A not-quite-everyday reflection!

A beerstein is :

• a drinking receptacle
• a souvenir from Old Germany
• a knickknack
• a collector's piece
• a kitsch item
• an investment
• an expression of gemuetlichkeit
• a Bavarian status symbol

It is popular in Germany, America, Japan, Russia and practically in all other countries as a thoroughly German original product.

What is the reason behind the fascination exercised by a product whose practical value has long been replaced by beer glasses?

There must be other reasons. Such as:

• Because it's imposing and manly. But so were the drinking horns out of which the ancient Teutons lapped up their mead - a hooch which was neither beer nor wine.
• Because a beerstein is just right to bang on the table (or possibly on your opponent's head) without the unpleasant accompainment of glass splitters.
• Because beer and beersteins belong together as if by wedlock.
• Because beer is a special beverage which has its own image and thus deserves its own receptacle.

Can you imagine drinking beer from a wine glass or wine from a beerstein? The idea ist absurd. But there must be something else which gives the beerstein its timeless appeal...

Just a second, I think I have it! Yes, that's it: A beerstein has a soul!
You cannot hear it or taste it or see it or feel it - but it is there! Souls cannot be dissected nor can they be explained by the cool, rational thinking of Homo sapiens. Above all, they are immortal - and that seems to be the core of the whole matter.

Thus the beerstein will live on. Unfortunately, nobody knows who invented it but, whoever it was, he deserves a monument.