Many regular readers of the Brookston Beer Bulletin will be aware that I’ve been pretty far down the rabbit hole of Bock Beer for the last couple of years. Most days, beyond posting ads featuring Bock beer, I also share what I call Bock oddities from the past, often cartoons, little news items or what have you. I’ve also found numerous origin stories for Bock, some the usual story, but some quite fanciful and unique. Taken as a whole, these all showcase how Bock used to be a much larger part of the national consciousness and something society as a whole was very aware of, so much so that it was considered as much a sign of spring as seeing the first robin. Today, I’d argue most people who aren’t beer people — let’s call them normal — don’t really know much about Bock beer. Maybe they’ve heard the term, were aware goats are somehow involved, but probably not much more beyond that.

But the Bock oddity I found today is perhaps the strangest I’ve found so far, and deserves a bit more explanation and analysis. This one is a story entitled “Bock Beer Centuries Old: First Used By Egyptians,” and was published in the Evansville (Indiana) Courier and Press on February 26, 1940. In it, not only do “officials” from the local Sterling Brewers, Inc. suggest that Egyptian brewers were making Bock at least as early 400 B.C.E., but claim that that the beer was not originally associated with a goat, but a pig! Let that sink in. Imagine all of the Bock beer signs with pigs instead of goats. That would be odd, indeed.

No author is given, though given that the local brewery is interviewed for it, it was probably a local reporter who took the breweries fanciful story uncritically and passed it along to their readers unchecked. It’s the only mention of pigs being associated with Bock beer I could find anywhere, not just in ancient Egypt. Here’s the full article:

There’s certainly a lot to unpack there. The article is reprinted two days later in the same newspaper, but that’s it. No mention of it later. In fact, I couldn’t find any additional references to the ideas in it either, which I suppose isn’t surprising since it’s so out of left field.

I checked advertising for Sterling Bock, since they’re the originators of the story, to see if they made any further mention of it, but all their ads around this time employ the more traditional goat to advertise Sterling Bock.

But what about Egyptian Bock? Certainly some Egyptian beer was dark in color, but that’s about all we can say, I think. You may recall I found this reference to Bock beer in Egypt from 1944. It was notable because in the caption they suggest that the ancient image shows a goat which they claim “research experts of the brewing industry believe that this, in a way, was the first advertisement for bock beer.” Understandably, no individual was willing to put their name on that conclusion, so we don’t know who this research expert(s) of the brewing industry was.

Here’s the whole 1944 article from the Oregonian:

As for pigs in beer, those we can find aplenty, but rarely if ever associated with Bock beer.

For example, there’s this Shiner pig, though it’s for Shiner beers, not Shiner Bock.

And here’s an older label for a Dunkler Bock that features a wild boar.

So this is certainly an amusing anecdote, and without a doubt one of the odder stories about Bock’s origins I’ve come across. I suppose some brewery could make a bacon-infused Bock and then we’d really be heading in the right (or wrong) direction.

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.

Wednesday’s second ad is for Esslinger’s Bock Beer, which was published on February 25, 1938. This one was for Esslinger Brewing Co., of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was founded in 1868 by George Esslinger. This ad ran in The Press of Atlantic City, also of Atlantic City, New Jersey.