Greetings, beer lovers! Happy (more or less) Friday, and after a long hiatus (not that anyone noticed), ‘tis chingchongchinaman as your semi-friendly neighborhood guest FNBB blogger for this evening, with esquimaux taking a well-earned night off. Since today is the 252nd birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, self the loser wondered if a beer existed somewhere with Beethoven’s name attached to it. A search of teh interwebz revealed one such brand. Fittingly, the brewery in question is based in Bonn, Germany, the birthplace of Beethoven, the one city that would be allowed to get away with putting Beethoven’s face to a beer, IMHO ;) . The brewery is out of the Ennert Bräu Restaurant, specifically the establishment’s in-house brewery. Their page dedicated to “Beethoven & Ennert Bräu” translates as follows (since this is a translation, 3CM the loser thinks that fair use of extended text isn’t a worry):
“Beethoven & Ennert Bräu
Our very special beer
Pure beer craftsmanship - craft beer from Bonn Pützchen
Basically, all our beers are craft beers from Bonn. The term ‘Craft Beer’ comes from English and means ‘made by hand’. Since the opening of our brewery, our master brewer has been creating diverse and imaginative new, special beers that had never existed in the Rhineland before, such as the Bonner Pilsener, the Bonner Winterbock or the Bonner Lokalpatrioten. Since we are ‘craft’, this hand-brewed beer is only produced in small batches. You can find beers that are currently available in our news.”
Some Beethoven-emblazoned images of Ennert Bräu brews are displayed. BTW, the phrase “Eine Symphonie des Geschmacks” translates as “A Symphony of Taste” (if one trusts Google Translator). And to honor the great “Ludwig van”, some selections of Beethoven works that date from 1822, for their 200th anniversary:
(a) Overture The Consecration of the House (Die Weihe des Hauses), op. 124
(b) Piano Sonata No. 32, op. 111 (if anyone watches it through, spot the moment where Beethoven seems to anticipate jazz & boogie-woogie by just about 100 years):
Since I’ve never been to Bonn, obviously self the loser has never sampled Ennert Bräu beer. Instead, on display tonight, as you see from the above picture, is from Grevensteiner, which is based in North Rhine-Westphalia, if I have my German state geography semi-correct. Specifically, it’s the Grevensteiner Original, and it’s really good, an unfiltered lager that hits the sweet spot midway between a very light and a rather darker beer. This was a whimsy purchase, and one of self the loser’s better such buys. (Others that may have turned otherwise might turn up in future FNBBs, but we shall see.)
With that, time to turn it over to you folks? What are you imbibing tonight? Anyone brewing their own? Inquiring minds, etc..