Munich rated fourth best city in Europe

Munich voted fourth best city in Europe according to this report from the bbc

Best cities in Europe

Frankfurt is top, Karlsruhe second and Paris third.

London was top UK city at number 23, with Edinburgh at 25

That's based on GDP only.

I've lived in Frankfurt and Munich is a much better place to live.

Calling Karlsruhe a city is pushing it... but there is a lot of tech money there over a large geographical area (the former Herr Indoors studied in Karlsruhe).
But hey, you can nip over the boarder to shop in France on Sundays!
The WiWi and IT departments of Karlsruhe University are considered to be amongst (if not the) best in Germany.
Frankfurt gets a high rating for wages due to banking, accessability (Germany's biggest airport), rents match too, crime can be high according to area but I really enjoyed my time there. So much so that I've lived there twice.
According to tbe BBC:

On what is this based?

Oh, I see, GDP, so is this a purely economic study? because I would have to say that Frankfurt has got to the the worst city i have ever had the misfortune to visit. But that's just me.

not just GDP - also crime, jobs, racial integration.

which makes it surprising Paris is so high!! Must have been written before November!

How the hell did Paris beat Munich?

Paris is a huge dirty sprawling city with huge racial problems, massive traffic problems, is populated in the most by Parisians, and does not appeal at all.

I couldn't ever live there... ever.

Munich on the other hand is a rocking place to live.

I love Edinburgh

Life was heaven on the D97

There are two surveys being discussed in that article, the one about english cities covers those other factors, but the ranking that you quoted was based on GDP per capita only.

Germany really is a very rich country, as the ranking suggests, it surprises me that so many people comment on how its economy is in ruins etc..

I would never want to live in Frankfurt.

Ideally, I would not want to live anywhere in Germany - well known fact that I only like the beer here in bayern, and moving to some other place where everything is German and the beer isn't even good, because its some fizzy piss served in champagne flutes that you have to wait 40 minutes for the jerk to pour it because the gas mix is fucked up (no, its meant to be like that, honest) - well, I would not wanna.

Oh cmon, the paper doily around the base makes it ok doesnt it?

I'd forgotten about the poncy doily. Scant consolation for the shite beer, but it adds a certain comedy element. Who says German have no sense of humour eh.

Say: "stößchen" and stick that pinky-finger out!

You can get Bavarian Beer in England though can't you?

@Bob K

Does that really surprise you, that Paris is populated mostly by Parisians?

Fair enough Frankfurt is top, regarding the GDP/race/economics. These polls would be vastly different if the topics were changed, eg: Public Transport, Air quality, Crime, Cost of Living...

you can get erdinger in bottles. the weizen designed for export ;-)

Its nigh on impossible to get weissbier in England these days. Waitrose used to stock and excellent one from Plattling, but no longer do. Safeway used to stock 3 varieties, but the business was taken over by some Arkwright corner shop owners from the north, and now its shit and only sells shite as a result. Sainsburys had one type of "speciality" selection last time I was back, and included a weissbier, but they only ever had about 6 bottle sin stock at one time, which hardly goes anywhere near satiating my breakfast thirst, let alone providing me with my requisite of shitloads per day. Tesco used to have a weissbier, but no longer do AFAIK, and no major off licences that I know of sell any. In fact, off licenses are going out of business anyway.

Funnily, I visited Cork last year, and you could get wiessbier in bloody loads of the bars. Barcelona now has it too, in many bars and supermarkets.

One of the problems with bavarian beers overseas, is that with no preservatives they dont last as long, so if theres less demand it ends up sitting around for too long and tasting off.

Groo. I think I saw it in Harrod's but it cost a shedload per bottle. Have seen it sold in the 'Beerkeller' theme pub in Blackpool (What a stag-do that was!) but it was odd no-name rubbish stuff.

I never really understand why people get so excited about Munich's relatively bland lagers. The range of beers in a single British pub or supermarket is greater than in the whole of Munich - you just have to know what to look for...

Anway, how did a thread about GDP end up on beer? Not that I'm complaining, mind...

Oooh, nice info Mr Kza - so let me make sure I understand the situation; I now have to drink all the beer I have left in my house before tomorrow, because it's gonna go off? Fuck me! Well, the wife won't like it, but I'm not seeing anything go to waste in my house mate. Ta for the heads up on that.


Edited by Admin: Information on weissbier going off overnight is pure speculative comment, mentioned to create a pitiful excuse to drink beer all night. Readers of this website should not take this, or any post by don_riina, in any seriousness whatoever. He talks fucking shite

Not really but it is a reason that Paris is not a nice place to be. I'm not as idiotic to suggest that the French are not nice people because they are not... I know some really nice Frenchies... But after they become Parisians they tend to take on some horrible characteristics...

Driving like idiots. (or like everyone in Paris does)
Unhelpful (like most German Check-out assistants)
Grumpy (probably mostly due to the fact they spent 2 hours in traffic this morning, and they know you live in Munich and are jealous)

This isn't really true; although there aren't any artificial preservatives, there are natural ones, namely sugar and alcohol. Pasteurisation is also very important. However, it is true that fresh beer is better, and the beer will be damaged if left hanging around, due to oxidation and light damage. But that can happen in a Getränkemarkt round the corner from the brewery; it's not a phenomenum unique to exported beer.

Think you can get a decent Weissbier in Threshers these days - a lot more expensive than in Germany, but I just like to think of that as a 'not having to fucking deal with fucking Germans surcharge'. Perfectly reasonable.

They sound just like Münchner.

It was indeed excellent. They used to run out very quickly though. Well, either Don_Riina bought it all up or I did

You can get Weissbier from Majestics in the UK
Majestics "speciality" beers

shite, but it's not bloody cheap is it? 40yoyos for a crate!

