the emancipator

there's nothing like an evening of beer-drinking german fun. hence our attraction to the tapping of moerlein's emancipator, held friday night at donauschwaben. emancipator was brewed to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. jim effler, who creates the artwork for moerlein's labels, was there signing posters and selling beautiful prints of the bottle artwork.

the place was packed. parking was a challenge. the guy directing traffic (while holding a beer) told brian and i to just pull up under the pavilion, which we did not do. instead brian dropped me off and circled until he found an actual spot.

first of all, i would like to say emancipator is simply DELICIOUS. tastes light until your belly tells you otherwise. caramely. smooth. frothy but not offensively so.

it's a doppelbock. i know hardly anything about beer, so i consulted beer advocate. doppelbocks are "typically even stronger and contain enough malty goodness that they’ve been considered a meal in a glass for centuries. generally they have a very full-bodied flavor and are darker than their little bock brothers and sisters and have a higher level of alcohol, too" (7% in this case). i also learned from the german beer institute doppelbock means "double bock" (go figure) and is also known as fastenbier ("lenten beer") or starkbier ("strong beer"). monks would drink the heavy beer during the lenten fast, because monks believed that liquids not only cleansed the body but also the soul. they would make "plenty of liquid instead of solid bread from their grain, and then drink it in copious quantities...the more, the holier". (love that part of the story)integral to beer drinking is the stein, or steinzeugkrug, which is german for stoneware jug or tankard. stein-use apparently evolved in germany as a result of the black death and a desire for more sanitary conditions (read about it here). of course there were beer steins for sale, including ones made by rookwood. (if you're interested in buying some really gorgeous, intricate steins, the ones pictured were presented by george hibben, who can be reached at 513-367-2150)

we recommend you don your lederhosen or dirndl and sample some emancipator. you won't regret it. well, maybe the lederhosen.