Genghis Khan Week: Chinggis Beer!

Archaeopop theme weeks continue as we check out pop culture versions of world-conqueror Genghis Khan. Beginning with this ad for Chinggis Beer from 1998.



Glorious and refreshing. Yes, it's in Mongolian. No, I don't understand the voiceover either. But I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the Great Khan getting turned on to beer by a monk. (Indeed, beer is the most precious contribution of Christian monks to world civilization.)

According to their promo material, the company is a Swiss-Mongolian joint venture that brews according to the 1516 German  beer purity law, the Reinheitsgebot. That would explain why the brewery has a very German-looking beer hall attached, which you can visit if you ever find yourself in Ulan Bator. How's that for globalization and history combined?!?! The Chinggis Beer website is in Mongolian but has a great trance-downtempo-throatsinging soundtrack, check it out.

This is not to be confused with the Genghis Khan Beer of Inner Mongolia (part of China), which "has miraculous health effects to the diseases of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular systems as well as ten more other diseases. So far it is the only natural health beer in China approved by the Ministry of Public Health of China and it is the first origination in the world." So healthy. (It also says "Guinness" at least twice on the label, whoa!)