I'm pretty sure it's Erdinger in my local Threshers - I'll have a look next time I'm in. Just lately I've become quite a fan of Peroni and Kingfisher, but I can't seem to find Kingfisher that easily outside of my local curryhouse.

ASDA sell Weihenstephan, and Sainsbury's do an own-brand weissbier brewed by the excellent Meantime Brewery in Greenwich. The brewmaster there studied at Weihenstephan, so should know a thing or two about Bavarian beer styles.

I've got nothing on this weekend so I may do an experiment. If I remember my findings I'll post them next week. I also managed to find a boozer in the City that sold Erdinger - bastards charged me £5.60 for 1 pint. Almost worth it though.

Kinda spoilt where i live in sunny Manchester as my local off licence sells Augustiner and also loads of different weiszen too, us Northern boys know our beers

German Beer in Manchester

That site lists lots of outlets for German Beer across the UK, take a look and see if any near you.

Jimbo, get yourself down to Porterhouse on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden; they have Paulaner weissbier on tap plus half a dozen other Weissbiers in bottle. All in all, they have about 160 bottled beers to choose from. That's more than all the pubs in Munich combined...

I'm a Helles man usually and the pub next door to my office serves draught Paulaner so I'm relatively happy. I've also just discovered some local shops (thanks to BlueDave) that sell German stuff - frankly all I need now is a cheap BMW...what's that you say? 1-series? Like a BMW only not as good? I think I'll pass thanks...

The Pitfield Beer Shop has closed down though (lease ran out). Utobeer in Borough Market is the next best bet.

I have seen and bought Paulner beer in the U.S.(Portland Oregon) it cost about 3 dollars a bottle which is about a little over two Euros a bottle.

Beer here is so good that topics that aren't even about beer end up being about beer..

Couple of comments here...first off returning to subject, how the heck did Karlsruhe get #2 in all of Europe for God´s sake? It´s based on GDP ONLY, cause in any other category KA wouldn´t come close. I know KA well (did a few internships there), and to compare it with the likes of Paris, or Barcelona etc. is bollocks. It´s kind of a "hidden" city in that most tourists don´t even know about it. Thing is, there´s not that much there. It´s only a few hundred years old and so doesn´t really have the old world charm of nearby Heidelberg or Stuttgart. It´s known as the Beamten Stadt due to it housing the German Supreme Court and German Constitutional Court. They´re proud of they´re university like Katrina said and they also have a world class nuclear research center. Other than that they have 3 great beers, and a good S-Bahn System...talking about beer though, STB- sounds to me like you need to come back and visit Munich again sometime soon

So I can drink what, precisely, the beer brewed by InBev (Spaten-Franziskaner, Löwenbräu) or the beer brewed by Heineken (Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr)?

Sounds to me like you need to leave Munich again sometime soon!

Frankfurt is still better than Freising.. a lot more going on there.. :))

Though it is a kind of grey place compared to München... hm!

Frankfurt:
no Alps, no lakes.. just banks.. skyscrapers and women posing naked on the streets for magazines.. yes I saw it, just about 10 minutes from ECB headquarters.. on a warm Friday afternoon in August 2004 :-)

The top meets the bottom quite well over there.. probably more obviously than in München...

You know there´s more to Munich beer than lager:

Is the upcoming Starkbierfest bland? Or Oktoberfest? Both of which have non-lager style beers .

some people wake up n the 1st thing they can think of is BEER!!
amazing!
this western society..

Good morning. Coffee time, not beer time now. Viva la München, in any case.. I agree with that rating though I "watch" München only from a Freising perspective..

Well, assuming you define lager to be bottom-fermented beer, then most Munich beer is lager, stark or not. There's nothing wrong with that per se, my point was that, in the greater scheme of things, Munich beer is pretty average. Apart from Hofbräuhaus and Augustiner, all Munich beer is brewed by some global conglomorate.

And Oktoberfest does not have "non-lager style beers" - you've heard the story about the Oktoberfest beers being so similar that even the brewers can't identify their own beer!

And you repeatedly quote my point about the vastly superior choice in the UK without ever responding to it

And my point ís that there´s more to Munich than "bland" lager beer! Your definition of "Lager" is the English definition i.e. all bottom fermented. The German definition is somewhat looser and basically refers to bottom fermented, slightly hopped beers under 12% original extrakt. Oktoberfest beer is a variant of Märzen and not referred to as a lager beer.

So what if a global conglomerate is behind Franziskaner und co.? It´s still made here, I can still smell the wort boiling in the morning! I´m all for small and medium sized breweries, but to just write off the Munich beers per se is not really valid.

The vastly superior choice in the UK...well more on that later. Have class now.

You're misquoting me; I said "relatively bland". My point is that there are better examples of all the beer styles brewed in Munich to be found elsewhere in Bavaria. There are also more interesting styles of beer being brewed in Britain and Belgium.

I think thats pretty much an accepted fact - but for me whats important is being able to drink the "standard" beer without gagging. Now, I've been berated in the past for referring to Paulaner & Franziskaner as "stalwarts", which to me does not mean they are particularly special, but they are available everywhere, and taste alright; they're "standard". Compare that to the "standard" beer available in England (Fosters, Stella, John Bloody Smiths, all in cans) and you get to my view of buying beer in England - yeah, some speciality pub somewhere in docklands might have a pint of weissbier for me, but the train station cafe will certainly bloody not.

I understand what you're saying, but there's lots of fantastic beers in Britain. You just have to look beyond the 'standard' beers. But I accept that this is not always easy; you have to find the right pub.

Theakstons Old Peculier in The Laurel Inn Robin Hood's Bay. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Otter ale in the Drewe Arms in Drewesteighnton, Dartmoor. Class.