Why the lids on beer steins? [1] The real reasons!

August 22, 2016 6:14 PM

Why do beer steins have lids? Steve will set you straight.
posted by zennie (38 comments total)

I thought it was so you wouldn't spill while you were conducting the orchestra.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

You might say Steve blows the lid off the case.
posted by mwhybark at 6:29 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

what's the tl;dr? I always thought the answer was, "So du kannst dein Bier nicht spillen, ya dingus."
posted by not_on_display at 6:33 PM on August 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

I read this initially as "beer stains" and was totally confused.
posted by bitdamaged at 6:33 PM on August 22, 2016

A: To prevent skunking, as shade was not invented until 1743
posted by beerperson at 6:48 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

And all I had to do was walk outside one spring morning last year and see all the dried “liquid presents” the doves had left for me on my front porch table. I can almost imagine the old folks (Germans included) while having their festivals, sitting around the trees to keep the sun off them while they were drinking. But the birds would be letting their presence known all the time.

... was his conclusion.

I'm with beerperson; people back then drank small beer, right? As a way of drinking potable liquids. So they'd be sipping from a tankard throughout the day.

In conclusion, tankards are the Nalgene bottles of the ancients.
posted by porpoise at 6:49 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]

Freakin kids, send them out in the snow to get some booze and you know you can't trust them not to spill it.
posted by bongo_x at 7:04 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tapas is a better way to cover a beer.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:07 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

something something something IPAs
posted by entropicamericana at 7:16 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

...I can almost imagine the old folks (Germans included) while having their festivals, sitting around the trees to keep the sun off them while they were drinking. But the birds would be letting their presence known all the time.

So, now I'm picturing the old folks letting themselves get fairly coated with bird droppings, not minding it as long as their beer is protected. Maybe...?
posted by ejs at 7:28 PM on August 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Oh god, Steves are escaping the election thread.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 7:33 PM on August 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

not minding it as long as their beer is protected

Same
posted by beerperson at 7:36 PM on August 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Now some other Steve should tell us about the provenance of the six-pack. My theory? You can trust a kid not to "spill" any of your bier on the way home when it's all bottled or canned up and stowed in convenient little suitcases. You just have to count them up when your junior distributor arrives.
posted by notyou at 7:43 PM on August 22, 2016

ebay volken is rife with people who are perpetually angry about being asked questions.

Do not blame them, they live a terrible life.
posted by Ferreous at 8:03 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I learned that lids went on the steins because recruiters from the royal navy would toss coins into the steins, and if the coin landed, then you had been paid, and were forcibly recruited. Anyway, that's what I was taught as a student in Germany. So there. Prosit!
posted by Oyéah at 8:14 PM on August 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stein Cube
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:27 PM on August 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I went into the linked article curious to learn the answer but I confess at about the fifty-third word that was randomly in "quotation" marks or ALL CAPS or set off by a line of >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>, I confess I lost interest.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:52 PM on August 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

I figured it was that you could use a stein with a lid to make a comical chompy mouth at people while you made Pam Poovey grunting noises.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:13 PM on August 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I very much loved this website article style of yore.
posted by latkes at 9:24 PM on August 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

That is not a very convincing article, in style or content. I don't know whether I was educated stupid before, or now that I've read it.
posted by ctmf at 9:53 PM on August 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mean, since when has "that's what the cool people did at the time" needed an actual reason?
posted by ctmf at 9:55 PM on August 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mean, since when has "that's what the cool people did at the time" needed an actual reason?

I hope 600 years from now when scholars ask why men in 2016 went sockless with their pants rolled up, the answer they settle upon is TO PROTECT AGAINST THE ZIKA VIRUS
posted by ejs at 10:53 PM on August 22, 2016 [13 favorites]

I heard it was basically to keep the dust from the horse dung in the streets out of the beer.

Now why you witless drink beer in an area where you could breath powdered horse dung is another question.
posted by happyroach at 12:42 AM on August 23, 2016

I was told it was so you could dance without putting your beer down (an Atlantean level of development which our pitiful modern civilization has yet to even approach). Having read the site, I'm honestly not sure if what I heard was true or not. But I'll tell you one thing--I am STEAMED UP about people making up shit about cup-and-bowl ordinances! Death to false pewter!
posted by No-sword at 2:28 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

We have several old beer steins in my family, ranging from just-pre WWI to about 250 years old, some civilian and some regimental, all lidded. Heck, I didn't know there was even a question about this: we've always accepted that those lids were to keep out bugs/leaf bits/other non-beer crap.
posted by easily confused at 2:44 AM on August 23, 2016

I hope we're not laughing at Steve, but rather experiencing a memory of a simpler internet. It's pretty clear, from his "about" page, that the massive health issues that have beset him since 2012, including visual impairment making it harder for him to edit, are a significant factor in the approach he takes to the site.
posted by howfar at 3:45 AM on August 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

I mean, since when has "that's what the cool people did at the time" needed an actual reason?

I think this is essentially what he's saying about the "Black Plague Fleas!" and "Thousands of Tiny Beer Flies Sanitation Law!" myths. Although "you had to walk your beer down the road" is not entirely unreasonable theory and gets you to "whoever has the best stein wins!" pretty fast.

Posted because I thought the page was awesome and some people might like it. And the rest of the site is good for fancy beer steins. Based on the about page, not sure how much longer the site will exist.
posted by zennie at 4:00 AM on August 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Beersteins or beerstains? I can't remember...
posted by Monkeymoo at 5:35 AM on August 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Beer has always been a relatively expensive liquid, (still is by the way! but not as bad as gasoline!)"

I, for one, would like to know where he's finding his less than two dollar a gallon beer.
posted by Floydd at 5:43 AM on August 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

I always assumed they were to keep beer beetles, fruit flies, and yellow jackets out. Those insects are usually why I have to cover my beer when drinking outside. Beer beetles were a real pain when I lived in Southern Ontario - drinking on patios often meant putting a coaster on top of your glass -- but I don't see them very often in Ottawa.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:43 AM on August 23, 2016

I think the correct answer is that german beer mugs don't necessarily have lids; it's just that the Anglo-Saxon idea of a 'stein' (not really a German concept, as opposed to a 'mass' or whatever) is of heavily-decorated mugs; and heavily-decorated ones unsurprisingly tend often to have decorative lids.
posted by Segundus at 7:46 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Beersteins or beerstains? I can't remember...

Most people remember it as "Beerenstein", but it's actually spelled "Beerenstain".
posted by uosuaq at 8:20 AM on August 23, 2016 [12 favorites]

Well, all i can say is that according to my father, who grew up in a small rural German town in the '30s , he still had to fetch beer from the restaurant for his father in a stein as they did not yet have cans or bottles. And the lid sure helps to keep a full stein from spilling. So that's what i always believed.
posted by msiebler at 9:03 AM on August 23, 2016

Bit of a ranter, our Steve.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:41 AM on August 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

@porpoise "people back then drank small beer, right? As a way of drinking potable liquids. So they'd be sipping from a tankard throughout the day."

I think this has been debunked as a myth.
posted by botono9 at 1:00 PM on August 23, 2016

"smart flies."
posted by AndrewInDC at 3:04 PM on August 23, 2016

Did he ever get around to saying that flies don't spread plague, because my eyes started hurting halfway through.
posted by emjaybee at 3:11 PM on August 23, 2016

Well, of course they didn't spread plague. How could they with lids protecting the beer from infection?
posted by No-sword at 7:50 AM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]