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Coincidence?

El Cascayal

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Time of past OR future Camino
23:Valença Var Espiritual Apr; Norte Cudillero Oct
During a wonderfully informative nocturnal tour of la Catedral de Santiago, I was made aware of this star at the base of the Botafumeiro. Any thoughts from you who are connoisseurs of both?
 

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Well, the beer has only been around since 1906 so I guess the use of the symbol on the Botafumeiro pre-dates it. Hijos de Rivera seem to sponsor a Formula 1 race team, a few football teams and a Netflix series but there is no mention of the Cathedral on their website.

Godgle proves useless in identifying any heraldic or historic significance of the "Star of Galicia".
 
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El Cascayal said:
During a wonderfully informative nocturnal tour of la Catedral de Santiago, I was made aware of this star at the base of the Botafumeiro. Any thoughts from you who are connoisseurs of both?
Click to expand...

That's a good observation!

Perhaps it is an encouragement to the eight men laboring to swing the big thing: It’s hard work, but when you finish, a cold beer is waiting!
 
They actually have sponsored Carlos Sainz (Spanish driver) for several years. He currently drives for Ferrari.
 
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El Cascayal said:
During a wonderfully informative nocturnal tour of la Catedral de Santiago, I was made aware of this star at the base of the Botafumeiro. Any thoughts from you who are connoisseurs of both?
Click to expand...
Can't be a coincidence. The idea of doing a Camino without tercios de Estrella Galicia is just unthinkable. Sorry.
 
El Cascayal said:
During a wonderfully informative nocturnal tour of la Catedral de Santiago, I was made aware of this star at the base of the Botafumeiro. Any thoughts from you who are connoisseurs of both?
Click to expand...
I am not in any way certain, though I would think that the inclusion of the 'star' on the bottle label might very well have been inspired by the botafumeiro.

The connection of Estrella Galicia with both Santiago and the Camino is strong, and a 'limited edition' beer was launched for the 2021/2022 Año Xacobeo. Look carefully, as the bottle and glass are both set upon a 'mojones' - a way marker stone.



My personal preference is for the 'regular' Estrella Galicia, especially at the end of a good days walking on the Camino ! Any Camino !
 
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Five-pointed and six-pointed star logos on beer bottles are so common that it would never have occurred to me to make a connection between the star of the Galician Estrella beer and the star on the bottom of the Botafumeiro. The Estrella Galicia brewery was founded in 1906 in Coruña while the Estrella Damm brewery was founded in 1876 in Barcelona. It is the oldest brand in Spain. Wikipedia says that the founder was August Kuentzmann Damm from Strasbourg (a town in France/Germany in the Alsace region). The beer was marketed as "Strasburger Bier", although the symbol, a five-pointed red star, was what made it popular, to the point that people referred to it as "the one with the star" or "the star" (Spanish: "la estrella").

I remember that the beer bottles I saw during my childhood had a six-pointed star on it and that was far away from Galicia and the Botafumeiro. I recently learnt about the brewer's star. It was commonly used in the Middle Ages, in particular in the southern region of German-speaking areas in Europe of which the Alsace region is/was a part.

A blog says that it was conventional for brewers in Europe and America to brand or render a six-point star on the heads of their beer barrels and kegs. And, similarly, many brewers in the 19th and early 20th centuries created logos that incorporated the six-pointed star. The Brewer’s Star was also an adornment on many brewhouses built in previous centuries. The star was often a prominent and enduring fixture on the edifice exterior, proudly proclaiming the link to a rich brewing heritage.
 
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So rather than a coincidence or link to the Botafumeiro my guess is that the star of the logo of the Estrella Galicia brewery is a visible link to the economic-cultural exchanges between Spain and French-Dutch-German speaking regions throughout the centuries during and since the Middle Ages, a heritage of which the Camino de Santiago is both testimony and symbol.

See these and many other articles:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Étoile_des_brasseurs
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brauerstern
http://www.brewingmuseum.org/articles/six-point-brewers-star
I personally ignore the alchemy references.
 
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