Beer pig

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A beer pig is a being of superstition in Swabia .

According to Michael Buck , the legends about the legendary animal are a superstition of Swabian farmers, according to which the beer pig “is kept in the lager barrel by bad brewers, drinks all beer, gives it off and makes it intoxicating with its poison. In this business the pig weighs 7-9 pounds ”. The primary goal of using a beer newt was to influence the sale of beer, making the newt one of the numerous spells with which beer should be saved from witchcraft or made tastier.

background

A larva of Triturus cristatus

According to a publication in the communications of the Badisches Landesverein für Naturkunde und Naturschutz (Baden Regional Association for Natural History and Nature Conservation) , it was an ancient use of the larvae of the newt Triturus cristatus , which had been largely forgotten in 1938 and which was used to clarify cloudy lager beer and which was removed after a short time "freshly" . In a collection of old brewery expressions from 1942 it is reported that "Mölche were put in the beer to make it shiny".

According to other traditions, beer pigs were used until 1900 to compensate for the poor quality of malt or yeast and to support the fermentation process by moving the animal .

history

As early as the 16th century there was the superstition that a brewer would sell more beer if he put the gallows rope and the severed thumb , or, according to a text from 1713, the " membrum virile ", of a hanged man in the barrel. Still Heinrich Heine in his 1855 completed mentioned memoirs the " witch Art " means that the hung by a thread in the barrel of a truncated finger hanged multiply the beer and make palatable would.

The procurement of the body parts required for these practices was possible until about the middle of the 19th century through the public executions followed by sometimes longer hanging of the corpse.

In 1873 a master brewer in Ravensburg had to defend himself in the newspaper against the accusation of keeping a beer pig.

The Wasseralfinger Schlegel brewery brewing stories According to the First World War with the help of beer pigs.

Others

The legends about the beer newt could also be the origin of the name of the student drinking salamanders .

In Ireland, analogous to the beer pig legend, there is the explanation mentioned in Ulysses by James Joyce that the special taste of the stout comes from dead rats floating in some barrels .

See also

Remarks

  1. ↑ The name Triton cristatus mentioned in the original is an old synonym of Triturus cristatus .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hermann Fischer: Swabian dictionary . tape 1 . Laupp, Tübingen 1904, p. 1103-1104 .
  2. ↑ a b beer . In: Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli (Hrsg.): Concise dictionary of German superstition . tape 1 . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1987, ISBN 3-11-011194-2 , p. 1264-1265 . ( online )
  3. ↑ a b Hermann Rudy: Fishing and general zoological use of Upper Rhine waters. (PDF; 1.54 MB) from: Communications from the Badisches Landesverein für Naturkunde und Naturschutz in Freiburg im Breisgau; NF 3 . 1938, pp. 445-449 , accessed May 10, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b c SDZ Druck und Medien GmbH: Is the beer pig just a legend? In: www.schwaebische-post.de. August 23, 2007, accessed May 6, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Johann Georg Theodor Graesse: beer history, beer customs and beer shots. 2018, p. 119 , accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  6. ^ Johann Christoph Männling : Memorable curiosities of the, both domestic and foreign superstitious Alberta, as the wide world of general Götzens. Rohrlach, Liegnitz, 1713, p. 301 , accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  7. ^ Heinrich Heine: Memoirs (created 1854/55), Vol. 7, p. 227. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg, 1884.
  8. ↑ White foam on black soul: In Dublin's Guinness Museum. www.aachener-zeitung.de, September 1, 2015, accessed on May 25, 2019 .