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| - We found ourselves back in this neck of the woods for holiday 2011, so we decided to take another stab at eating and drinking at Der Brau. I was happy to note that the restaurant now has a Facebook page that seems to be getting updated regularly and that they had posted and spread the word about their holiday hours, making it much easier to catch them when they were open.
Beer is a main attraction here. (They have a wine list too but we didn't look at it because we wanted beer.) We ended up with some excellent Hofbrau beer and had no complaints with that, but the selections they had on tap seemed to be limited, especially since several seasonals were already sold out with nothing replacing them. I guess this is a place where you really have to watch their announcements and time your visit to make sure you have the best beer selection.
The menu appetizers and entrees include many authentic German selections. We had the Wiener and Jager schnitzels, along with some excellent Hofbrau beer. Very few restaurants can do a decent schnitzel; most of the ones I've had taste like they were frozen and microwaved. No worries about that at Der Braumeister. Our food was very fresh and tasty. The sauerkraut was also excellent, probably the best I ever had. I would go again just for the sauerkraut alone.
I was a little disappointed in the dessert selection, which was limited to Bavarian cream (which I don't like in general), German chocolate cake (which is not an authentically German dish and furthermore tasted kind of blah), and cheesecake (again not authentic nor to my taste). Next time I will order sausage and skip the dessert. Also, our waitress was very young and on the impatient side, rushing us to order before we were ready and barging in on us a couple times while were deep in conversation. I got the impression most of their customers must be regulars who know what they want without looking too hard at the fairly extensive menu.
On the plus side, the decor in this bar and restaurant is very lovely, including woodwork, booths and large German wall murals. It was also pretty quiet, making this a nice place for a conversational dinner or intimate date.
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