The Official Beer of Luther’s Stand at the Diet of Worms

The Einbecker beer website claims that “when Duke Erich handed Martin Luther a mug of Einbecker Beer at the Worms Reichstag in the year 1521, Martin Luther called out, ‘The best drink known to man is called Ainpöckisch Beer [Der beste Trank, den einer kennt, wird Ainpöckisch Bier genennt].’” (Ainpöckisch, the word from which bock beer is derived, is an archaic spelling of Einbeckisch or Einbecker, that is, “from [the city of] Einbeck.”) I sought to track down the origin of this tradition. As it turns out, Luther called out no such thing, nor did Duke Erich actually hand Luther a mug of Einbecker beer in person. However, according to an oration given by the theologian Nikolaus Selnecker (1530–1592) in Hildesheim in 1590, the following did occur on April 18, 1521, at the Imperial Diet of Worms:

As Luther was leaving [the hall], and with many people crowded around him, Erich the Elder, duke of Brunswick, sends him a silver tankard filled with Einbecker beer, inviting him to refresh himself. Luther asks which prince was thinking of him with this gesture, and hears that the giver, a papist, had already taken a drink from the tankard so that Luther would not suspect anything sinister. So Luther himself takes a drink and says, “As Prince Erich has thought of me today, so may Christ think of him in his final battle.”¹ Duke Erich remembered these words when he was about to breathe his last, and he requested that Franz von Kramm, a page attending him at his bedside, revive him with evangelical comfort.²

I have not found any definitive confirmation of this from primary sources, but the tradition certainly has the ring of truth to it and a number of factors in support of its veracity. Among these factors are the likelihood of Duke Erich having brought Einbecker beer with him to the diet (due to his close proximity to the city of Einbeck, the fact that Einbeck was under the rule of his relative, and the reputation of Einbecker beer), Selnecker’s close friendship with Melanchthon (who in turn was a close friend of Luther), and Selnecker’s knowledge of the page’s name, which may indicate that the information was handed down in whole or in part from the page.

So, until proven to the contrary, if you want to enjoy the same refreshment that revived Luther after his bold and taxing witness before Emperor Charles V, crack open a bottle of Einbecker Ainpöckisch 1378—the official beer of Luther’s stand at the Diet of Worms. (This was also the beer later given to the Luthers by the Wittenberg city council on the occasion of their wedding.)

This post in no way originated with, and is not endorsed by, Einbecker Beer. Always drink in moderation to the glory of God.

Sources

Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation (1521–1532). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994. Page 200.

Selnecker, Nikolaus. Oratio Historica de Initiis, Causis, et Progressu Confessionis Augustanae, et de Vita ac Laboribus D. D. Martini Lutheri, Postremae Aetatis Eliae. Jena: Tobias Steinmann, 1592. Originally given in Hildesheim in 1590. Folio 22 verso.

Endnotes

¹ That is, in the hour of his (Erich’s) death.

² That is, he wanted the page to comfort him with the gospel as preached and taught by the evangelicals, not the papists.