The 900 pound beer king of Milwaukee

The King Gambrinus statue weighs in at a hefty 900 pounds of painted aluminum. He looks pretty sharp in his red and white cape while holding up a flagon of beer. This guy is basically the patron saint of beer, a European folk hero who became a huge deal for 19th-century brewing in the United States.

This particular King has a pretty wild history. The brewery expanded so quickly during the late 1800s that the owners actually needed more than one statue. In 1872, a carver named Carl Kuehns built a wooden copy of an original 1857 sculpture. That wooden piece eventually rotted away, which led to the aluminum version commissioned in 1966.

Things got interesting when the brewery shut down in 1996. The King went on a little journey for a few years, hanging out in an employee cafeteria in Illinois. He eventually made it back home on loan. Now, he stands outside the Guest Center at the Historic Pabst Brewery.

He is part of the public artwork now, surveying the grounds just like he did for all those decades.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons