Gambrinus Premium - Cheers to miscommunication!

Dear beer enthusiasts,

if you are a long time follower, or have perused through the older posts in this blog, you might realize that I have already written a short post about this 500ml beer bottle. You might also notice that this is the third different label for the same Czech 5.0% lager beer (in the old post, I uploaded a picture with two versions of it).

Regardless of how good a beer can be, I usually don't keep two or more bottles of the same beer, unless there is a very good story behind it. Yet, it was while attempting NOT to get this bottle again, that I ended up "ordering" it... but more on that later...

In my old post, I failed to underline that this beer is produced by the same brewery of her more famous "sister", the Pilsner Urquell.  I also stated at that occasion, that Gambrinus was the unofficial patron saint of beer, which is part of the legend, but not really 100% correct. 

There are different theories about who had actually inspired the creation of the legendary entity of Gambrinus, some of these theories involve dukes, counts and/or kings of the Flanders and Brabant regions, some involve Germanic kings and others even ancient Egyptian gods.

One of these stories caught my attention. It links Gambrinus to John I, the duke of Brabant from 1267 to 1294. Johns dukedom included the city of Brussels, and was a wealthy beer-producing jurisdiction. He was, it is said, very loved, and became an honorary member of the local brewers guild. The name Gambrinus would have been a corruption of his Dutch name, Jan Primus. At that time, such things were bound to happen, after all, communications were limited and writing was a privilege of few.

Gambrinus - or would it be "Jan Primus"?

Apart from the miscommunication that generated the Gambrinus legend, fact is that several breweries pay homage to both the legendary entity - Gambrinus - and to the former duke of Brabant. The Hertog Jan Browerij is named after Jan Primus, Duke of Brabant, and the Spanish brewery Cruzcampo based its mascot on Gambrinus, opening several pubs around Spain with the name of the legendary King of beers.

Now, going back to how I ended up "ordering" this bottle... It is funny to see that, many centuries after Jan had his name slightly altered, miscommunications still happen! Even if we have cell phones capable of reaching any major city in the globe almost instantly, we still fail to communicate properly.

It is so that Kai Lei Peng, one of the regular contributors to my collection, was in a trip to Prague, and asked me what beer I wanted from there. I said that I could send her a huge list, but it would be easier if I told her the ones I already had so she could simply pick any new one she came across... She asked me for the list - at which point I understood that she wanted the list of the Czech bottles I already had.

Without confirming that vital piece of information, I sent her a list of more than 30 beers, all part of my collection already, and she set off to get all of them with the help of two other friends, Angelo and Lei... The confusion was only clear to me when I got a message from her saying that she "only" managed to find some 15 of the beers on the list...

I then apologized to her for the confusion, and for all the stress I might have caused by sending her such an extended "wish list". I also told her that I would never abuse someones generosity to the point of asking them to bring me over 30 bottles of beer in one trip. She then asked me to at least make the whole ordeal into a nice story for this blog...

So here it is, Kai Lei, this post is to thank you for this and all the other bottles you got for me in that trip to Prague and also in all other occasions... moreover, I'm keeping this bottle in the collection alongside the other two versions of it :)

Cheers