History of Beer Steins

Materials

• The beer stein is traditionally made from stoneware, a material that proved to be mostly resistant to chipping and cracking, as well as being more sanitary, as stoneware isn't porous. Other materials, such as pewter, glass, faience, silver and porcelain were later used.

Beginnings

• The stein's signature handle, lever, hinge and lid developed in the 1400s in Germany to keep insects out of a person's beer.

Craftsmanship

• In its early years, the cost to the buyer of these newly invented steins made them worthy of decoration, turning them into works of art and status symbols for the wealthy.

Themes

• Renaissance and Baroque motifs would prove to be the most prevalent, having immense appeal to the upper classes. After the 1800s, with the rise of the middle class, the beer stein adopted its more traditional theme, that of German folk art.

Shape

• Before the 1700s, the shape of the stein depended on the region it had been crafted in, but after the 1700s, shape fell in importance to the materials used and the themes depicted in the artwork. This left the beer stein with its well-known shape (twice as high as wide).

Collecting

• Stein collecting began around the turn of the 20th century, but antique steins really gained value monetarily in the 1960s and 1970s; this then created a stein-forging industry, forcing the would be beer stein collector to be wary of their purchase and to investigate the seller.