St. Erhard – Unser Namenspatron

Der heilige Erhard auf dem Kronkorken des St. ERHARD Bieres

Mit wachsender Bekanntheit von unserem St. ERHARD Bier, steigt auch das Interesse an unserem Namenspatron, dem heiligen Erhard. In diesem Blog Post möchte ich daher ein paar nähere Informationen zum heiligen Erhard selbst und zu der Namenswahl für unser St. ERHARD Bier geben.

Auf der Suche nach einem geeigneten Namen für das deutsch-indische Bier stoß unser Gründer Christian Klemenz gemeinsam mit seinem damaligen Kommilitonen und heutigen Geschäftspartner Vikanshu Bhargava auf den heiligen Erhard von Regensburg (in alten Schriften auch Erard oder Herhard genannt). Erhard war ein unverbrauchter, deutsch klingender Eigenname der sich in Asien relativ einfach aussprechen lässt und zudem gut zu einem fränkischen Bier passt.

Der heilige Erhard ist zudem auch stark mit der bayerischen Geschichte verbunden. Der gebürtige Ire war als Wanderbischof tätig und missionierte im 7. Jahrhundert Bayern. Auf seinen Reisen errichtete Erhard mehrere Kirchen und Klöster bevor er nach Regensburg kam, dort das Nonnenkloster Niedermünster gründete und später auch Bischof von Regensburg wurde. Sein Todesjahr ist unbekannt, sein Grab und die Reliquien befinden sich jedoch zur Besichtigung im Niedermünsterkloster in Regensburg.

Der heilige Erhard ist der Patron der Spitäler, Schmieden, Bäcker und Schuhmacher. Außerdem gilt er als Heiler von Kopfschmerzen, Augenleiden, der Pest und Viehkrankheiten. Sein Gedenktag ist der 8. Januar.

Meist wird Erhard von Regensburg als Bischof dargestellt, mit einer Axt oder einem Buch in der Hand, auf dem sich zwei Augen befinden. Angelehnt an diese Vorgaben haben wir auch unseren Kronkorken des St. ERHARD Bieres gestaltet. Dort ist der Heilige mitsamt Bischofstab und Buch dargestellt.

Wir von St. ERHARD nehmen uns den Wandermissionar zum Vorbild und wollen nun ebenfalls durch die Welt ziehen mit einer Mission und zwar wollen wir die Menschen vom St. ERHARD Bier und der fränkischen Bierkultur überzeugen.

Saint Erhard – Our Patron Saint

Saint Erhard on our St. ERHARD beer crown cap

In this blog post I am going to talk about our patron saint Saint Erhard. Being a Hindu, it was really interesting for me to get to know about Saints in Christianity. Saint Erhard was a 7^th century bishop of the Bavarian city called Regensburg which is not far from Bamberg. Back in the times he was also knwon by the name of Erard or Herhard.

He was born in Ireland and he went to the continent as missionary bishop as many people at that time did. He then went to Vosges (a department of east of France) and met St. Hildulf (founder of Moyenmoutier Abbey and a reputed bishop of Trier) who lived there in seclusion from the society. He is called Erhard’s brother in terms of spiritual relationship.

Both the saints founded seven monasteries back then. Then Erhard went to Regensburg and founded the convent of Niedermuenster. He taught the sacred sciences at Triers, when St. Hydulphus was bishop of that city. When St. Hydulphus resigned his bishopric to end his days in retirement in 753, St. Erhard withdrew to Ratisbon, where he founded a small monastery, and is said to have been honoured with miracles, both living and after his death, which happened in that city. He was commemorated on this day in Scotland, but in Germany, on the 8th of January

His year of death is still unknown. His body was placed in a grave with the still intact Erhard-crypt at Niedermuenster. His corpse was guarded in the middle ages by a community of women who observed a perpetual round of prayer. They were called Erhardinonnen. On 7^th Oct. 1052 the remains of the holy bishops Erhard and Saint Wolfgang (was also a bishop of Regensburg) were raised by Pope Leo IX in the presence of Emperor Henry III and many other bishops. The church in Niedermuenster, which is now a parish church, still has the crosier of the Saint Erhard, made of black buffalo-horn.

