Brewers to celebrate "Brewers’ New Year" on 30 September
Don’t be surprised when towards the end of September you will be greeted by a cheerful "Happy New Beer" in Austria’s bars and pubs. Austria’s brewers have decided that far too long a once-cherished tradition has been abandoned: Brewers’ New Year which used to be celebrated on 30 September.
In the old, old days, brewers started their year on 1 October, unlike the rest of the Roman Empire which determined as early as the second century AD that the new year was to begin on 1 January. The brewers’ deviation from the normal calendar year has its origins in the Middle Ages. In those days, there was no artificial cooling, so the heat-sensitive beer was allowed to be brewed only during the colder season between Michaelmas (29 September) and Georgia (23 April).
To mark the occasion, which coincided with the harvest of barley and hops, brewers celebrated their New Year’s Eve on 30 September. This custom has long been forgotten although it has lived on with several brewing companies around the world which still end their fiscal year on this day.
Last year already, Austria’s brewers wanted to revive this tradition with a week of festivities. Although it was a small event, in the sense that only a few brewers offered to take part, the Austrian brewers’ association would not give up.
This year there will be a week of festivities from 23 to 30 September 2012 under the heading "Festival of Beer Diversity" and the Austrian brewers’ association is confident that quite a few of the country’s 161 brewing companies will contribute to it.
The association is having posters and beer coasters printed for the occasion. There will be a digital greetings card to be sent out as a viral video. Not enough, the association is planning to have a specially composed "brewing waltz" and a "hop polka" ready for downloading.
In case you happen to bump into Conrad Seidl, Austria’s Bierpapst (literally "beer pope") around that time, ask him to waltz you around the room. It should be an experience.
Among western Europe’s beer markets, Austria has been a bit of an anomaly as its per capita beer consumption has not declined this past decade but remained more or less stable at around 108 litres per year, which makes Austria rank second behind the Czech Republic when it comes to happy beer quaffers.
