Bad romance: Brisbane's Guiltiest Pleasure

When a friend of mine kept ranting on about how much she loved the German Club at Woolloongabba, I have to admit, I thought she was on crack.  Who wants to go to some European version of an RSL, eat substandard food and watch 50 year old German men sucking down beer?  It did not sound like my idea of a good night out.

After my friend finally succeeded in dragging me along to the German Club one rainy Friday night, I have to admit, it was a revelation.

After paying the $5 membership fee, we were ushered into a fairly crappy looking pub area with a few examples of the aforementioned 50 year old German men sitting around drinking beer.

Keen to start drinking beer myself, I moseyed on up to the bar to check out what was on offer, and can I tell you, I was delighted.  They had a fabulous range of German beers on tap including my most favourite of favourites: Erdinger!!!

This beer is the shit people. 

It's big, it's golden and it's wheaty.  I love these Bavarian cloudy beers that are big brash and bitter at the front but then have sweet and fruity aftertaste.  It comes in 500ml servings and basically there's a good night to be had right there.  The German Club seemed a whole lot more awesome after slamming down a few of these suckers.

And it's not just the beer that is big here.  In usual German style, the serving sizes of all of the meals here are ridiculous.  And I like it.  Case on point: the pork belly.

I mean look at this thing - it's a monster!  I thought it was going to take over the world!  With a belly full of beer it was a real struggle to down this plate of pig monster and so it was probably a good thing that I was sharing my dinner. 

The pork belly was not the best you'll ever taste, but by god, with a serving size like that of glistening, sweet, fatty pork belly you really cannot complain.  The other sweet surprise was the sour cherry sauerkraut.  It was so yummy!  I really can't go past the astringency of a really tasty briney sauerkraut, and the sour cherries just made it even better.  And this plate of deliciousness was only $21 - very impressive value for money.

My German Club indoctrinated friend had also espoused the virtues of the German Club's schnitz to me.  Again I had been skeptical - I mean who has ever had a good schnitz in a pub?  Or ever?  Too many times I've been scarred by a deep fried dried up piece of meat covered in breadcrumbs and labelled schnitzel and I've vowed "never again!".  But again I had to stand corrected.

OK so it looks like your average schnitz - and that side salad really is pitiful, but I'm telling you there is something in the crumbs!  While I've often found a pub schnitz to be tasteless, this one was bursting with salty savoury flavour - and the mushroom sauce was really delicious.  .

During our dinner we had been treated to some interesting sounds coming from the beer hall that adjoins the bar area.  These sounds were coming from a 50 year old German man in lederhosen playing covers up on stage at the front of the beer hall, lined with long tables and littered with drunk (non-German) people.

This man, known only as "Andrew" banged out some rock solid covers of everything from Lady Gaga to ACDC.  While I was dubious at first, the more Erdinger I consumed the more I liked it!  Andrew really had me when he cranked up Gaga's "Bad Romance" which had grown men toting wheat beer and yelling "Gaga ooh lala".

After a slow start, I had a rip roaring night out at the German Club and I will definitely be back to sample the mutant pork knuckle and drunkenly lurch to the musical stylings of lederhosen clad Andrew.