Loved reading all this
but I do have a question (or more). How come all the glasses that you were drinking from seemed smallish? I suppose that they were ten ounces? Is that what is the normal thing over there? It seems as a brewery is like a normal shop, just there in the middle of the street, not very wide but quite long. Is this a correct?
Like I said, loved the story!
The glasses are traditional in Dusseldorf and Koln - they're called a stange and they hold 200 ml. Not sure how common they are outside of this immediate geographical area but I didn't seem them in Munich. They're usually transported in a traditional circular holder which reminded me of the bullet-holding part of a revolver. I think they held something like 12 glasses. The waiter would fill the holder with empty glasses and then fill them by holding the entire thing under the tap and rotating it to the next empty glass once the one he was filling was full without turning off the tap. Sort of like how a gatling gun fires I suppose.
The glasses are small but the waiters (I know they're called kobes in Koln but not sure if that's true outside of Koln) are very efficient. You just have to give them a nod and you'll have a full glass in maybe 30 seconds. Actually, that's not entirely true. The general rule is that an empty glass is automatically replaced with a full one until you ask to pay.
In Dusseldorf I didn't see a waitress in the brewpubs. In Koln I saw one in Gaffel, but that was it. Only waiters in general. This was the opposite of Munich where I only saw waitresses.
You reminded me of something funny that happened in Gaffel. We arrived just before the lunch rush and there was a section of the restaurant/pub that seemed to be closed as the waiters kept ushering people out of it. I don't know why - maybe it was reserved for some large function? Anyhow, when they were occupied a Japanese tour group arrived, led by a young female Japanese woman carrying one of those "follow me" markers aloft on a stick. I've seen them here in Canada in Banff and Vancouver before - don't know if they're a universal Japanese thing or not, but I suspect they are. She led this very large group into the closed area and sat them down, then walked out to get the rest of the group. On her way out one of the waiters tried to get her attention (he was literally 0.5m behind her) but she didn't notice and kept walking. Then our waiter and this other one go face to face and start talking, both of them grinning ear to ear. Our waiter leaves, and the other one just stands there waiting for the tour leader to return, which she did shortly. He stood there with a huge smile on his face, saying hello to each of them in Japanese as they paraded past. He had come to the conclusion that getting them to move would be more trouble than it was worth so he sarcastically just went along with what was happening. The tour leader then went to the washroom, but the waiter thought she was on her way to get more, and he enthusiastically told her that there were still plenty of seats and that she should bring back even more people. He was positively dripping sarcasm, and it was hilarious. Just after this he called out to our waiter, who was across the restaurant, "Klaus! ....Mee-how!" It was very difficult not to break out laughing.
You're right, the breweries/brewpubs are usually quite narrow but very long. They'll often have a beer garden out the back too, especially if there isn't room in the front.
