Tap Handle #714: Freigeist Bierkultur

February 13, 2019

Tap Handle #714: Freigeist Bierkultur

Tap size: 9"
Rarity: Less than 10 seen, import, brewed by contract brewer
Mounting: internal 3/8" nut

This tap comes to the Museum all the way from Germany. Freigeist translates to "Free Spirit" in English, and a ghost coming out of a snifter glass certainly seems like a free spirit. In my mind, the tap has two meanings; first, the free spirit emerging from the glass represents the brewery's craft beer style freeing German beer drinkers from the rigidity and strictness of the Reinheitsgebot, also known as the German Purity Law; and second, that this represents the brewery resurrecting recipes "long dead", those that have been forgotten due to the Reinheitsgebot or for other reasons. It's a very simple design but quite striking. I'm going to be profiling the brewery's Abraxxxas beer, one of the first they ever made. Since the front and back of the tap are a reverse image of each other, I have taken a full amount of photos. I have never seen one on the secondary market, and it should be considered quite scarce, since it is from Germany, and the brewery not only contracts their beer to made by other breweries, it doesn't even have its own website.

Click through to read more about Freigeist Bierkultur, their Abraxxxas beer, and to see more photos of this spirited tap...

Freigeist Bierkultur was founded in 2009 in Köln, Germany by Sebastian Sauer. As a teenager Sauer developed an interest in the production of food, and that led him into researching how to brew beer. He was fascinated by "beer tasting", how styles and brands actually tasted and how they were compared to each other using long descriptions; Sauer had always thought “it’s just beer.” So he began to travel to Belgian beer festivals, and tried Danish, American, and Italian craft beers. Some of them struck a chord, and he wanted to travel and taste even more, and to meet great people. He had taught himself home brewing through videos, and had worked at the Braustelle, a small brewpub for about a year. He started Freigeist Bierkultur (Free Spirit Beer Culture) as a side project, brewing craft beers mostly for export, because the most popular German beers adhered to the German Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot). He partnered with Peter Esser, the owner of Braustelle, to brew these unconventional German beers. Their first beer was Abraxxxas, a modern interpretation of the extinct, sour and smoky beer style Lichtenhainer.

The side project soon grew into a full time job. Sauer began to research and find many historical and unique beers that did not conform to Reinheitsgebot. In creating these eccentric brews, Freigeist became a German pioneer...since German beer was of such high quality, craft beer was seen as unnecessary and was mostly ignored. In 2012, Sauer teamed with master brewer Christian Voorman to create a new brewery called The Monarchy. Together they dug deep into the history books to brew traditional, true-to-recipe recreations of niche Germany styles, for example Adambier and Preussen Weisse. Sauer has collaborated on historical recipes with many other breweries mainly in the U.S. and Canada, including Ritterguts (Gose), Steel & Oak (Steinbier), Holy Mountain (Broyhan), and several others like Cascade and Pizza Port. Sauer's food background also inspires him to try brewing with foods he's come across, such as date syrup, lingonberries, pluots, sapphire grapes, and Polish honey dew.

Abraxxxas is inspired by the rare and nearly-extinct eastern German tart wheat beer once known as “Lichtenhainer”. It is sour and complex, with a balancing smoky maltiness. As freakily drinkable as it is challenging, this ale was deemed an instant classic upon it’s release in the U.S., but was only brewed between 2012 and 2013.