Blog Connections

WHS and Beer

Wiki’s History of Beer learns us that beer is one of the oldest drinks humans have produced: “The earliest chemically confirmed barley beer to date was discovered at Godin Tepe in Iran, where fragments of a jug, from between 5,400 and 5,000 years ago was found to be coated with beerstone, a by-product of the brewing process”. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the teetotal Islamic Republic of Iran will put a site linked to alcoholic drinks forward as a WH nomination. So far we already have identified a connection for Breweries (including the Brewery museum at the Grand Place of Brussels, first photo below). But are there more groups of at least 3 WHS that we can connect to beer-related subjects?

Paid in Beer

There are at least 3 WHS that I can link to “Paid in Beer”. They all have provided records that workers at the site have been paid in beer. Some 5,000 years ago, that was the case in Uruk (part of the Ahwar of Southern Iraq WHS). A tablet has been discovered that describes beer production at the Inanna Temple in Uruk and beer given to workers as part of their daily rations. At the Frontiers of the Roman Empire near Hadrian's Wall, the Vindolanda tablets include “a polite request for beer to be sent to the garrison (which had entirely consumed its previous stock of beer)”. And during the construction of the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt, each worker got a daily ration of four to five liters of beer (source).

WHS depicted on beer cans & bottles

Another new connection is the more trivial “WHS depicted on beer cans & bottles”. Discovering them has been a running gag among the WH Travellers Community. Using ‘Beer and breweries by region’ and leaving out the microbreweries, I came up with the following beer brands that have the same name as WHS:

The ones above marked with an asterisk (*) also display an image of the WHS on their cans and/or bottles. Sometimes just in stylized versions that need some imagination to be recognized as parts of the WHS, as in the case of Suomenlinna (a lighthouse), Alhambra (2 lions that may be part of the Lion's Court), Harar (a gate), and Hué (a temple). 

I flicked through 'Beer cans by country' to find some more WHS on display, where the brand is named differently:

Do you know more beer brands that we can connect? Do you have a collection of WH-related beer cans or bottles, either in digital or physical form?

Els - 12 September 2021

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Tsunami 18 September 2021

Praha (WHS), Czechia: Praha by Staropramen

I just saw Staropramen's own Praha beer at a local mini shop in Bulgaria.

https://www.staropramen.com/our-beer/praha

Jonas 17 September 2021

Enjoy a “Wartburg Pils“ in Eisenach!
https://untappd.com/b/wartburg-brauerei-eisenach-eisenacher-wartburg-pils/117075

Jonas 17 September 2021

Don‘t miss “Dom Kölsch“ in Cologne!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom-Brauerei

Jonas 17 September 2021

Don‘t miss “Dom Kölsch“ in Cologne!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom-Brauerei

Esteban Cervantes Jiménez (Vantcj1) 16 September 2021

Curiously for Costa Rica, I only found three microbreweries (so not for this connection) that produce WHS-related beer: Chirripó Brewing Company (logically based at San Isidro del General, the capital of the municipality where Chirripó NP is accesed from) and Urán, offered at Hotel Urán. Both Chirripó and Urán are some of the most conspicuous mountains inside Chirripó NP, at La Amistad-Talamanca reserves. Chirripó beer seems to have an outline in its logo which could be of any mountain in the world, not specifically Chirripó (as I know it). Haven´t tried any of those, but I'll try to do if I get back to Chirripó. In the Caribbean side of Talamanca mountain range there's Bribri Springs Craft Beer Company, but besides its name (the Bribri indigenous group lives in the buffer zone of La Amistad-Talamanca reserve), I don´t see any other reference.
Like probably everywhere else, there's been an explosion of craft beers, some made by the dominant company (Florida Ice& Farm), most referencing places (Tortuguero, Dota, Puerto Viejo, Escalante neighborhood, Turrialba, etc), local fauna (Lagarta) or local myths (Segua, probably the most popular of all craft beers).