To sum up, Saint Erhard was an evangelist who missionized Bavaria. Just as he missionized Bavaria we now want to missionize other parts of the world with Bavarian beer culture through our brand St. ERHARD.

Women and Beer

Beer – Women’s Drink of Choice

Beer would probably never have been considered as a girly drink in the past. However, it is the third favorite drink in the world after water and tea. But is it only men who drink beer?

In Germany – especially here in Bamberg area – we drink a lot of beer. And „we“ includes us women too. The beer culture is so interwoven with our lifestyle that we basically grow up with beer. I had my first sip of beer when I was a little girl and at first I didn’t like it. The taste was strong and bitter. A kind of taste that many women don’t appreciate in the beginning. However, due to the integration of beer in our everyday life and especially our leisure time one does not get around that taste. And the more you try it, the better you can relate to it. Faster than you know it you might even learn to love it.

This is probably the reason why more and more women – including me – gladly order a bottle of nice cold beer in a bar instead of an overly sweetened and expensive cocktail or longdrink. The wide variety of beer types offers a diverse choice. There is Ale, Wheat beer, Pilsner, Lager, Bock, and so on. Our St. ERHARD beer is a Kellerbier (cellar beer) which belongs to the catgeory of Lager beers. The taste of St. ERHARD beer is even more appealing to women because it has a rather malty taste and is therefore not as bitter as other beers in the market. I personally also really like the smaller 0,33l bottles because it gives you just enough time to finish the beer before it warms up in your hands.

Many women here in Germany also drink Radler. Radler is a mixture of one half lemonade and one half beer. This drink is especially nice in the summer when an entire beer might tire you and the mixture with lemonade is a refreshing alternative.

So never hesitate to try new things – it could be your new favorite!

The Concept of Social Drinking in India

Concept of Social Drinking in India

Globalization is now slowly bringing the idea of social drinking to India. Many parts of India still have orthodox thinking. The perspective towards the people who drink is like being drunkards rather than drinkers. This means that the aim among most of the people is to get as drunk as possible. This perspective of drinking alcohol is changing slowly as the awareness about alcohol is increasing between educated people and with the corporate culture of multinational companies.

In big developed cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and so on, drinking socially just to de-stress themselves is becoming a popular habit, especially among the people working in public sectors, IT firms and BPO’s etc.

Liquor in India is fairly easy available and most of the brands are also brewed locally. In order to make it cheap and to increase the sales volume, quality is put on stake by adding adulterated products, glycerin and so on.

Generally the attitude towards drinking alcohol in India varies in different parts of the country. At some point it feels like it depends on the amount of money one has. For those who have too much, drinking is just a part of civilized lifestyle. For those who have little, drinking often becomes a way to escape from tension and to forget what bad has happened and so on. 

Now with an increase in the earnings of people, it’s making social drinking more popular in India. The spending power has been gradually increasing and also the corporate landscape has been changing lately. With more and more famous foreign brands available in India, the registered growth in the same had resulted in double digits. The perception about drinking alcohol needs a huge shift.

I hope St. ERHARD will act like a catalyst in making this huge change in the mindsets of the people.

St. ERHARD at Munich Venture Summit 2013

St. ERHARD at Munich Venture Summit 2013

It gives me immense pleasure to announce that St. ERHARD will be a sponsor at the Munich Venture Summit 2013. It will be the second time we will be doing that. Our presence at the Venture Summit 2012 was extremely successful. We were able to portray this idea of exporting German beer to Asia and making St. ERHARD the synonym of German beer abroad. We were successful in portraying what our brand wants to achieve in near future. 

Our Founder and CEO Christian Klemenz initiated the idea of organizing Munich Venture Summit back in 2009 during his studies at Munich Business School. The idea was to bring companies, ideas and opportunities together under one roof. Today I am glad that I will be the part of the same again.

