The brewer’s star is the guild symbol of brewers and maltsters and the symbol for the dispensing point of a brewery’s house drink.
Most people are familiar with the symbolism – the hexagram – not so much as a beer symbol but rather as a Jewish emblem.

The six-pointed star, formed from two equilateral triangles joined together, is described in literature as an alchemical symbol and represents the three elements involved in brewing: fire, water and air, as well as the ingredients known in the Middle Ages: water, malt and hops. The importance of yeast in fermentation was not yet known at that time; it was generally referred to simply as ‘stuff’.
In the Middle Ages, brewing was the task of women and was then taken over by monks and then by the craftsmen of the towns. In Regensburg, the clergy used the beer pointer as a symbol for serving beer. It seems unlikely that monks in particular would have used alchemical symbols in beer production, especially since Pope John XXII issued a bull against alchemy in 1317.

Alchemists were active throughout Germany at that time, but the brewer’s star can only be found in Franconia and the Upper Palatinate. And so the comparison between beer brewers and alchemists seems somewhat strange from a medieval perspective: unlike wine, beer was not a noble drink at that time, but rather food for the common people.

This makes the theory linking alchemy and beer brewing seem somewhat too modern in its interpretation. But what reasons could have prompted brewers to use the hexagram as a symbol?

One possible answer lies in the second meaning of the hexagram, namely as a protective symbol. In the Middle Ages, the hexagram was used as a defence against misfortune, demons, weapons and fire, because fires repeatedly broke out in breweries and malt houses, causing devastating damage. The hexagon can also be found in the coats of arms of some other trades, such as chimney sweeps in Dresden. Incidentally, the hexagram was also known to Jews as a symbol of protection against fire.