Jarek Pokrzywnicki 13 September 2021

One of the best beer experience was tasting local "no name" beer while visiting Hoi An. It was available in several Old Town restaurants. As I remember it was quite refreshing and very cheap (something like 20 cents like per glass)

In Lithuania there is Vilniaus Alus Beer with panorama of Old Town in Vilnius (WHS) on the label.

In Ethiopia there are at least two beers connected with UNESCO sites: Ras Dashen beer (nemed after the biggest peak in Simien Mountains) and Harar Beer with town walls depicted on the label

Tsunami 12 September 2021

Nirayama Hansharo Beer is a craft beer, and I guess Els wants to exclude microbreweries here. I mean if you include craft beers, I bet there are craft beers for every single WHS in Japan by now. But I notice one of the Nirayama Hansharo Beer cans has both the furnace and Mt. Fuji depicted on it. 2 WHSs!
On the other hand large breweries want to take a cut of the popularity of craft beers and started producing "limited number, limited period" beer products, and I notice Asahi this year has come up with limited number (about 2 million) "Fuji-san" beer with design incorporating a Hiroshige painting of Mt. Fuji, of course (following the success of a Hokusai painting design last year).

Nan 12 September 2021

Hansharo images:
ttps://beertengoku.com/2016/07/22/hansharo-beer-information/

Ask Gudmundsen 12 September 2021

Kilimanjaro is the go-to pilsner in Tanzania

Matejicek 12 September 2021

Dorada Beer, brewed in Tenerife, Canary Islands, has Teide mountain at its logo

Zoë Sheng 12 September 2021

Nepal has Everest Beer

Zoë Sheng 12 September 2021

Do you maybe mean Hansharo? They have Fujishan on their logo but I don't see any beer bottles with it.

Nan 12 September 2021

I had a nirayama furnace beer. I think mount fuji was in the background.

Squiffy 12 September 2021

From the UK I can also heartily recommend the output of Saltaire Brewery and Bragdy Conwy (the latter with an outline of Conwy Castle as part of its logo).

Egypt produces Sakara Gold (with an image of the Saqqara step pyramid) and also Luxor.

Jurre 12 September 2021

There is also "Brugse Zot" and "Brugs Tarwebier/Blanche de Bruges".

The brewery "De Halve Maan" is already in the Breweries connection.

Matejicek 12 September 2021

PAID in BEER:
What I have read about economy and building of fishponds by Rožmberks (Rosenberg family) in their dominions (WHS Český Krumlov and Telč, TWHS Třeboň), the production of beer and malt was crucial point for economic boom in 16th Century. Beer in those times was less alcoholic and looked more like a porridge than what we know as beer now. Thus, it was used also for feeding of kids!
BTW Brewery and Malt-house were located in every quarter of every town at least in Central Europe before the industrial revolution, and the Guilt of Maltsters were among the richest and the most powerful in towns of late middle ages and 16-17th Century.

Tsunami 12 September 2021

Praha (WHS), Czechia: Praga
https://www.pragapils.eu/
BTW, thanks for letting us think about beer on Sunday morning.

Tsunami 12 September 2021

Lviv (WHS), Ukraine: Lvivske
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lvivske
Not a very good beer to my taste.
Chernihiv (TWHS), Ukraine: Chernihivske
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernihivske
This one is better and is the most popular in Ukraine.

Els Slots 12 September 2021

Thanks Hubert! Confusing...

Hubert 12 September 2021

Schloß Eggenberg beer has to be removed from the list. The brewery is located in Schloss Eggenberg in the Salzkammergut (Upper Austria), not in Graz. And this Eggenberg family has no relation to the Styrian family with the same name that built the castle in Graz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggenberg_Castle,_Vorchdorf

Zoë Sheng 12 September 2021

Iran still makes non-alcoholic beer though.

Here is a beer from Bruges
https://www.saq.com/en/14314481