Ostrand also has an old boat moored on the river for sunbathers, although this one has no pool. Surrounded by more commercial beach bar operations - such as the fancy white leather of Strandgut beach bar and the pumping techno of Space Beach - it retains a homely feel with olive trees in pots, wood-fired pizza and a good mix of twenty and thirtysomethings and young families.
Real or fake, the best kind of beach is the sort that you have to tear yourself away from at the end of the day, gritty and giddy from sunshine and the odd bottle of passion fruit beer.
Yaam beach has this effect. Set up by a social worker in 1996, Yaam is a slice of the Caribbean in Berlin - it's not a tacky themed beach, but a real focal point for some of the city's immigrant communities with hip-hop, reggae and ragga gigs as well as basketball and volleyball for the teens who hang out here. "The idea is not, 'let's have a beach and drink cocktails.' It's a youth project. We want to bring people from different backgrounds together in a harmonious way," explains Lea Varnbuler, one of Yaam's managers.
This not-for-profit beach sounds worthy, but it's as fun and sandy as a beach should be. Set behind a graffitied slab of the Berlin Wall, you can swing in a hammock overlooking the river, as the sound of reggae drifts from the bar. The cocktail list is long and cheap - mojitos and mai tais are less than US$6.90 and there is also the peculiar charm of Dju Dju, a bottled beer from Ghana that comes in mango, banana, palm or passion fruit flavors.
I'm happy in my hammock but, sadly, it can't last forever. Berlin's property boom and rapid redevelopment is squeezing out some of the best underground beaches. Mainstream beaches like Strandbar Mitte will endure, but by next summer, the only sand on the banks of the River Spree may be for the foundations of office blocks and luxury apartments.
"It's like any city - the gentrification happens at a really high pace," says White Trash's Walter. Lea Varnbuler, from Yaam, also sees clouds on the horizon. "There's a lot of art and underground lifestyles in Berlin. They still exist now, but I don't know whether they will much longer because the policy is to tidy up the city." And at Bar 25, Kathinka fears their days are numbered. "We don't know if this is going to be the last year. The owner of the property wants to sell it," she says. "We're fighting it because we think this is underground culture, which is really important for Berlin."
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