Martin Luther’s Favourite Beer

Martin Luther, the monk whose rebellion against the Catholic Church helped fracture medieval Europe, was travelling under armed guard when he drank the beer that would become his favourite.

The year was 1521. Luther had just stood before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who demanded that he recant his writings. Luther refused. This monk and theologian had openly challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and, by extension, the foundations of political and social authority in Europe. He was declared a heretic.

It can be difficult for contemporary people to grasp the danger of this moment. Medieval Europe was not simply religious. Religion formed the structure of reality. Luther asserted that people could bypass the Church and have a direct, personal relationship with God. This idea sprouted like a weed in the foundation of a cathedral, slowly cracking what seemed unbreakable. The Church, centre of intellectual life, morality, law, politics, and salvation itself, was on the defensive. Luther had to die.

But it was too late. Luther’s idea now belonged to the people.  

Luther’s most revolutionary act was his translation of the Bible from Latin into vernacular German. And, carried around Europe on the wings of the printing press, the Church could not contain it. Before Luther, scripture in Western Europe was largely encountered through Latin. But almost nobody spoke it. Latin reinforced the Church's power by creating distance between people and God. 

Imagine sitting in a cathedral larger and grander than any building you've ever seen. Candles cast dancing firelight onto Gothic pillars. Incense fills the air. Priests speak a sacred language you don't understand. Then, at the proper moment, you rise to repeat sounds whose meaning had been explained to you. Religion was not a relationship with God. It was awe and obedience. 

Luther believed ordinary people should confront scripture directly in the language they actually spoke. So, he translated it. His pamphlets, sermons, and scripture washed over the Empire faster than authorities could suppress them. He was the most famous man in Europe.

But in 1521, Luther’s future looked bleak.

He was declared an outlaw. Not in the Wild West sense, in the original sense: outside the protection of the law. Anyone could legally kill him, steal his property, do anything to him, without consequence. 

Then he vanished.

While travelling through a forest near Eisenach, in the middle of what is today Germany, Luther’s carriage was suddenly intercepted by armed horsemen. He was dragged away and disappeared into the mountains. To much of Europe, it appeared that Martin Luther had been kidnapped or murdered.

Neither happened.

The kidnapping was staged by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, who understood that Luther would likely be executed if left exposed. Frederick had just appointed Luther as head of a university he founded and his killing would have been both a personal embarrassment and a violation of Saxony’s sovereignty. To prevent this, Frederick hid Luther at Wartburg Castle under the false identity “Junker Jörg,” or Knight George. There he grew a beard, lived in isolation, and began translating the New Testament into German.

It was during this turbulent period that Luther encountered the famous beer of Einbeck.

Einbeck, in Lower Saxony, had become one of Europe’s great brewing centres during the late Middle Ages. Its brewers produced strong pale ales prized across the continent and shipped through the trade networks of the Hanseatic League. The beer became so famous that its name evolved linguistically as it spread through German regions and dialects. “Einpöckisch Bier” would eventually become “Bockbier.”

Luther loved it.

According to tradition, Luther declared: “The best drink known to man is called Einbeck beer.”