Jacquie & Michel - A beer with a suspicious label

Dear beer enthusiasts,

It has been a while since my last post... and I have no excuse for that, I have many beer-related stories to post, waiting on a small post-it wall behind my door!! For that, I sincerely apologize.

But sometimes all you need to trigger your creativity and kick you back into posting again is a really good beer or a really unusual and random story. This post was triggered by the second one...

This story starts with a couple of friends visiting the Loire Valley, in France. As usual, my american friend Susan and her French husband Christophe went the extra mile to get me some regional brews. They ransacked beer sections of unaware supermarkets on their way, bravely resisting the will to get Belgian ales and wisely ignoring all mass produced French brands (like Kronenbourg), keeping the sole focus on finding beers that would definitely be new to my collection.

On their rampage, Susan found the following 330ml bottle of a 5.2% alcohol lager beer, under the name of Jacquie & Michel... the label states that this beer was produced specially for the SARL Beer Market, but is a bit suspicious, as it says nothing about the brewery which actually did it

Jacquie and Michel - Find all the clues in the label, your suspicions might be right!

The label brings yet another suspicious statement in French. With my limited ability in that language, I could get something like: "a blond beer which is docile at first but has a strong character, and that it pays tribute to the fans who help to maintain the myth alive"

The translation was confirmed by Christophe, once Susan's French is also a bit limited, but he swears he was not aware of the purchase of this specific beer... Susan confirmed it.

The amount of X's in the logo, together with the lipstick kiss mark under the name of the beer made all of us even more suspicious about the nature of the above mentioned "myth" and its supportive fans. A quick check on the website indicated on the back of the bottle and Voilá! Our suspicions were confirmed.

This is a beer specially made for the fans of an, apparently, famous French porn website.

I say "apparently" because Christophe seemed honest enough when he said he never heard of that site before, and I suspect he would have no reasons to lie about that (call me naive if you will...)

I erased the addresses from the label because I am not here to promote porn sites... The only thing I could promote is the beer, but I have to say that it was actually not a very good beer (I'm trying to be positive here!) just the smell of it reminded me of the mass brews you can find in the US and Brazil, filled up with non-malted cereals (namely corn and rice) to make it cheaper.

I am not 100% sure that this beer contains corn and rice, but the fact that the only thing stated on the ingredients is "contains barley malt", makes me incredibly suspicious that I might be right, once it doesn't necessarily denies my initial assumption. Also, as I learned when I ended up inadvertently visiting a French porn website, my suspicions are not always fruit of pure paranoia or of my nasty, dirty mind.

Thank you, Christophe and Susan, for yet another interesting story for my blog, I promise that all the other 8 bottles you brought me (all much better in taste that this one, I must say) will also get their recognition :)

Cheers!

500 years of Reinheitsgebot

Dear beer enthusiasts,

on the 23rd of April of 1516 the Reinheitsgebot was signed in the city of Ingolstadt, a few kilometers north of Munich. That happened roughly 10 years after the end of the Landshut war of succession, during which, Bavaria was divided in two factions,

That law summarized the previous regulations created individually in many cities throughout the duchy of Bavaria. And nothing better to help unify Bavaria than making official through the whole duchy a law that protects the purity of beer!

Representation of a text extract of the 1516 Reinheitsgebot

Yes! Previous to the purity law, many have attempted brewing with different, odd ingredients, some adding potentially dangerous herbs and even mushrooms to their beer. So the purity law stated clearly that, from that day on, only barley, water and hops should be used to produce beer. Any conscious attempt to use different ingredients, would result in the confiscation of the barrels produced.



But why limiting the used of malted grains to only barley? Nowadays, many breweries around the world use cheaper malts (for instance, rice malt) to bring their costs down, and that represents a big drop in quality for the consumer... but that was not the reason back in 1516. At that time, it was important for the cities to stock on wheat, rice and rye. Those grains should be used to feed the population and avoid famines like the one in Nuremberg in 1393, and not to produce beer.

Also, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot regulated the volume of a "Maß" (1,069 liters) and the price to which it should be sold depending on the type of beer and season of the year.

