Beer Advent Calendar finale - December 24th - Christmas Eve!

Happy Christmas Eve!

The final beer of our series delivers in Christmas style. The “Patron Saint of the Brewers” benevolently appears on this golden can, hopefully he’s bearing some tasty beer.

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St. Bonifatius

This is classified as a helles style brew, but the characteristics and 6.5%abv are more typical of a bock. It’s a deeply golden colored beer that’s fairly cloudy and builds no head.

Malt like sweet, dark honey builds the spine of this flavor profile. Other slight characteristics are of raisins, yeasty bread, and apricot or peach fruit. This must be a lightly hopped beer, as there’s no bitterness and only a hint of florals at the finish. If this sounds like a sweet beer, it is, but keeps from going overboard.

This one drinks more like a gently carbonated mead. The flavor profile is simple and pushes the boundary of how sweet I like a brew. There’s also a nice hint of alcohol warmth. Overall, I found St. Bonifatius to be a seasonally appropriate beer and pleasant finale for the advent calendar.

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Mitterteich, Germany

Today’s beer was crafted by Brauerei Hösl in Mitterteich, a town in the Stiftland region of Bavaria near the border of Czechia. Michael Hösl started the brewery in 1906.

While serving his country in World War I, his wife managed the brewery, then in 1936 his son Hans passed the test for master brewer to assist with the family business. A critical matter necessitated Hans' early return from World War II in 1944 to help his father with the brewery, but the details are unknown.

In 1957 the brewery suffered a terrible fire. Residential apartments of some Hösl family members and the master brewer were also lost in the fire. Thankfully no one was harmed; the master brewer even emerged unscathed when he jumped from his bedroom window to escape the flames.

The blaze was a challenge for fire crews. The first arriving fire engine had to manage with an antiquated apparatus from 1930. Yet, Michael Hösl commended the firemen in their work. The flames weren’t extinguished until the next morning's hours and crews remained onsite for days keeping smouldering rubble from flaring back up.

The town of Mitterteich itself has a short history and is a small, rural settlement. It was officially established in 1277 as a small village. The location became an important market town in 1568, then almost completely destroyed in the Thirty Years’ War. Mitterteich became a German city in 1932 and built local schools only as recently as the 1950s through 1970s.

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Saint Boniface

Today’s beer honors Saint Boniface (Bonifatius being the Latin form of his name), a missionary in the 700s to the region of Germania. He was pivotal in bringing Christianity to the Germanic people and is a widely celebrated Catholic figure in Germany to this day.

A major piece of lore in Saint Boniface’s life is when he fell a massive tree known as Thor’s Oak. This was a sacred tree in what is modern day Hesse, Germany. The local Germanic people who had not yet converted to Christianity still brought animal sacrifices to the oak, and the legend says Saint Boniface came to cut down the tree.

The Germanic pagans crowded and cursed the enemy of their gods while Saint Boniface notched the massive oak. A sudden burst of wind pushed the tree down, appearing like divine intervention, and the oak splintered into four large chunks when it struck the ground. When Thor did not strike Saint Boniface down for felling his sacred tree, the pagans believed in the Christian God. Together, they built a church in the name of Saint Peter from that very tree where it once stood.

Prior to spending the majority of his life as a missionary in what is now Germany, he unsuccessfully attempted to proselytize the Frisians. Thwarted from Frisia, he returned to England and then set out for Germany. But, after all his years with the Germanic people, he could not forget the Frisians.

He resigned as Archbishop of Mainz in 754 to follow his dream back to Frisia (northern region of the modern Netherlands) and was martyred shortly after his return. He arranged a meeting with his converts but instead encountered a band of armed robbers. At 80 years of age, Boniface and his company were slain for valuables they did not possess.

Considered the Apostle of Germany, Saint Boniface also earned the title of patron saint of brewers. I found nothing in his history specific to beer, but perhaps his prominent role in German history paired with the country's outstanding craft in brewing resulted in Boniface receiving the title by default.

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I hope you enjoyed the final post for the German Beer Advent Calendar. This was an outstanding experience, and I learned a lot about various German locales. I hope you did too! I enjoyed some delicious beers and have only grown my hopes to one day visit this lovely country.

I’m quite happy with myself to have maintained a daily series that involved so much research. It was a gratifying journey, but I look forward to writing fiction once again and posting other content.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas! Thank you for your upvotes and comments.
Schöne Ferien! Prost.

_{My household advent calendar for our two kids}

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_{Beer photographs by me. Pictures of Germany sources: 1 - 2. Saint Boniface historical art: 1 - 2}

_{Previous Advent Calendar entries: Intro - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24}