Monday, February 14, 2011

I love BEER / BIER!

If you personally know me at all, you know that one of my main interests besides photography is beer. No, I’m not talking about that watered down, cheap ingredients, mass produced “beer” that you see on tap at most bars. I’m talking about German, Belgian, Irish, and American craft beer. It was inevitable that I would intertwine the two interests. Even I am surprised that it took this long to happen. So with that being said, on with the post.

My wife Monica and I bought our first house together a year ago. Our rooms have turned out to all have a similar theme. It started when we let our honeymoon location of the Greek Islands inspire the feel of our living room. Then my wife wanted to give our kitchen a certain French feel.

When it came time to decorate the dining room, I thought a German vibe would work well. So we tore up the carpet to reveal the hardwood and brought in a couple wood furnishings. Then we made a trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan and bought an authentic Black Forest Cuckoo clock. Monica created some Bavarian inspired paintings for either side of the front window (she's an amazing artist), and I decided to create a couple of pieces myself.

If you know anything about German beer (or bier), you'd know that all the breweries were required to uphold the German Beer Purity Law of 1516. It stated that all beer should only be made with 4 ingredients - water, barley, hops and yeast. The law has since been repealed, but most German beer still abides by the law. In the German language, it was known as Reinheitsgebot. As a tribute to the origin of German beer, I wanted to purchase a replica of the law as it would appear on old parchment, but I simply couldn't find it anywhere. So I looked up the original text, and created my own, as seen here.



The second image that I wanted to create was a panoramic image showcasing many of the different German glasswares. I have a pretty good collection of beer glasses - mostly Belgian and German, so I thought this would be something fun and unique to create from scratch. I also wanted to have an actual bottle of beer to match each glass, so after some hunting, I was able to find them all. I did some research for photographing this too. I had never done product shots of reflective material. After some trial and error, I got it figured out. And here is the result of a lot of hard work and planning.



If you enjoy the print, and would like to order one for yourself, you can purchase a copy at my store.

And if you haven't heard yet, I am now a beer reviewer!! You can see my thoughts on all things beer related over at Pittsburgh Hot Plate!