Beer mat - coaster or lid
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In German the word 'Bierdeckel' for a coaster literally means 'beer lid'. But why is it called a lid even though it is a coaster that is placed under the beer glass and not on top of it?
In the 19th century, richer people drank beer from beer silks with lids made of tin or silver. Simpler people, on the other hand, used mugs without lids. Beer felts were used as coasters in those days. If beer was drunk outdoors, these felts were placed on the mug so that neither vermin nor leaves etc. could contaminate the beer. This is where the name beer mat comes from.
From 1880, the cardboard factory and printer Friedrich Horn in Buckau near Magdeburg punched beer coasters out of cardboard and printed various motifs on them. Finally, in 1892, Robert Sputh from Dresden invented the forerunner of today's beer coaster, the so-called wooden felt plates or fibre cast coasters, where the paper pulp was filled into round moulds and dried.
In 1903, Casimir Otto Katz in the Murg Valley began to industrially produce the coasters that are still in use today from local spruce wood in groundwood fibreboard. In its best days, the Baden-Württemberg-based Katz Group supplied 3.5 billion coasters a year, giving it a world market share of 75 %.
