Monday 26 September 2016

DDR Labels

You can never have too many obsessions. If you've endless attic space.

Fortunately, beer labels take up fuck all room. Even Dolores doesn't object: "Just as long as it isn't more stinky books, Ronald."

DDR labels. Why do they obsess me? Because I neglected to collect them? I have a bad case of Ostalgie? They have their own distinctive aesthetic?

All three obviously. With a syrup of personal memories poured over the top.

I can't help searching for DDR label collections on ebay. They're so tempting, I try not to look too often. All those pretty labels. Just awaiting for a good home.

"I've no idea how that happened."

"You bought 450 labels."

"They only cost 40-odd euros. Bargain. I can use them on my blog. I'm always banging on about the good old DDR days."

"You didn't live there, Ronald. It was very different for us. You only saw the best bits."

"I went to Merseburg."

"I lived there."

She's trumped me with that.

Let's move on and look at some of my . . . .


Almost forgot. Due to my incompetence on ebay, I sort of bought another 300 DDR labels. It really was an accident, I told her. Dolores just shrugged her shoulders. "Better than buying lots of smelly books" I saw her thinking.

Back to the pretty labels. Enjoy.









6 comments:

Phil said...

On a complete tangent, have you or Dolores come across Katharina Peters' series of crime novels set on Rügen? I read the first one - Hafen Mord - when I was on holiday on Rügen the other year. Nothing about beer as far as I remember, but quite a lot about how different things were before die Wende.

InSearchOfKnowledge said...

Bitter tonic water is probably not a beer!?

Ron Pattinson said...

InSearchOfKnowledge,

but a nice label. And note how it's more expensive than beer.

Ron Pattinson said...

Phil,

I can't remember Dolores mentioning those books. She'd probably be interested as she was born on Rügen.

Elektrolurch said...

Very, very fascinating.
And it raises a few questions:
And, the labels were color coded throughout the DDR, right?Green for Pils, yellow for Helles and-I assume red for Bock? Any other color codes?
I've never seen or heard the word "Verlegerabzug" before- what does it mean, or rather, imply? Anyone any ideas? I've only heard of "Brauereiabzug". My guess would be that the beer was brewed as usual and than sent in tanks to the "verleger" that bottled and labelled it. Does this make any sense?Probably not. Just guessing...

Ron Pattinson said...

Elektrolurch,

Dolores reckons Verlegerabfüllung means bottled by a third party. I posted the colour codes a year or two ago. Just look under the DDR tag. There's one with all the rules.