THE LEGEND OF ST AMSTELSDAY

1ST NOVEMBER

All 1st Nov 2007 pics (zip file) 18MB

ST Amstel is the patron saint of seasonal workers and his day is traditionally celebrated on the 1st of Novmember every year. He is said to protect against the fatigue of a long seasons work and ease the worry of an uncertain future. The keeping of the saints day is said to bestow blessings for the coming winter and ensure a constant flow of your chosen drink.

Like many Saints his origins are shrouded in mystery and little is known about the man himself. As Saints go he is relatively new member of the celestial brotherhood. He is first mentioned in a Dutch journal on folklore in1680 but it is thought the legend predates this by at least 100 years. He has many names, in Italy he is known as St Amstelone and in Greece as St Amstelios. So who is this mythical character and how come we raise a glass or three to him on the first day of the eleventh month ?

General concencus has it that the man behind the legend was the Dutch nobleman, philanthropist and bon vivuer William Van Debeer and the legend go's like this.

Some time circa the late fifteen hundreds it had been a wet spring and a sun drenched summer in Mauritskade on the banks of the river Amstel. William van Derbeer stood on his battlements and gazed down upon his fields of Hops. It was only his second ever harvest and looked like being magnificent in it's bounty. It would surely make up for his first miserable attempt that had withered and died due to the constant September rain that fell that year. The other Merchants and Noblemen had mocked him for trying to grow such a useless crop and laughed when the first harvest all but failed. The few hops that had survived the downpours had been added to his personal brewery. When he tasted the results he knew that if he could produce a big enough crop he could make the finest ale in all of Europe. Then not only would he be famous but he could also pay his creditors and keep his ancestral home.He had lived the good life in his early years and had squandered much of his families fortune on ale, woman and song and he had invested heavily in his new venture and would be doomed to a life of poverty if this crop failed.

Every thing was perfect. The Humulus Ipulus flowers were bedecked with the tiny yellow crystals that showed the hops were ready to be gathered in. Men women and children from his estate were living in tiny hophuts in the fields waiting to begin the harvest. The money they would earn would be used to get them through the long winter when jobs were scarce. Finally in late August the work began.

The first two weeks went well and the workers sacks were quickly filled time after time with the small buds and flowers.The sun shone and a cool breeze gave respite to the workers as they toiled in the fields. The men walked on stilts and this gave them a fine view of the flat landscape and made the tiresome task a little more bearable. Van Debeers looked on with increasing joy as his dream slowly became a reality. Two more weeks of fine weather and the precious hops would be in his barns and his worries would be over. He chose to ignore the Gary panorama that the sky had become by the end of that day. He was positively miserible when he woke the next morning and heard the pitter patter of rain on the leaded windows of his bedroom. "I am doomed " he thought as he trudged across his fields towards the workers hophuts. " No one can work in this weather and I am sure they have all returned to their villages and tied cottages to get away from this infernal rain". To his surprise all of the workers were waiting to greet him and all but a few of the older ones were ready to carry on regardless in order to save his years work from disaster. And carry on they did. The harder it rained the harder they worked and in four days they had done the work of fourteen.

When all of the hops were safe and dry in storage barns Van DeBeers gathered his brave workers together and told them of how he would never forget how they had labored, and how he could not reward them with a few extra florins for their work as he was all but penniless himself. Consoling themselves with the money he could pay them they walked with leaden legs and aching arms back to their homes and hamlets. That night all of them man , woman and child slept like the dead after their four day marathon. In the Van Debeer household everyone was sleeping except for William. His workers actions had touched him deeply and he tossed and turned trying to think of a way he could repay their loyalty and kindness. The only thing he had plenty of was his private beer stock that he had squeezed from last years disaster and in a flash he decided to distribute one keg of his finest beer to all who had stood by him in his hours of need. Raising all of his servants he told them to load up enough barrels on to wagons and secretly deliver them to his workers and to do it before daybreak. Before they left he swore them all to secrecy and told them to make no noise and to wake no one. This they did and just as the sun rose in an angry gray sky the last of them arrived back to Van Debeers castle sodden from the rain but happy with their work.

