My wife hates horror movies. So while she mostly loves our beer stein collection, she's not particularly fond of the part of it she calls "Nightmare Alley". It's the section of shelf that holds side-by-side a grimacing skull, the brooding Frankenstein monster, and a grinning devil.



For the most part, the steins in our collection are full of upbeat themes, like beer-drinking partiers, folkloric dancers, and whimsical figurals. But I like an occasional good horror flick, so, over the course of time I picked-up these three bad boys. Not all at once, mind you, for that would have surely sent the good woman over the top, but one by one over the course of many a year.

It was the ½-liter porcelain Ernst Bohne & Söhne Catalog Number 4708 "Mephisto" or "Mephistopheles" which I acquired first. In German folklore, Mephistopheles is a minion of Satan and was featured in the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragic play "Faust". The stein is the quintessential portrayal of the sly devil weaving a web of temptation and entrapment.

As most collectors of figural steins know, Bohne is regarded as one of the top figural stein makers of its era. For a comprehensive history of the company and its steins the reader is referred to Frank Loevi's article "The Steins of E. Bohne Söhne: An Introduction" which can be found both in the September 2001 issue of Prosit and in the Beer Stein Library. Another excellent treatise can be found in the article "Character Steins by Ernst Bohne" by Mike Wald in the March 1986 issue of Prosit.

He may be the embodiment of evil, but my Mephisto's a handsome devil, don't you think?

The next addition to the terrible-trio was the 1/2-liter porcelain Schierholz & Sohn Catalog Number X7 "Skull on Book" stein. It is the only one of its kind that I, as well as a number of experts I consulted, have ever seen with an original all-pewter lid. An article I wrote about this piece appeared in the March 2022 issue of Prosit.

Schierholz is another company that is at the top of collectors' lists of figural stein makers. In fact, it created more porcelain character steins than any other maker of its era. Loevi also authored an excellent treatise on this company and its steins in his article "An Introduction to Schierholz Character Steins" which can be found both in the December 2001 issue of Prosit and in the Beer Stein Library. The earlier foundational articles by Ron Fox, "Schierholz Character Steins" and "Listing of Schierholz Character Steins" in the December 1986 and March 1987 issues of Prosit, respectively, are also highly recommended.

Inscribed in Latin on the book upon which the skull sits is the text: "Gaudeamus igitur juvenes dum sumus"; translation: "Let us therefore rejoice while we are young." Do you think the grimace on the skull's face is perhaps because he did not heed this sound advice while he still could?

The most recent addition to Nightmare Alley was the Anheuser-Busch Catalog Number CS323 "Frankenstein Monster". It is pottery, 8-1/2 inches tall of unspecified capacity but probably holding about ¾-liter. Some might view this acquisition with disdain. Made in 1999, it's not even close to being an antique, nor was it made in Germany, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter, stemming instead from Brazil. But "Frankenstein", both Mary Shelly's book and the original 1931 movie with Boris Karloff, were ground-breaking classics, and the "Frankenstein Monster" stein is actually very well made. I finally succumbed to my suppressed desire to own one in late 2021, when an eBay seller accepted my very modest best-offer.

The "Frankenstein Monster" stein was made by Ceramarte and was part of the collector series Anheuser-Busch produced from 1975 until its merger with Belgian brewing giant InBev in 2008. During this period, Anheuser-Busch is said to have produced several hundred thousand beer steins of 600 different designs.

Frankie is quite shudder-inducing realistic, wouldn't you agree?

That brings our tour of Nightmare Alley to a close. And so, dear reader, imagine if you will the sound of the "Inner Sanctum" creaking door in the background, while I bid you all "Pleasant Dreeeeaaams, Hmmmmm?"

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