Last year at Munich Venture Summit 2012, I was in the organizing committee. It was a great experience meeting companies like Groupon, Wayra Academy, O2 Telefonica and many other start-ups and learn from their success or failure stories and interact from the people behind them. Also, Christian and I first met at the MVS `12 and now ended up working together. This is the power this platform has. I am sure that this year it will be much bigger and the experience of attending the event, networking and sharing ideas with entrepreneurs will be worth the time, money efforts spent there.

I personally believe Munich Venture Summit is not just an event but it’s a platform to educate and enlighten people about issues like entrepreneurship, VC funding, change in the corporate landscape and so on.

We will be looking forward to meeting you all there!

Health Benefits of Drinking Beer

Health Benefits of Drinking Beer

I have already talked about the importance of beer in German culture, also I stated what we at St. ERHARD envision about and the message that we want to portray to all the beer enthusiasts through our brand. We want to be a synonym for German beer abroad.

Today through this blog post I would like to highlight the benefits of drinking beer. Yes I am sure some of my fellow natives from India might find it contradictory but yes I have learned the same lately. As in Indian culture we say “Kisi Bhi Cheez ki ati kharaab hoti hai” which means “Too much of anything is bad”. The same goes with beer too, it has to be consumed in the right amount.  

Beer is said to be one of the oldest written recipes by humans and was written on stone tablets over 5,000 years ago. I found it very astonishing when I read about it.

Studies have shown that beer contains all the basic minerals one needs in his/her diet. Also during the European Middle ages when nutrition was very rare, beer was said to be one of the staple included in the diet of the people. Not only adults but also children consumed beer as it was a good source for nutrients and energy.

There have been several studies conducted on beer to know about its influence on health. A study which was conducted in The New England Journal found out, those women who drank moderately had better cognitive function compared to non-drinkers. Reasoning behind this hypothesis was that the alcohol raises the level of good cholesterol in the body which results in lowering the risk of heart disease etc. The American Journal of Epidemiology found out that adequate amount beer consumption prevents the occurrence of kidney stones, each bottle consumed per day was estimated to reduce the risk by 40%. Another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition stated that beer consumption strengthens the bones as it protects bone minerals density because it contains high level of silicon resulting in the deposition of calcium and other minerals into the bone tissues. Furthermore, brewer’s yeast also contains significant amount of magnesium, selenium, potassium, B vitamins and so on.

Usually it’s believed that over consumption of beer leads to a beer belly, but a recent study has found answers to this belief. It has been reported that in most of the cases of over consumption, the reason has been the lack of proper exercise and increase in the volume of carbohydrates and so on.

St. ERHARD is not only promoting the German beer culture but also promoting the act of moderate consumption of beer throughout the globe. We believe beer has developed as a culture and it has to be cultivated and be preserved responsibly. It goes without saying that we abide by all the national laws regarding the local drinking age and do not market or target our product towards an adolescent audience.

New team member: Aline from Bamberg

Aline Bruckner at St. ERHARD GmbH in Bamberg

My name is Aline Bruckner and today, on my first day at St. ERHARD GmbH, I want to start with this blog post introducing myself. I was born in Bamberg and have been living here for most of my life. After finishing my bachelor’s degree in Furtwangen which is in the Black Forest. Last year I moved back to Bamberg to pursue my further studies.

Due to my Franconian background, I grew up with this strong beer culture that Bamberg and its surroundings has to offer. I first got to try the taste of beer in my early childhood, as it is such a big part of our everday life here. When I got older I soon discovered to enjoy the occasional beer along with meals or just for rejuvenational purposes.

Beer is not just an alcoholic beverage, but also a pivotal part of our society and lifestyle. When I heard about St. ERHARD beer, it quickly caught my interest and I was able to connect with this brand and its mission to internationally spread Franconian beer culture.

So as of today, I am starting my internship at St. ERHARD which I am really excited about. I hope to be able to transmit a German view concerning the beer culture and of course particularly about St. ERHARD beer. Therefore, I will keep being in contact with you through my blog posts in addition to Rahul’s posts which are already there on the blog. I will also be writing in German and will focus more on the local perspective with Rahul focusing on global aspects.

So feel free to ask and comment below in case of further queries. I will be looking forward to hearing from you!