Gambrinus

Gambrinus (/gæmˈbraɪnəs/ gam-BRY-nəs), is a legendary European culture hero celebrated as an icon of beer, brewing, joviality, and joie de vivre. Traditional songs, poems, and stories describe him as a king, duke, or count of Flanders and Brabant. Typical representations in the visual arts depict him as a rotund, bearded duke or king, holding a tankard or mug, and sometimes with a keg nearby.

Gambrinus is sometimes erroneously called a patron saint, but he is neither a saint nor a tutelary deity. In one legendary tradition, he is beer's inventor or envoy. Although legend attributes to him no special powers to bless brews or to make crops grow, tellers of old tall tales are happy to adapt them to fit Gambrinus. Gambrinus stories use folklore motifs common to European folktales, such as the trial by ordeal. Some, of course, imagine Gambrinus as a man who has an enormous capacity for drinking beer.

Among the personages theorised to be the basis for the Gambrinus character are the ancient king Gampar (aka Gambrivius), John the Fearless (1371–1419) and John I, Duke of Brabant (c. 1252–1294).

The source of the legend of Gambrinus is uncertain.

An early written account, by German historian Johannes Aventinus (1477–1534), identifies Gambrinus with Gambrivius, a mythical Germanic king about whom little is known.

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