House drink

House drink is the beverage industry an inserted legal reasons only within the company own product. The term “ drink” includes both personal use in the house of the production facility as well as for use in the household of the employees and, in a broader sense, for selected groups of people.

Word meaning

In addition to the tax, wage and market law meanings, the word is also used in common parlance in its causal meaning, the drink used in household use . The term “house drink”, which is not protected by trademark law, is of course used both as a beer brand , but also for fruit and herbal teas and their mixtures. The English translation is again descriptive: Haustrunk [Bier] with [beer brewed for the workers only], but Haustrunk ( pomace wine ) with [wine made from pomace for one's own use].

In the German dictionary by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm there is the entry: “Haustrunk, m. potus tenuis, cerevisia quotidiana, domi cocta, secundaria, table drink. Stieler 2331. in wine regions also applies to lesser wines. ”In the Duden there is the newer breakdown of house drinks, which: Technical language, meanings: 1. Piquette, which is only intended for personal use ... 2. Beer that breweries give their employees to their own Give up consumption.

origin

The house drink is a drink for household use. In the past, workers were given a certain amount of their own product for free use, usually in the amount of a day's consumption. As with other forms of deputation, the aim was to prevent theft in the company. On the other hand, the worker should have the opportunity to cover his private needs for his household. The role as a deputate was used in breweries , wineries and distilleries . For the purposes of free disposal of the term is regional free trunk common. Separate products were sometimes made as house drinks, while the company's standard product was sold as house drinks. According to Austrian wine law, it was a separate wine product that was used as a drink in the winemaker's house and was by no means approved for the market. In all cases, reference is made to the fact that the containers - whether wine or beer - should be marked with the inscription "House drink".

Beer stamp for brewery employees to receive 1 liter of beer

Beer brand for brewery employees to receive 1 liter of beer - here Ambros brewery.

handling

The house drink is bottled in separate containers, bottles, crates, barrels, the appearance of which already distinguishes the quality level and on the other hand is intended to prevent resale to bystanders. As in other businesses, a certain use soon arose. The need during working hours - to quench your thirst during work - can be taken "off the line". So only been in the brewery Pils drunk in operation, while the House Trunk Bright property. In wineries, the piquette was often used as a house drink by the winemaker. Ordinary schnapps is common for distilleries and , like miner's schnapps , usually consisted of tasteless distillate. House drink can also be a non-alcoholic drink from lemonade producers. To the amount of house drink-consumption control by the workers in the production plant, the serving in a special place, the star was made or there were marks issued. Such beer tokens are also used outside of deputations at events as a prepaid unit or to limit the amount of free beer. In winegrowing families it was common to drink pomace wine , i.e. a product from the second or third pressing, for personal use . This drink in the house was excluded from wine law as inferior for sale in the wine market, in order to secure the quality standards for wine and to protect the viticulture from adulteration. The alcoholic product made from other fruits must not be called wine either.

Beer brand for brewery employees - back side

Pomace wines

Image wanted

In Austrian viticulture, house drink is a common name for post-wine or pomace wine that was produced from the second or even third grape pressing . The spent grains were watered and pressed again. Already in ancient times, a cheap drink for workers and slaves, the lora , was made using a similar method .

The house drink was allowed in Austria since the wine law in 1907 at the latest only to family members and as Deputatlohn to employees and their dependents are distributed free of charge. The production had to be reported to the authorities. In the Austrian Wine Act of 1961, the production of house drinks for personal use by the winemaker and his employees is still permitted subject to the obligation to register. In the current Austrian Wine Law, the term house drink has disappeared. Reference is made here to imitation wines made from pomace and it is prohibited to sell them. The term house drink for those (secondary) wines that are only used within the winemaking family for their own needs is still quite common.

In contrast to the linguistic usage in Germany, the wine used as a wage share is referred to in Austrian as "Deputat" due to the definition in wine law . The term "house drink" for pomace wine is also used in southern Germany, as in the regulation for the “approval of the production of pomace wine (house drink)" or in the second regulation for the implementation of the Wine Act §11 of 7 July 1972.

Because it is used in the home, wine from direct producers, i.e. unprocessed vines, is also referred to as a house drink. In the old Austrian wine laws, direct carrier wine is called a house drink because it was not allowed to be sold. Only after the phylloxera infestation since 1860 and the strong failure of market wines were such wines a way to meet the existing demand on the wine market, such as the Uhudler .

