front of it. Let’s be honest, plastic chairs are always an indicator of something cheap. I’ve never eaten anything freshly cooked at a place with plastic chairs in front of it. I’ve only had ready-to-serve pizza, canned sausages or frozen French fries and I’m pretty sure that these places only serve the most watered-down coffee as possible. But the booth with the plastic chairs was the only stand selling mulled wine, and considering it was freezing cold, we really wanted to have one.
Of course, I had to be in Hamburg during one of the coldest winters in years. On the radio they said that the beginning of 2010 was one of the snowiest periods in decades. Sonja visited me anyways. She moved into my tiny room in my shared flat and slept on the floor for a few days before heading back to our hometown of Munich. Well, it’s not quite our hometown, but it is fairly close to it. Sonja is from Antholing, a small village south of Munich. I’m from Dürnhart, a small village north of it. Still, Munich was the place where we got to know each other, and we spent most of our time together. Pubs were some of our favorite places to meet up. Besides from drinking beer, wine or liquor, we mainly had to work in these pubs to finance our studies. Since I had trained as a hotel manager and Sonja grew up as the daughter of a pub owner, the work came easy to us.
We both worked at one of these pubs for over five years. While there, Sonja and I juggled plates of sandwiches, ham with noodles and huge salads through packs of cheering guests. We poured tons of glasses of hefeweizens, lagers and pilsners and generally just coped with the daily chaos. The best thing was when register that the waiters used decided to give up the ghost during the busiest time of the evening. These were also the moments when a waitress would generally trip and spill a few beers on a guest’s lap – or even better – spill a strawberry milkshake down someone’s shirt. That was also the moment when the guests sitting at the next table decided they wanted to change their order and asked if it was possible to leave out the peppers in the salad and instead add more feta and then, on top of that, ordered a small shandy and a mineral water instead of a soda.
Sonja and I tried to not freak out, we negotiated with the cooks, wiped the floor and tried to appease the guests who had been spilled on by offering them a schnapps for free. At the end of those types of days we sank down on the bar stools, put our heads on the counter and made stupid jokes with the last three remaining regulars. Nevertheless, we had fun.
After a few years however, I had a graduated with a degree in biology and Sonja in business economics, and it was about time to stop waiting tables. At least, that’s what we thought back then.
We won’t give any more away! Well, maybe a little bit more if you check the following link: http://mariarossbauer.jimdo.com/was-zu-kaufen/
“Drei Bier vor Vier” was published by Blanvalet Taschenbuch Verlag in November 2013. Of course, the book is available at Klinglwirt, and can be purchased in combination with a gift card. For all non-Munich residents go check out Amazon or any well-stocked book shops.