So, it is pretty clear that the law made sense at that time... but does it sill make sense 500 years later?

To answer that, we have to take into consideration that many things have changed in 500 years, economically and technologically speaking. Here are just three examples that should leave no doubt about that:

1 - Fermentation was discovered.

That means yeast had to be included in the list of allowed ingredients, because that is a lot more hygienic than adding old beer to the brewing process for "good luck"! (YES! That is what old time brewers used to do back when people had no idea about how the fermentation really worked)

2 - Agriculture technologies and logistics advanced quite a lot since the 1500's

There is no need to limit the use of grains to only barley. Wheat and rye can be easily used to produce beer without risking a local famine or a global shortage of bread.

3 - Economics and capitalism.

Feudalism is over, and most states no longer regulate the price of beer, prices are now determined by the global and local markets. That part seems to be very well understood by breweries nowadays, even those who claim to abide to the 1516 Reinheitsgebot.

As the times changed, the laws also changed, that's what we call progress. Nowadays, many legally produced types of beer don't follow the old 1516 regulation anymore... care for some examples?

Milk stouts, for instance, have milk sugars (lactose) in their composition, which help achieving the high fermentation needed to produce this very exquisite type of beer.

English Milk Stout

Many Belgian Ales have herbs and spices in their recipe, which give the beers their unique taste, and brought Belgium the fame of one of the best beer-producing countries in the world

World famous Belgian ales

Last but not least, weissbiers contain wheat malt, and are among the most traditional beer types. Schneider & Sohn produces solely weissbiers (and very good ones), they are a very traditional and respected brewery and are ironically located about 30 km away from Ingolstadt, where the law that prohibited the use of wheat malt was signed!

Schneider & Sohn - Producing Weissbiers only!

It is quite clear that, today, a beer does not need to follow the 1516  Bavarian Reinheitsgebot to be tasty.

The breweries that claim to follow that old rule do this mostly for marketing purposes... after all, no modern brewery wants to have their prices dictated by the state, and if you ever visited Oktoberfest in Munich, you know that what they call a "Maß" is poorly drafted and barely amounts to 1 liter, much less the 1,069 l determined by the 1516 law

Nevertheless, despite of all my argumentation about how this law doesn't make sense anymore in modern times, the 500th anniversary of the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot is still a date to be celebrated. It's undeniable that the enforcement of such a law did make sense back then, protected the consumer and helped popularizing beer even more.

There were some other, not so nice, consequences of the enforcement of this law, which I mention in a previous post, but you can't really blame those who created the law for that.

For all that it matters, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot was created with the noble goal of ensuring the production of good beer! Therefore, its 500th anniversary should be celebrated with a glass of good beer!

It doesn't matter if you do it with a tall glass of Weissbier, a pint of stout, a 500 ml bottle of Roggenbier (rye based beer) or a Maß Helles produced accordingly to the old law.

To the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, and to all good beers!

Prost!

Cruzcampo - (not so) Sponsored content

Dear beer enthusiasts,

no, Cruzcampo is not paying me to write this... unfortunately I'm not quite there yet :P

While many news websites take in donations in exchange for writing articles which are dubious and might mischievously lead the public to buy a product or somehow benefit the sponsor, this blog takes a much simpler approach on sponsored content.

It works like this: You bring me a beer bottle (full, please) that I don't have in my collection, and you get a post here. The post will, in all manners, reflect my honest opinion, "sponsored" or not... pretty simple and straight forward stuff, no hidden intentions :)

That being said, let's get started!

Cruzcampo is one of the most sold beers in Spain, founded in 1904, the brand used to belong to the Guiness group (which acquired it in 1991) but since the year 2000, belongs to the giant Heineken conglomerate. Its brewery is still located in the region of Sevilla, although it was moved from its original location inside of the city, and had its offices moved to the Spanish capital.