When the first of the workers arose some time later she opened the door to their hovel and noticed a strange shape on her door step. Rubbing her sleep weary eyes she recognized it as barrel. It's lid was full of rain water and she took it for a barrel that catches clean water. Then she noticed the tap on the side, intrigued she looked even closer and recognized it for what it was. She called for her husband to come and look and he too stared in disbelief. Looking across at his neighbors hovel he noticed a barrel there too, in fact every hovel in the hamlet had a keg outside. He ran from door to door telling of the wondrous gift that awaited them. In no time at all every one in the hamlet was out side in the pouring rain still dressed in their nightshirts wondering who could have done such a wonderful thing. Soon an impromptu party was in full swing and before their breakfast of porridge had been prepared most of them were as merry as monks. This happened in every hamlet and cottage on the estate. By mid day the parties had merged into one and every resident of the estate had gathered together to make merry and postulate their own theories as to who was responsible for their good fortune. Some one decided to go and ask William Van Debeers if it was him and very soon they had all agreed to make the wet trek to the castle in search of an answer. When they arrived on mass and William saw his bedraggled workers all gathered in his great hall he immediately ordered his weary servants to prepare a meal and to bring out even more beer. Before long everyone was eating smoked herring and black bread washed down with flagons of the finest beer. They bombarded Van Debeers with questions and he denied all knowledge of the gifts saying only that a kind spirit must be responsible.

The day developed in to a feast and by night fall many workers had fallen asleep wherever they dropped . The next morning the great hall resembled a battle field. Bodies were strewn hither and thither. Some completely comatose and others holding their heads and repeating in Flemish over and over " never again, never again". Van Debeers was used to this morning after feeling and went to his kitchen and prepared a huge caldron of chamomile and willow bark and administered the medicine to the needy. He found one poor wretch in pain hanging over the great hall from the chandelier and with some help he got him down and gave him some of his magic elixir. In fact this is where the term " hungover" originates from . Van Debeers drank the last draught himself as he had drunk and danced as much as any commoner the night before and was as much in need as anyone. Slowly the red eyed peasants began to trudge back to their hovels still no wiser as to who had left the barrels. Van Deers had strenuously denied any involvement and the simple folk were content to believe that the great spirit of the Amstel river had thrown the party of a life time just for them.

The same happened the next year even though the weather remained fine all through the harvest. In fact the tradition continued year after year and was kept going by future generations of Van Debeers. As the popularity of the beer spread across Europe so did the tradition of leaving beer outside your niebours house on November 1st. William made his fortune and only admitted many years later it was him who started the annual celebration of the end of a seasons work. This only came to light when in his later years he joined a monastery and was obliged to confess every detail of his life to the Abbot. Being an enthusiast of the by now ritual and wide spread celebration the Abbot applied to Pope Ludicrous the 27th for sanctification of the elderly monk. The news was slow in coming back from the Vatican and in the mean time William spent all of his time looking after the sick and inventing new ways of fermenting some of which are still used today. One of these tequnics he called Lager and this got it's name from the response of the peasants he gave it to. They would look at their flagons and demand larger receptacles and this was eventually turned into the name we know today. The years took their toll and Van Debeers grew sick and eventually died of a strange illness that caused him to have a red nose, swollen stomach and slurred speech. Soon after his death word arrived frome Rome and the news was that their beloved William Van Debeer was to be sanctified and known from that day forwards as St Amstel, patron saint of seasonal workers.

The festival of St Amstel fell into disuse, drowned out by Hallmark holidays and gradually declined until the great Greek beer expert and head of the Fink Brau institute of beer research Christos Clementakis revived it in the early 1980s. It is now beginning to flourish once again and every year we see the feast being celebrated more and more. Van Debeers name lives on ingrained in our everyday culture. It's a little known fact that our favorite toast began as a toast to his family name but over years of drunken pronunciation and regional dialects it has evolved into "cheers".

Wherever you celebrate this years feast, raise a glass or two in honor of William Van Debeer better known to you and I as St Amstel.