Apple wine (generally called Apfelwein or Ebbelwoi by the locals – remember to pronounce the “w” like a “v”) is the most distinct drink of Hessen. If you hit up the beer gardens during the summer around here, you’ll find lots of tables loaded up with the “gerriptes” glasses, cut with diamond-shaped designs that are only used for this purpose (except in our house.) The glasses, like so many others in Germany, are specific to their drink. They typically come in a small (0.25l or 0.3l) and a large size (0.5l). Most of the time you,ll get the smaller glasses in restaurants, unless you’re ordering by the glass.

Yes, you’ll still find a bunch of people enjoying beers or one of the German’s beloved beer mixes, like beer mixed with Sprite or Cola (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!). But apple wine is the mainstay drink of this area, and while you can drink it all year long (and even find a spiced hot version around Christmas), I personally find Apfelwein especially delicious in the warm weather with a fresh WKS (Wurst-Kase Salat — a salad of thin strip of bologa-like sausage and Bauern (farmer) or Gouda cheese) and Bratkartoffeln (pan roasted potatoes). So yummy — summer just can’t get here soon enough!

A little bit of our homemade apfelwein

Apple wine is basically just apple cider. The best Apfelwein is made of the juice blend of a few different types of apples and fermented with yeast to create a drink of about 6% alcohol. It’s not the typical sweet apple cider that I grew up drinking as a kid in hot spiced wassail at Christmas. It’s more of an edgy, slightly rough and acidic drink that you often need to be careful with drinking if you don’t have nearby access to a bathroom. It can really clear out your system in hurry and mess up your stomach, if you know what I mean.

Hardly anyone actually drinks Apfelwein pure. Most of the time, you will find it being mixed with about 30% sparkling water (a mixture known as “Sauer” /”sour” or “Sauergespritzer”/“sour injection”). And the way they often introduce it to foreigners or newbies is with a sweeter mixture, using a lemon soda or Sprite, and sometimes even orange soda/Fanta. I was one of those people that went for the sweet variation for about our first year here. I tried the Sauer but somehow just couldn’t get on board with the flavor. But somewhere along the lines, perhaps after a winter of having not a drop of Apfelwein, the sour version just became more natural and better tasting.

Apfelwein is always served in a Bembel, a beautiful pottery jug that is usually decorated with blue accents. They come in a variety of sizes, but usually when you order a round of Apfelwein for the table, you designate the size of the Bembel you want by the number of glasses of Apfelwein that fit in it.  Most common are the “4er” (vierer) or “8er” (achter) Bembel, although some restaurants have massive ones which actually come on their own metal stand to allow for easier pouring.

I have always been a fan of pottery and I just fell in love with Bembels from the start. In fact, I even had one custom made for NOH!

A few years ago, during apple harvest season, we were trying to figure out what to do with all of our apples. We’d seen an old Apfelwein making basement at a nearby restaurant and knew that it shouldn’t be so hard to make ourselves. So we asked one of our homestead-minded neighbors who just happens to have several hundred apple trees of his own if he had any words of advice for us. He sells his own blend of Süssermost (unrefined apple juice) which is delicious and home distilled apple schnapps during the harvest season.

Long story short, he helped us get our feet wet with making our own Apfelwein and it is the most delicious apple wine I have ever tasted. The problem I have with the bottled stuff (Apfelwein is usually sold in 1 liter glass bottles in the stores) is that it has a very metallic aftertaste. But ours has a nice sweet taste which, I have to admit, has made me really spoiled. Thankfully, we still have about 20 liters of the stuff so we won’t have to worry about making more any time soon. Trust me, there’s another long post in there for another day!

So if you’re ever in Hessen, don’t forget to give Apfelwein a try. Most of it is produced in the area, which is an added bonus.

Have you ever tried Apfelwein? What did you think?

Want to know what other members of the German Blogger Stammtisch think about drinks in Germany? Click below to read their thoughts. In May we’ll be talking about “Parks”, so don’t forget to drop back by on the 15th.