Gambrinus

Gambrinus , symbol of the amateurs of Beer, represents the good mood and the typical love of life of the Flandres.

One identifies sometimes Gambrinus with Jean without Peur, duke of Burgundy, to which one allots the invention of beer of Houblon. Gambrinus was also the name of a wine waiter of Charlemagne. The German poet Burkart Waldis mentions moreover certain Gambrinus which would have learned how art to brew of the goddess Isis, symbol of the fertility.

The legend of Gambrinus in Flanders

Gambrinus lived with the Fresnes-on-Scheldt, a small town of the Flandres. It was in love with Flandrine, the girl of its Master, who was glassmaker; but Flandrine was not in love with him. It started to tremble, at the point to more be able to play, and the inhabitants of Fresnes reflect it in prison for disturbance of the peace at night after having insulted it and having coiled blows. When it was released one month later, it wanted to commit suicide, but the Diable proposed to him to forget Flandrine in exchange of its heart which it would come to seek thirty years later. Gambrinus accepted the pact. It grows rich by plays by money, but it had still not forgotten the girl of the glassmaker.

It again met the devil, which gave him seeds to plant hop and showed him how to manufacture a chime which no one could not resist. Gambrinus organized a festival then where all were invited. The inhabitants of Fresnes found beer extremely bitter. Gambrinus then started to play of the chime and everyone danced until exhaustion. The revenge on Gambrinus was accomplished. But the inhabitants precipitated on beer to refresh itself and realized that the more one drank some, the more it was soft. The drink was made known beyond the borders of the country and the king of Flandres, to reward Gambrinus for this success, named it duke, count and lord. But he preferred the title of “King of the beer” which the inhabitants of Fresnes had given him. Little time after, Flandrine decided to speak to him, but he had not recognized it and… he offered to him to drink had forgotten it. When the thirty years had passed and that the devil returned, Gambrinus played of the chime until the devil finds unbearable that and disappears without requiring its remainder. Gambrinus lived happy hundred years still, while continuing to drink beer and to play of the chime. When he died, one found in his place a beer barrel: this is why it does not have a tomb.

Giant of parade

Gambrinus became the giant several cities of the north of France. Successively giant of Lille, Armentières, Steenvoorde and Béthune.

The Gambrinus beer

Gambrinus is also a mark of widespread beer:

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