A Little History

So I mentioned yesterday that today I was going to share some of the knowledge we learned on the beer tour. I found the history of beer fascinating and of course the history of Oktoberfest made the weekend even more enjoyable, so here goes.

Brewing beer can be traced backed to the Sumarians as far back as 1800 BC, and was a large part of their culture as men and women as well as all social classes drank it. The recipes found (where they found them I will never know) are evidence they they used bread as one of the main ingredients and water, of course, as the other one. They also had a fermenting process and added their own special ingredients to make them different. As for brewing beer in Munchen the credit goes to the monks. St. Augustine Monastery is the oldest and first brewery in Bavaria dating back to 1294. The monastery was taken over sometime in the early 1800's as the monks walked out due to state control. A few years down the line a family took over the Augustiner Brewery and passed it down to each rightful heir. When there was no one left in the family to pass it off to the matriarch left it to the city with one condition, that 50% of the profits from the Augustiner beer sold in Munchen wold go to charitable causes throughout that city. So, if you want to feel good about drinking and Munich, you could always order an Augustiner and give back:) Of course there are other breweries that came about...the three other "originals" include Lowenbrau, Spaten, and Hacker-Pschorr. Each one of these breweries controlled Munchen's beer and kept all of their secrets in a beer ark that could only be opened when each of the four keys were present. The ark is still preserved today and it taken from it's place in the museum on Brewer's Day in May for that celebration that incidently happens in St. Peters Church...go catholics! Two other brew houses were added to the original's list, Paulaner-Brauerei and Hofbrau. These six brew houses host the tents at Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest began a long time ago when the crowned Prince Ludwig I married Therese. He wanted to do something special for her and had a horse race the day they were married in Oktober of 1810. It was a huge event that carried on year to year on the anniversary of their wedding. Where did the beer come from...I will tell you...

The state of Bavaria made at some point that only allowed brewers to brew lagers which can only be brewed in the winter. So the brewers had a huge storage cellar that the built under the earth so it would stay cold...along with the giant ice blocks they would cut from the frozen lakes. They also planted chestnet trees right above the cellar to keep the ground shaded in the summer. Their patrons would then drink their beer under the trees which then introduced the idea of beer gardens. (I though that was interesting.) Any way as the law would have it the brewers could only brew the beer from September 29th to April, so they needed to get rid of the backstock and they did so at the anniversary celebration of Oktoberfest.

Today, as I can tell you from experience, there are no horses. This is because in 1933 somebody (probably drunk) wondered what the hell the horses were there for! The beer clearly took over and we have something like we have now beginning in 1934. Now I will give you another example of what it is exactly that we have now...




Please note that everything I have just shared with you, I heard from a British guy, so it may not all be true. I hope you enjoyed what you've learned today...oh and there is more to come as I start German Language School tomorrow for 4.5 hours everyday for two months. So really what I meant to say is thar we have German to learn starting tomorrow. Until then,


Auf Wiedersehen