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Fucking Hell is a German
In 2010, three German businessmen, Stefan Fellenberg, Florian Krause and Hans-Jörg Schaller devised a plan to bring a new beer to market. Krause was originally from
pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale-to-golden-colored lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid-19th century, when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing ...
, a Pilsner
Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (german: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewe ...
, with an alcohol content of 4.9%. It is named after Fucking, the previous name of the village of Fugging in Austria; ''hell
In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
'' is the German word for 'pale' and a typical description of this kind of beer. The beer's name was initially controversial. Both the local authorities in Fucking and the European Union's Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office initially objected to the name. It was eventually accepted and the lager is sold internationally.
Production
Fucking Hell is not brewed in Fugging, but was originally brewed in the Brauerei Waldhaus, a brewery in theBlack Forest
The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...
town of Waldhaus, Weilheim in Germany. From 2013, production moved to the Brauerei Hartmannsdorf in Hartmannsdorf, near Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...
. At the time of the launch of Fucking Hell, there was no brewery in the village of Fucking.
Fucking Hell is a pilsner and is not considered to be a true Hellbier, as beers brewed in the traditional Munich style have a malt
Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air.
Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...
ed taste and are slightly darker in appearance.
History
In 2010, three German businessmen, Stefan Fellenberg, Florian Krause and Hans-Jörg Schaller devised a plan to bring a new beer to market. Krause was originally from Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall (Central Bavarian: ''Reichahoi'') is a spa town, and administrative center of the Berchtesgadener Land district in Upper Bavaria, Germany. It is located near Salzburg in a basin encircled by the Chiemgau Alps (including Mount Staufe ...
, a Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n town 20 km over the border from the Austrian village of Fucking. The village's name inspired them to devise a humorous brand name, combined with the German word "Hell" for 'pale lager', and they applied to register a Community Trade Mark
A European Union trade mark or EU trade mark (abbreviated EUTM; named ''Community Trade Mark'' (''CTM'') until 23 March 2016) is a trade mark which is pending registration or has been registered in the European Union as a whole (rather than on a na ...
for "Fucking Hell".
The European Union's Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office initially refused to grant a trademark for the beer on the grounds that it contained an expletive. However, Fellenberg and Krause argued that the name referred to the village in Austria and that ''Hell'' was an Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n and Southern German
Southern Germany () is a region of Germany which has no exact boundary, but is generally taken to include the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, historically the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia or, in a modern context, Bavaria ...
term for pale lager
Pale lager is a very pale-to-golden-colored lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid-19th century, when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing ...
. The Trade Marks and Designs Registration Office permitted the registration of the trademark, stating that the name was "an interjection used to express a deprecation, but it does not indicate against whom the deprecation is directed, nor can it be considered as reprehensible to use existing place names in a targeted manner (as a reference to the place), merely because this may have an ambiguous meaning in other languages."
Fellenberg and Krause intended to use the trademark as a brand name and use it to produce Fucking Hell branded food and clothing. The beer went on sale in Europe, Asia and Australia in 2011. In 2020, it was granted a United States trademark.
See also
*Beer in Germany
Beer is a major part of Culture of Germany, German culture. German beer is brewing, brewed according to the ''Reinheitsgebot'', which permits only water, hops, and malt as ingredients; and stipulates that beers not exclusively using barley-malt, ...
* List of brewing companies in Germany
This is a list of brewing companies in Germany. Beer is a major part of German culture. For many years German beer was brewed in adherence to the ''Reinheitsgebot'' order or law which only permitted water, hops, yeast and malt as beer ingredient ...
*Helles
Helles or hell is a traditional German pale lager beer, produced chiefly in Southern Germany, particularly Munich. The German word ''hell'' can be translated as "bright", "light", or "pale".
Flavour profile
Helles-style beers typically are f ...
References
External links
* Privatbrauerei Waldhaus on the German Wikipedia * List of active breweries in Germany on the German Wikipedia {{in lang, de Products introduced in 2011 Beer brands of Germany Obscenity controversies