Beer Stein - History

History

In the latter half of the 19th century, stein makers found different advantages within the different materials. The advantage in using stoneware to make steins was that molds could be used to mass produce elaborately carved steins. In using glass, not only could one produce multiple glass mugs, but an artistic touch could add to the glass by including acid etchings, glass staining, or even multicolored overlays. Porcelain's advantage was that a stein fabricator could use molds to make "character steins", steins that had a particular shape modeled after an item or a person.

Throughout the 1900s, collecting antique and replicated beer steins became very popular hobby not only among individual people, but in museums as well. Production of beer steins has become substantially large in America, but the largest producer of beer steins is Ceramarte of Brazil.

The most traditional area of beer stein production is the Westerwald region in Germany called "Kannenbaeckerland". This unique German potters region has been creating beer steins for centuries and is famous among the collectors as the original German beer stein producer.