Sex Beer!

Sex Beer!


3615 Pecheur, Made in France, in  Schiltigheim,  Alsace, by Brasserie Fischer, starting in the late 80s and imported into the US in the 90s. The 3615 refers to the first part of the number that sex chat and other sites would use on the French Minitel system that was a text based service that was like a BBS - it was the first beer sold ever on Minitel in 1989. The sex joke continues with writing out the name all in capitals, "PECHEUR", which could either be read as "fisher", pêcheur, a translation into French of the Alsatian name Fischer, or as "sinner",  pécheur, depending on the accent marks used when it's written in small letters. According to this Belgian article from 1989, http://archives.lesoir.be/histoire-d-un-philtre-d-amour-mis-en-biere_t-19891123-Z0253N.html , Fischer set out to develop an aphrodisiac beer after their technical director visited Africa and the locals wondered whether the Vitamin C and aspirin would put lead in his pencil, which lead him to conduct an intense search for joy juice ingredients - in addition to the myrrh, ginseng and mango mentioned in this LA Times column http://articles.latimes.com/1990-11-01/food/fo-4829_1_fast-food

, the Belgian article mentions the other usual suspects: cardamon, gingko biloba, kola and also myrtle. I wonder whether the L.A. Times mention of  'myrrh', a fairly expensive spice, isn't a mistranslation for myrtle, which was a component of the gruit that was used in beers before hops supplanted it. Minitel fell into decline with the rise of the Internet and was shut down in 2012 - 3615 Pêcheur seemed to be gone around 2000. I had one bottle in New York in 1991. Sort of like a Kronenbourg lager that someone had soaked a kitchen spice rack in. Brasserie Fischer was acquired by Heineken in 1996 and the brewery was closed in 2009, after operating in the area since 1821. The bottle had a huge plastic cap that was almost half the length of the bottle that was reminiscent of a marital aide!