Faust brewery - Auswandererbier

Dear readers and beer enthusiasts,

as I told you, during the 3 years gap in this blog, my collection went over 1000 beers... This event didn't go without notice! It was celebrated in June 2014, among friends from several different nationalities, several of them, immigrants.

With the exeption of a Brazilian who came from London, all of them have immigrated to Germany... we had an Italian and an Ucranian coming from Munich, a Mexican coming from Berlin, a Turkish who lives in Frankfurt, a Croatian who built her life in Karlsruhe, a Chinese who now holds German nationality and, finally, me, a Brazilian host who had been in Germany for almost 5 years at that point.

But why the hell I am telling you about this whole mess of immigrants gathered in a house, drinking beer and celebrating? Isn't this the story of the 1000th beer bottle?

No, it isn't.

My German-speaking readers might have already realized where I am going with this... the name of this beer - Auswandererbier - translates to "The emigrant beer" and the numbers printed below it - 1849 - represent a very specific year in Germany.

1849 was a hard year in Baden

It is the year when a Democratic revolution was supressed by the Prussian Monarchy, in events that later led to the creation of Germany in 1871.

Due to the monarchy persecution, in between the years of 1850 and 1891, around 4 million Germans emigrated to the USA, in between those emigrants, was August Krug, whose father owned the brewery "Zum Weissen Löwen", today known as Faust brewery.

His father, Anton Georg Krug, created this high alcoholic beer for his son, adding extra hops so it would last the ship trip to America. Later on that year, Anton sold the brewery and followed his son to the USA.

Nowadays, Faust brewery pays tribute to its previous owner and his son through this 8,0% alcohol ale, made with both American and German hops.

Auswandererbeer - Emigrant beer

Today, less than one and a half centuries after the revolution and the german emigrating movement, Germany is one of the preferred destination of emigrants and the 3rd country in number of foreign students. It is not weird if it was then drank by a multinational bunch, in a celebration in Karlsruhe, less than 40km away from where one of the last revolutionary fortresses (Rastatt) fell in 1849...

I have quite some simpaty towards this ale, once I am myself an emigrant (one that happens to love extra hoppy beers!) and I can just imagine how hard a German emigrant would miss good beer in the USA at those times...

Just as a follow up, this was the 999th bottle of my collection, the story of the 1000th comes next week...

Cheers!!!