German Beers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jewish music

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864, nee Jacob Liebmann Beer) was an opera composer of Jewish heritage. He wrote his first cantata for the private synagogue that his father maintained at their house. At the age of 10 he was playing Mozart's music and soon after studied under Antonio Salieri.

By the time he was 24, he was the director of both opera houses in Naples and soon after, he began writing a series of operas that gained him international acclaim. Though he had a very successful career, his operatic ideals were extremely different from those or Richard Wagner. Richard wrote "Jewishness in Music" in part to attack his works, and Giacomo's operas eventually fell out of style.

Answer: crater on Mars

Wilhelm Wolff Beer's greatest claim to fame was in being an amateur astronomer. In 1829, he built a private observatory in Berlin. He coauthored the first detailed map and description of the Moon. Afterwards, he created the first detailed map of Mars and calculated its rotation period with exceptional accuracy.

The crater Beer on Mars was later named after him. Wilhelm was also actively involved in the corporate sector of 19th century Germany. He was director of the Potsdam-Leipzig Railway Company, and was greatly involved in German railroad construction of the time.

Answer: light travelling through a medium

August Beer (1825-1863) was a mathematician and chemist who was educated in Bonn and studied with scientist Julius Plücker. He eventually got his PhD and became a professor at the University of Bonn. His areas of research were primarily electrostatics, light absorption, and photometry, and published works covered topics like Optics and Electromagnetism.

The scientific law that bears his name was first formulated in 1852 and concerns light intensity through a medium. Essentially, it states that the absorbance rate of light is linear and thus proportional to the product of the attenuation coefficient of the substance and the distance it travels.

Answer: give a sermon

Bernhard Beer was born in Dresden to a family that was well-connected to the Jewish community there at the time. Despite being a layman, Bernhard got permission to give a sermon in German, becoming the first person believed to have done so. He later became a volunteer preacher and educator, and spent many years of his adult life as a Jewish community leader. Bernhard was openly critical of Saxony for its treatment of its Jews.

He also analyzed halakhic texts, published research on the the Book of Jubilees, and founded the Moses Mendelssohn Club.

After his death, a scholarship was founded in Dresden in his memory.

Answer: long jump

Klaus Beer was a track and field athlete for East Germany during the 1960s. In his early days he was an avid handball player, and was an active member of SC Dynamo Berlin, an East German sports club. In the 1968 Olympics at Mexico City, Klaus managed to perform a 8.19 m (26.87 ft) long jump. Though it was better than the previous Olympic record, it was nonetheless eclipsed by Bob Beamon's 8.90 m (29.20 ft) jump, thus earning him a silver medal when the games closed. Klaus also took part in the European Athletics Indoor Championships and European Cup Finals in 1970, winning silver medals during both those events too.

Answer: Red Army Faction

Wolfgang and Henning Beer were brothers who grew up in a destitute household, and became radicalized at a young age. Both of the Beer brothers were part of the "second generation" RAF, which came about after most of the original members were killed or captured.

Henning was part of a raid on a Swiss Volksbank that netted the group 548,000 Swiss francs in 1979. Wolfgang met a fatal end when the stolen car he was in collided with a truck. Years later, Henning was captured, put on trial, and convicted of multiple attempted murders.

He served his time, was set free, and did survive the dissolution of the RAF, which happened in 1998.

Answer: The Pariah

Michael Beer, brother of Wilhelm Wolff Beer and Giacomo Meyerbeer, was part of a prominent Jewish banking family around Berlin. He chose to make his way as a poet and playwright, and by the age of 19, his play "Klytemnestra" was being performed in theaters.

His most famous play was "The Pariah", about an Indian couple who died for their son, which doubled as an allegory for contemporary Jewish oppression in Europe. Michael Beer was influenced by contemporaries like Goethe, and in turn drew their admiration.

He died at a young age from illness, and his wealth was left in the care of the Berlin Academy of Arts, which used it to found the Michael Beer Foundation.

Answer: architecture

Alexander Beer first worked in Mainz, near Frankfurt. He refurbished buildings that were owned by the government of Hesse, and held the title Regierungsbaumeister ("government builder"). An eventual lack of work sent him to Berlin, and he became architect for the Jewish community of Berlin.

His prominent works include an orphanage, two synagogues, and a cemetery memorial. He also expanded and restored Berlin's first Jewish girls' school. All of Alexander's works were vandalized by Nazis, and he died at Theresienstadt in the modern-day Czech Republic. Since then, some of his works have been restored.

Answer: spinal anesthesia

Not to be confused with August Beer, August Bier was a doctor who studied medicine in Leipzig and Kiel. After practicing in Central and South America for a few years, he returned to University of Kiel where he experimented with local anesthesia techniques.

He eventually developed a technique where he injected cocaine into a patient's spinal cord, that left the patient conscious but painless during surgery. August eventually became Chief Surgeon and also invented the M1916 steel helmet as well as a non-heat cupping glass.

In 1937, he was awarded the German National Prize for Art and Science.

Answer: Russian Beer

Wilhelm Amandus Beer first got drawing lessons from his great-uncle, Anton Radl Beer. In 1852, he attended Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt, where he studied both art and history. During the 1860s and 1870s, he made numerous trips to Russia, and during that time, he studied the land and its people. Though he painted many things, his particular interest in Russia is why he came to be known as Russian Beer.

Many of his works specifically reference Smolensk, a small oblast near modern-day Belarus. Towards the end of his life, he returned to Städel Art Institute and directed its master painter's workshop.