There are only a few weeks until Christmas and I'm sure many of you have already seen Advent Calendars in decoration stores. This tradition has become very popular in recent years and calendars can be found in many different formats.
The term advent comes from the Latin adventus which means arrival or coming. Advent refers to the beginning of the Liturgical Year, beginning on November 30 and ending on December 24. It is the period of waiting and preparing for Christmas.
But do you know its origins and why Advent Calendars were created?
This tradition was born in Germany, towards the end of the 19th century. It was simply a way of accounting for those waiting days by marking 24 lines on the wall or door of homes with chalk. Each day that passed the children could erase a line, and this countdown became a fun game for the little ones in the house.
In Catholic areas, children were allowed to put a straw or a feather in the manger each day for their good deeds so that the baby Jesus could lie in it on the day of his birth. Candles and strips of paper to tear off are other variants of this practice. And in the homes of the richest families, the children received a treat every day.
It was not until 1902 that the first calendar as such appeared. It was the Hamburg Protestant Bookstore that launched this first printed calendar on the market.
But marking the days that passed on a piece of paper was a bit more boring than erasing chalk lines. That must have been the thinking of the publisher Gehard Lang who, just a year later, began selling colorful Christmas images to be cut out and pasted in the twenty-four squares of the calendar.
This idea worked very well, but Lang went further, and since he had his own printing press (the «Reichhold & Lang») for years he investigated how to make the Advent Calendar even more attractive. He got it in 1930, the year he began marketing a calendar with 24 small windows that opened and contained a cake and images of winter landscapes or Christmas trees. In fact, legend has it that it was inspired by a almanac that his mother made him when he was little, in which he hid a cookie every day. We don't know if the story is true, but it is very sweet. In any case, the format of the Advent Calendar that we know now had just been born.
However, it wasn't until the 1950s that Advent calendars with chocolate bars became fashionable. And in recent years you can find calendars with almost any theme or even DIY to personalize them with your own gifts.
But going back to the origins of the window calendar, do you know where its inventor came from? From Munich! A city also closely linked to the history of beer (for example, Oktoberfest was born here). So it was clear to us that we had to get a beer Advent Calendar.
Happy Hoppy Days, the Beer Sapiens Advent Calendar
We have brought together 20 BIG names from the Spanish craft brewing world in the calendar with the widest variety of craft breweries on the market, to create with them a Beer Advent Calendar that includes 24 beers made from north to south of the country, in addition to a LOT of styles and sub-styles to make the experience unique, every day you will have a new surprise.
Obviously we can't tell you which beers it brings (that's part of the magic: not knowing what you're going to find every day) but we can tell you that they are all unpublished elaborations, some even exclusive to those that only you will have access with this pack
Do you want more reasons to take this Advent Calendar home? Well, for example, the design is really cool! The pack box is specially designed for the occasion. And to finish convincing you, this pack has free shipping costs.
So, don't waste any time so we can send you this Advent Calendar so brewy. Remember that, if you want to follow the tradition to the letter, you must start opening the windows on November 30, but then everyone can decide when they are going to enjoy these great beers, one by one, two by two or in a group by opening several at the same time :)