Cruzcampo - the "I can't believe you haven't got it yet" beer

This 330ml bottle filled with a 4,8% Pilsner is a common sight in that region, nevertheless, I had personally never had the opportunity to acquire one of them, until I met Ana Conde Ramirez, from Sevilla. In a brief conversation about beers (my favorite subject) she mentioned her hometown beer. She seemed very amused by the fact that I didn't have it yet but also slightly offended by the fact that other non-sevillian Spanish brands - like San Miguel and Estrella Damm- were already known to me.

She promptly took action, and when Victor - her boyfriend - came to visit, he brought along a bottle of their red labeled local brew.

You might have noticed the man in red attire holding a beer mug in the label, that would be Gambrinus, the official Cruzcampo mascot (and unofficial patron of beers). You can read a bit more about him in our last post and also by clicking here.

Gambrinus as Cruzcampos Mascot

While many breweries around the world pay homage to Gambrinus, Cruzcampo took it up a notch when it comes to the commercialization of the name... the old brewery installations in Seville host today the "Gambrinus school of hostelry", and you can find a big chain of restaurants all over Spain called "Cerveceria Gambrinus", which proudly serves the Cruzcampo beer.

Now, although Gambrinus has been Cruzcampos mascot since the brewery was founded in 1904, I wonder how many Cruzcampo customers know the story behind the name "Gambrinus", and how much profit has this names commercialization brought to Heineken...

But who am I to condemn branding and commercialization... here I am, writing "sponsored" content :)

Thank you again Ana and Victor for contributing to the growth of my collection

Cheers!

PS: at the moment of this posting, the Cruzcampo website was flagged by my browser as a malware source, I will therefore NOT post the link to the website here. I like to believe that Cruzcampo is a victim in this case, and will edit this post as soon as their website is cleared.

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

Schwechater Bier - To my anonymous contributers

Dear beer enthusiasts,

I have many people to thank for the diversity and size of my collection. Many good friends remember me when they see a new beer. They go through the trouble of packing full bottles in their luggage, carrying extra weight around in their backpacks during their trips or even bothering their friends and relatives to bring me some beer from their region.

While these good friends (it would be unfair to cite names here, I'd unavoidably leave someone out) have a special place in my heart, today's post is not about them...

This post is about all the strangers who, upon hearing about my collection for the first time, felt compelled to contribute with something, and effectively did it!

Although my mother told me many times not to get candy from strangers, when it comes to beer, I tend to trust the generosity of people, as you might already have realized when you read the San Miguel story at a jazz bar in Düsseldorf, ... besides, no one would try to kidnap a broken grown-ass bearded man...

Even better than in that jazz bar, this time, instead of a massively distributed Spanish beer, I got a much tastier brew from a local Austrian brewery in Schwechat, in the vicinities of Vienna.

Schwechater Bier - Accepting beer from strangers

Although this brewery has been standing there since 1632, it was only last time I visited my sister, for 2015-16 new years eve, that my brother-in-law made me aware of the existence of this 500ml bottle of 5.0% lager beer . Needless to say that I felt immeadiatly compelled to get one for the collection...

Once in the brewery's shop, I was made aware that I could not purchase individual bottles, only crates. Faced with indecision in between the two options available and with the inability to carry one crate of each back home, I told the store clerk the reasons behind my request for a mixed crate.

His first reaction was to make me repeat the number of bottles in my collection, so to be sure he heard it right. After that, and also after inquiring me "where the hell do you keep all of those?" he offered me a quite generous deal: 

- I can't sell you a mixed crate, but you gotta go back home with both of them, so I will just throw in an extra bottle to whichever crate you buy... call it a new years gift!

This small, kind gestures are priceless... gifting me a bottle of beer definitely doesn't bring the clerk anything, and it's just a small sacrifice from his side when compared to the value that a new bottle has to my collection

The fact is that he heard my story, judged it to be honest and true (and not only me trying to get things my way) and was happy to help as he could.

As of me, happy with the two newcomers (the other beer will feature a different post, in the future), I also told him about this blog, gave him the web address and told him he'd probably feature in a post.

To all my friends and strangers who contributed, your post will still come, I promisse :)

To the clerk who went the extra mile and threw in a free beer: Thank you! I can't remember your name, but I hope you read this!

Cheers!