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Gianni Brera, a well-known sports journalist, gourmet, not to mention lover of good wine, was away in Denmark for the world cycling championship when he discovered beer. Brera, raised in the cult of the strange god Bacchus, before this never had thought even for a moment about Gambrinus, God of beer. He later said: ‘Beer entered as an accomplice in the life of one sentenced to eternal thirst. I dilated myself until I reached the most logical adjustment to the new cult. I have celebrated Gambrinus in his most natural and disparate temples from Pilsen to Munich, Stockholm to Dublin?’ Many think that the origins of beer are in Germany. Nothing could be less true: it’s in the south that one finds the origins of beer, first in Mesopotamia and then in Egypt.In the future the world would divide itself in two: one of wine and one of beer, wine for the South and beer for the North. In good part this subdivision was due to climatic conditions rather than philosophical or sociological reasons. Producing wine in the North was impossible and to avoid being dependent on others for a drink of wide consumption, beer there became the brew successfully produced domestically. Beer contained alcohol but in lesser quantities than wine, which may explain why the former was drunk in greater quantities. On the other hand, the South prided itself on its privileged ability to produce wine. It was probably the Roman emperor Domitian who began the division of Europe into areas of wine and beer; in other words, into North and South. In fact he prohibited the cultivation of grapes in Gaul. Even today, if we talk about the France that produces beer we can above all take two regions into consideration: Lorraine and Alsace (which would be a little like saying Belgium and Germany). |
Who was Gambrinus? A mythical figure and symbol of beer drinkers. It’s not clear on a historical level who he really was. There are those who say he was a Flemish king who became a monk and later became bishop of Soissons. During a cholera epidemic the bishop noted that those who drank beer instead of water avoided the illness and suggested that everyone drink only beer. This advice met with great success and after this miraculous incident he became known as Saint Arnold. Others claim that he was the Duke of Brabant, Jan Primus, as might be suggested by the image on his tomb in Brussels that strongly resembles the habitual iconography of Gambrinus. Still others say he was Charlemagne’s master brewer. |
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