Rothaus Tannen Zäpfle - Crossing the Atlantic

It is common for governments to own businesses.

There are state owned power plants, state owned oil companies, telecommunications and so on.

But in Germany (oh, Germany...) there are state owned BREWERIES! A very good example of such wonder is the Tannen Zäpfle Rothaus Pils, product of the Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus AG

Tannen Zäpfle - "Karlsruher gold"

Owned by the state of Baden-Württemberg, this beer is very easy to find in the city where I currently live, Karlsruhe. The metallic golden wrap which covers the neck and cap of this bottle can (sadly enough) be found spread around apartments, squares, train stations, universities or whatever place which has hosted a party or a "small social gathering" the day before.

That gave this beer the local nickname of "Karlsruhe's gold"... and by the price that a few clubs charge you for a 330 ml Rothaus bottle, the idea that there is some gold in it starts sounding actually quite reasonable...

It is a German pils, light and easy to drink, slightly more alcoholic than a regular pils (5.1%) and usually served in 330ml bottles as the one above

But although I've lived in Karlsruhe for some time already, this bottle was acquired years before, in Munich. At that time, I was not really sure about staying in Germany, and had to go back to Brazil to solve a few issues before making my decision.

So this bottle, together with approximately another 200 I had gathered in my two years of Munich, crossed the ocean to Brazil. It was not a smooth ride, the careless treatment from part of the mail companies and a strike of the Brazilian post offices contributed for the loss of around 20 of the bottles.

Moving continents is never easy... but I did it again in 2012, and came back to Germany. The bottles didn't come with me right away, my sister gently kept them at her place for a few years.

When it came the time to bring them, in January of 2015, I opted for a moving company to do the transport. This time, it was over 800 bottles being shipped to my new home in Karlsruhe.

The transport took months and I got to admit that, having the loss rate of 10% from the last time still in mind, I was scared about losing rare bottles in the process. When the packages finally arrived, I immediately started checking for broken bottles. After going over hundreds of bottles, I found a single broken one.

800 bottles, and only one was broken... not a bad number one would say, but if that was a rare bottle, the loss would still haunt me. I unwrapped it carefully, trying hard not to cut myself, and facing the dreadful possibility of losing yet another rare bottle...

But this is what I found inside the bubble wrap: 

A tragic loss... or maybe not

I didn't even remember that this bottle was in the moving, but I was so relieved to see the golden metallic sheet and the green lable emergin from the protective plastic...

Did I say relieved? No, no ,no... I meant DEVASTATED! So utterly devastated I walked 15 meters to the next bar and washed my sorrow away... with a Tannen Zäpfle  :-)

Cheers!