Robaird O’Cearbhaill
Hong Kong Correspondent
The last Emperor of one of Europe’s great powers at the time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was Karl of Austria, later Blessed. A devout Catholic, he began ruling the empire in 1916, in the middle of World War One.
Karl unexpectedly became the Emperor when the heir to the throne was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, who wanted independence from Austria for Slav Serbia. The outcome was a disaster, as great power Russia backed the fellow Slav Serbians in defiance of Austro-Hungarian determination to keep rule over the Serbs. That unsettling political dispute led to other great powers, England, and Germany, building up their armies for armed conflict, ending in the outbreak of World War One.
Peace-loving Karl pushed as hard as he could to take Austria out of the war. However, their ally in the war against Russia, England and France, and Germany’s influence and stubborn resistance to peace, won over the Emperor’s much more sensible and practical plan to try to stop the war.
The defeat of Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire led to a republican revolution in Austria, whose empire was carved up by the victors, England, France and the United States.
By 1999 Karl was no longer emperor and by refusing to accept the conditions of the new regime, where he could no longer be closely involved with the Church, was exiled and forfeited his fortune, settling in poverty in the Portuguese Island of Madeira.
His short rule was, in another way, a revolution too, a social one, by instituting social services for the poor, and marked by devotion to the Church.
His Catholic devotion inspired American Catholics, especially a three-generation family of brewers, the Alcorns, to name a quality beer after him, through connection to his Hapsburg ruling family, as reported by Catholic Spirit magazine. They did not want to dishonor the Hapsburg name, so instead called the beer Hopsburg to be close, and of course, beer has to be made with hops.
As the report explained, head brewmaster Jeffery Alcorn’s “deep devotion to Blessed Karl of Austria and so one of their creations is named in his honor.”
“When we were going through and creating beer recipes, the first few beers that we created were Vienna lagers,” he said. “There’s no greater person to link to the Vienna lager than Blessed Karl since Vienna was the capital of Austria-Hungary during his time.”
“I came up with the idea of a Hopsburg Beer so I didn’t infringe on the Habsburg name and it had a bit of a quirky twist to it since hops is the key ingredient in the beer-making process.”
The article added that “Alcorn explained his devotion to the emperor who, along with his wife, Empress Zita, is on the road to sainthood; the empress has the title ‘Servant of God.’”
“I’ve always been into history and politics. I held a seat on our local City Council about 10 years ago and was doing some research about World War I and politicians in general,” he said. “When you think about Catholic politicians who have been good role models, they are few and far between.
“I stumbled upon Blessed Karl and found out that he was going through the sainthood canonization process. He was a great father, a great husband and a great politician,” Alcorn added.
The feature said too that he is a “lifelong Catholic who lives in northern Illinois, has a home-based brewing operation called Tridentine Brewing,” which began in his grandfather’s time.
“My maternal grandfather brewed in the 1990s. He taught my father how to brew,” Alcorn revealed. “My dad was brewing a bit then, but for a while the hobby was forgotten. Several years ago, my parents were moving houses and we came across all the brewery supplies that my father had. I asked him to teach me how to brew.”
Follow
