Costco Brewer’s Advent Calendar Diary, Day 2: Fürst Carl’s “Kellerbier”
As a white American writer of fantasy fiction, I can’t pretend I don’t share a fascination many white Americans have with something we’ve collectively rejected: European nobility.
It’s absolutely goofy to pretend that the most just form of governance is generational hand-me-downing of supreme executive power. It’s even worse to pretend that such repressive, regressive traditions are divinely ordained.
The idea that some people are just born much better than everyone else is one that’s specifically and extensively repudiated by our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, extensive amendments to that Constitution and many of our federal laws. Yet, so many of the stories we tell and read are of princes and princesses, kings and queens, broken bloodlines and prodigal heirs. My novel, currently in revisions, critiques this paradigm (and also, revels in it (sorry not sorry)). Right now, “The Crown” has people across the English-speaking world agog over the late Princess Diana again.
In reality, much of our American myth-making doesn’t just borrow from the idea of success via birthright — it steals. Just swap out hazily defined ‘noble blood’ for a nebulous idea of ‘merit’, and you end up with a permanent upper class of silver-spoon WASPs being born on third base and convinced they hit a triple. At least no one in England pretends Prince Charles earned his fortune.
Oh right: beer.
Fürst Carl Schlossbrauerei Ellingen is, as the translated name suggests, a castle-brewery. From the pictures, it looks like Ellingen’s Prince’s Palace boasts a Fürst Carl brewpub at ground level, and big copper kettles in the vaulted-ceiling basement.
Though the production of beer for wider distribution and international export isn’t all done in the castle, of course. But from a press release describing a licensing agreement to produce and export Fürst Carl beers to China:
The Royal Brewery Ellingen is located in North Bavaria, Germany and is one of the few Royal Breweries in Germany still owned by a Royal Family. The first time the Royal Brewery in the city of Ellingen in Bavaria was mentioned was in the year 1690. However it is expected that this brewery is much older.
The castle (and brewery) were deeded to Field Marshal Carl Philipp, Prince of Wrede, in 1815 after nobly…
…double-crossing Napoleon Bonaparte and successfully, if sloppily, holding Bavaria for Austria. Carl was made a Prince, and all the first-born boys of his bloodline for eight generations since have inherited the title, the name “Carl,” the castle, and the brewery inside (check out the current Prince Carl and his wife, Princess Katalin, both rocking open-collar white shirts. Very Relaxed Royalty).
Fürst Carl’s Kellerbier is another traditional Bavarian brew. But unlike the Helles lager from Day 1, a kellerbier is darker, maltier, less pilsenery and more caramely. This beer is both more my thing, style-wise, and a better example of its style. In fact, it’s earned a whopping 96/100 in its style category on RateBeer, and the overall 70/100 reflects the broader beer culture’s bias toward hoppier, fruitier styles. I am absolutely going to seek out their even-darker Dunkel and Josefibock beers.
It’s interesting to note, though, that for all the pomp and circumstance around the “Carl” name, it’s the women in Last Carl’s life that seem to be doing the beer right. Princess Katalin is the managing director, and their brewmaster is a young woman named Nina Kolb (which, from what I can tell, is quite atypical for an old German family brewery).
Whether power is granted by patents of nobility or “the market,” power always seeks first to perpetuate itself. But talented, hardworking commonfolk can still carve out space for themselves — and even earn that noble peerage for themselves.
Isn’t that the fantasy we always comfort ourselves with?
Prost!
