Two years ago I decided to concentrate on Bock ads for awhile. Bock, of course, may have originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising. With Spring approaching, there are so many great examples that I’m going to post two a day for a few months.

Saturday’s ad was created for another Heute Bock, which was published around 1890. Heute in German means “today” and humorously Google translates the full text as “Today I’m Crazy.” This poster was made for an unspecified German brewery since in 1880 Alsace was part of Germany. The chromolithograph is marked as “97” and one source states the artist was a C. Burckardt and it was created or printed in Wissembourg, a town that today is part of France, but from 1871 to 1919 belonged to Germany. According to the British Museum, Burckardt was a “Lithographic printer and publisher based in Weissenburg; often lettered on prints as ‘C Burckardt’s Nachf.’ (‘Successor of C Burckardt’); succeeded by Rudolph Ackermann at an unknown date.” That information is consistent with all of the recent Heute Bock posters I’ve featured, so I suspect they were all done by the same printing house. This one includes a bit of text, as follows:

Es tobet und schäumt der edle Bock
Mit seinem langen Zottelrock. _
Wer Bockbier trinken will der gebe Acht,
Dass er kein Burzelbaumchen macht.

Google Translates the text as:

The noble goat rages and foams
With his long shaggy skirt. _
If you want to drink bock beer,
Make sure that you don’t make a fuss.

I suspect that’s not exactly right, and probably ignores idioms from the time, but is probably close.