Baltimore’s rich history over the last few hundred years has been the ultimate melting pot of various ethnicities, and cultures. While Greektown and Little Italy still exist, there are many others that have slowly faded over the years, including the Fell’s Point Polish Community, Baltimore’s China Town, and the vibrant Corned Beef Row in Jonestown.

Unfortunately, the German community is another one of those that has faded in recent years. Their contributions to the city include Sour Beef, which used to be Baltimore’s unique take on a German Sauerbraten, that was handed down from generation to generation. Even as of a few years ago, there were still restaurants in the city that offered it, but today, you can only get it once a year at Zion Church.

Zion is a Lutheran Church that was formed in 1755 and has been a cornerstone of the Lutheran community ever since. They still offer church services in German, and act as the German church of the city. I actually came across this event earlier this year when I was looking into the Polish community in Fells Point, and marked it on my calendar as something I had to go to.

The first time I went to Zion, it was for a Baltimore Rock Opera production in their large Adlersaal (auditorium), which was used as the Bavarian Beer Hall this time. The church is nestled between City Hall and the Jones Falls Expressway. Its easy to imagine a large German community forming just on the other side of the Jones Falls River, and living close to the church and downtown Baltimore. Today, most things to the east of the expressway and north of Fayette are a little blighted, but Zion Church most definetly is not. Walking in the gated garden almost takes you away from the rush hour traffic surrounding you and feels very private. If you walk past the church door, you can walk through a little breeseway with memorials of members that have died over the last 262 years.

I understood that the sour beef dinner was the church’s way of celebrating its German heritage, but I had no idea how much it would be doing so. Upon entering the Adlersaal, I was greeted with many people dressed in German garb, and a live beer hall music. I was waiting for my neighbor Janette to get there, and so I had a chance to enjoy the music for a bit before eating, and it was a spectacle to be seen. There were only two members of the band, but they seemed to rotate through a bunch of different instruments. The lady was always on the accordian, but the guy went from singing to playing a tuba-like instrument, to playing a trumpet, and then bringing out a horn and cowbells.

The horn was the kind I think of in Ricola commercials, and was the picture that I used as the header. In Germany, it was used to send messages from one mountain to another. When I think of them, I picture someone just blowing a long, single note. But this guy was making a range of sounds, and doing it all with his mouth as there are no fingerings like you would have with a trumpet or clarinet. It was really quite impressive as the melody was quite fast paced. This was no foghorn, but was being played with a finesse that was very unexpected.

The real treat of the night was seeing him play the cowbells. I took a video because I knew that I would not be able to do it justice by describing it, but it was like playing a keyboard (where you need sustained notes), but still being able to play many notes at once and move through the notes quickly. The coordination, speed, and dextarity was unbelievable. Watch the video.

After setting the bar so high with such great entertainment (and a german beer to boot), the standards were high for the sour beef. Baltimore lacks really good German food, as we only have a couple German bars in Fed Hill and South Baltimore that focus more on the German beer, and less on the German cuisine (in other words, its bar food with a German theme). My beautiful wife has made German food before that has been passed down from her German grand parents, but we had never done anything like sour beef. Yes, I worried that it would be sour like a sour beer. I didn’t know what to expect, but figured that I had to do it this week if I was going to do it this year.

And it was good! The sour beef was not really sour, although it did have a certain flavor that you would not find in roast beef that could be described as slightly briney. It was very tender and fell apart easily like a corned beef. It came with potato dumplings that had the consistency of a dough, while not tasting like it. Although, the main role for the dumplings was to act as a vessle to pick up more of the sauce that was on top of the sour beef. The red cabbage and green beans finished off the meal in a way that made the meal feel like a German grandmother was feeding me.

The meal was topped off with a cake that was similar to a coffee cake, while still having some quality that was hard to put my finger on that made it different. Was it some kind of fruit that was baked into it? I am not sure, but it was very good.

The whole evening was a great experience, with the food being only a part of the reason that it was so great. Between the exceptional entertainment, the food from a Baltimore that is long gone, a quality German lager, and good conversation with my neighbor Janette, it was a great evening.

If you want to take part in this, you will have to wait until this time next year. Sure, you can go to Edgewater to get sour beef from the Old Stein Inn, but to truely experience a taste of a long gone Baltimore, there is only one option.