Free drink

A specially marked beer bottle for home drinks

In contrast to the wine-oriented usage in Austria, the term house drink in Germany primarily refers to the sale of beer in breweries. The term used today is defined in the Beer Tax Ordinance. "In licensed breweries, beer is exempt from tax if it is given to employees as a house drink free of charge." The house drink in breweries has developed from a wage component to a right of use within the company. In production facilities that produce both beer and non-alcoholic beverages, for example, an exchange of beer for lemonade was developed in order to get through the working day without excessive beer consumption. In order to control the consumption of beer as a thirst quencher during working hours, the star was set up as a delivery point. The house drink was the drink in the (company) house. Since the consumption of alcohol at work was increasingly denied, the box or barrel of the house drink came up. The weekly or monthly amount was then distributed for use at home. According to current law, the group of people entitled to receive house drinks is limited. "The employees [...] must be directly or indirectly involved in the procurement or treatment of the raw materials intended for beer production, the production of the beer or its distribution from the brewery and the losses on their account." Based on this definition, the distribution of house drinks Allowed to employees also in malt houses.

In family breweries it was customary to provide a simple, mostly low-alcohol beer for the employees as a house drink. Apprentices had equal rights, but before reaching the adult limit, malt beer was served as a house drink. As in other commercial and industrial sectors, due to the restrictions of tax law, discount systems for employees along the distribution chain - also in the trading companies - were set up.

This custom of pleasing citizens by giving them free beer goes back to the time of Hammurabi . According to this, "every temple worker was entitled to five loaves of bread and two mugs of beer" 3600 years ago.

Spring water taxes

Another form of home drink is the dispensing of mineral water under certain conditions. Such was the case for the mineral water from Selters. “Already in 1722, a well regulation regulated the house drink tax. The right to get their seltzer water for their own use at the well was left to the residents during the ducal Nassau period (1806–1866) and the communities of Oberselters, Eisenbach, Oberbruch and Eufingen were also granted. ”In this case, the following also applies that house drinks may only be used by authorized residents in their own households. Bypassing the commercial item through commercial use of the home drink is prohibited. In Bad Ems , too , a special well bore has been approved for home drinks, which nonetheless offers "Bad Emser mineral water": "Here, everyone can fill up the tasty mineral water for home use."

developments

The sale of alcoholic beverages directly at the workplace or as a wage supplement came into disrepute by the end of the 20th century at the latest. “Around four million liters of beer went to the brewery employees as a house drink [2010].” “The beer allowance comes from the time when the brewers still had to work hard physically and quenched their thirst with the Pils. In the 1950s, for example, they were still able to tap barley juice fresh from the barrel with tokens. Until the consumption of alcohol - not only in breweries - was declared undesirable. ”The development of tax and trademark law in the course of the 20th century brought about changes. So today the contribution in kind, here in the form of house drinks, is considered a wage share and a monetary benefit, this is subject to tax law. "The free delivery of beer by an approved brewery to its employees as a home drink and the production of beer by home and hobby brewers are tax-free." "The granting of free home drinks to employees in the brewery industry [... is] a taxable pecuniary benefit."

literature

Eduard Backert : The free beer replacement in the breweries and related businesses. Berlin 1913
Michaela Knör: What is the "house drink" and where does it come from? In: Society for the History of Brewing eV [GGB] (Hrsg.): GGB-Jahrbuch 2017, p. 278

Individual evidence

↑ Strong house drink

^ Franz Muth: The good house drink. Manufacture, store and maintain sweet cider, fruit and berry wine (Verlag der Grünen Post, 1920)

↑ Montafon house drink

↑ Translation example at Dict.cc

↑ Dictionarynetz.de: DWB

↑ Duden: House drink

↑ 2. DVO Wine Law § 11 (3) : "The containers in which the house drink is produced and stored must be clearly marked with the label" House drink "."

↑ For example, employees of Coca-Cola GmbH: Payment and other social benefits ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "You can enjoy employee events such as summer and Christmas parties, as well as a house drink" @1@ 2

↑ Beer brands as a collecting area

↑ Collection of definitions of the house drink as wine

↑ Wine Law 1907 - §9 house drink

↑ Federal Law Gazette No. 187/1961 : Wine Law 1961 § 41

↑ § 18 (4) Wine Act 2009 § 18 (4)

↑ Wine law: Ordinance of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs for the transfer of responsibilities in the field of wine law and for the approval of the production of piquette wine (house drink) of May 28, 1974 (Ges.Bl. P. 226) - amended by LVO of September 13, 1994 (Journal of Laws p. 488) -