AWEB#3 Dortmund Thier Beer

Or to call it by its correct name "Dortmunder Thier Bier".

I mentioned earlier that I grew up in a pub. As a kid growing up in the English school system of the 1960s I had to take the dreaded 11+ exam. This test was designed to 'skim the cream from the milk' and put them through the 'grammar School' system. I think it was something like the top 7 or 8% that passed.

I was unlucky enough to be included in this group! So I had to put up with 7 delightful years of learning stuff like Latin, Physics, math that only NASA uses, and, German.

The German teacher was an interesting character, and definitely not your usual stuffy grammar School master wearing profs robes. He decided that to get all us German learners into the swing of 'Sprechen Deutsche' he would find a comparable school in Germany and begin a Pen Pal thing. The English kids writing in German and the German kids writing back in English.


Based on some illogic that only he could come up with, he paired us up with pen pals. My parents owned a pub, so my pen friend was a boy who's father worked in a brewery (makes sense eh?).

The following year the experiment was expanded, we would do an exchange thing, 3 weeks in the others country. Us brits would go over the Easter vacation, and the Germans would visit in the summer.

What has all this to do with 'Around the World in Eighty Beers'? I hear you ask. Well, lots, it turned out that my pen friends father worked for the Dortmunder Their Braueri. And the Germans as a whole seemed to exercise a good deal of flexibility in their minimum age requirements for the enjoyment of cold beverages.

I liked Thier beer. Thier by the way is German for deer, hence the deer on the logo.

Dortmund actually had a number of different brewers in the 60s and 70s, but it seems like that number has dwindled of late.

As I recall we did the annual exchange thing for 4 years in a row. The absolute best part of the whole relationship was Christmas time.


Herr Zeller, my pen friends father would ship a 24 pack of Thier to us as a Christmas present. I'll bet we were the only pub in England that had had some!


It absolutely was NOT for sale, but if you knew me well, you might be able to pry one from my hand!

If you ever get the chance to try Thier, go for it, it has a light flavor and a kick like a mule!