American microbrewers seem to add all sorts of flavors I guess because they're afraid people might not like the taste of ... beer?

I dunno. My time in Germany was almost 30 years ago (actually now that I think about it, it was 30 years ago - I got to Germany in July of 1987) so it was before the big "micro brew"craze here in the US.

When I was there, the one thing I noticed was that you didn't order by "brand" the way you do in the US (bud, coors, fat tire, etc.) Most of the bars only served one brand and that was whatever was brewed locally. In Ansbach, where I was stationed, the local brewery was Tucher. So you'd order whatever TYPE of beer you wanted, i.e. Pils (pilsner), Hefeweizen, Kristaller Weizen, Bock, etc, and they'd bring you the local variant of that type.

Kristaller Weizen was my favorite. It had the same flavor as Hefeweizen but where Hefeweizen was thick and cloudy, Kristaller was light and clear (hence the name.) Kristaller Weizen was normally served with a slice of lemon (Germans love lemons, they put it in lots of stuff and even mix lemonade half-and-half with beer, a drink called "Raedler.")

But other than the lemon slice (and that was only in Kristaller Weizen - no other beers got the lemon) there were no additions to the beer. It was just beer, and man, was it good!

During Lent (being as how we were in Catholic Bavaria) the monks would fast and to support their fast they would brew "Weizen Bock", which was almost as heavy and thick as syrup and black as night. But it was filling (we called it "liquid bread.")