John Sippel, of Vandalia, points out the jug shaped thumb hinge on the 50th anniversary Minster Oktoberfest stein that he designed with help from his daughter, Heidi Sippel-Haas.
Luke Gronneberg | Sidney Daily News
Jim Sippel, of Vandalia, holds up a 50th anniversary Minster Oktoberfest stein that he, his brother, John Sippel and John’s daughter, Heidi Sippel, will be selling at this year’s Minster Oktoberfest.
Luke Gronneberg | Sidney Daily News
By Luke Gronneberg
MINSTER — Minster Oktoberfest is turning 50 years old. To commemorate the anniversary, John and Jim Sippel have made a custom beer stein, which will be for sale at this year’s festival, which runs from Oct. 4-6.
The stein depicts a man in traditional German attire holding up a mug of beer. Printed around the man it says “Minster Ohio 50 Oktoberfest 4-6, 2024” “50th Annual Oktoberfest” The year 1975 is printed on the image of a wooden shoe underneath. At the very bottom of the front is the Village of Minster flag.
The top of the stein is metal and depicts two beer wagons in relief. The thumb lever for the lid is shaped like a milk jug like the ones sold at Minster Oktoberfest. According to Wikipedia the lids to steins were developed to keep bugs out of the beer. The thumb lever allows people to open the lid with only one hand.
Bringing this stein to Oktoberfest are brothers John Sippel, of Vandalia, and Jim Sippel of Huber Heights, and John’s daughter, Heidi Sippel-Haas, of Vandalia.
The Sippel family missed the first year of Minster Oktoberfest in 1975 but have been selling steins there every year since under the company name SteinCenter.
In 2010 the Sippel brothers decided to design historically themed steins specific to Minster. Each year, for seven years, they released a new custom stein at Minster Oktoberfest.
The themes included the St. Augustine Church, the Minster trolly station, the Wooden Shoe Brewery and Minster Oktoberfest itself.
For the seventh and final stein of the series the Sippel’s made a 2 ½ liter stein depicting the founding of the Village of Minster. On the front of the stein was a picture of Minster’s founder, Francis Joseph Stallo. The stein also had an image of Conestoga wagons carrying German immigrants that travelled from Cincinnati to Minster.
Describing the stein’s lid John said, “There was a crest we added to it. That was the area in Germany where the people from minister came from.”
Jim followed up, “So that’s what’s cool about steins. You know, they represent things, themes and history, right? Whatever, a military unit or, you know, it becomes a trophy.”
Another example of the Sippel’s building a story through imagery was their Minster trolly station mug. A miniature metal trolly was placed on the top of the lid and on the bottom of the mug was the depiction of what an actual trolly station ticket looked like.
The Sippel brothers just focus on custom steins these days while Heidi has taken over running the stein stand which she travels across the country with.
John does the designing of the steins while Jim deals with the billing.
The brothers never know what kind of custom requests they will receive. Some of their more interesting requests included a stein depicting a stealth unmanned arial vehicle (UAV) from Wright Pat Airforce Base.
John needed art so he could create a miniature of the UAV for the top of the stein. Wright Pat sent him an image of a stainless steel model of the UAV used for wind tunnel testing to work from.
Another notable job request was from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. A SpaceX executive worked with John to make steins commemorating a launching of satellites. John had a miniature satellite made for the top of the SpaceX stein.
Jim Sippel and John Sippel explained why they still enjoy their jobs after 40 years of selling steins.
Jim said of his work “It’s just fascinating, all the people you meet, all the companies, the military units, you just run into a wide diversity of projects. And you know, you learn a lot, I didn’t know military units. I know all kinds now. You engage with a lot of people, a lot of them around the world you’re working with.
According to John there is “some neat stuff. There’s the one we did for SpaceX. I was talking to the people that actually were putting the satellites on the rockets, they’re sending them out. And I like space craft. Dude, you get to talking to them, and it’s kind of neat, you know, they start telling you what they do and how they do it.”
According to Sippel-Haas’ website, www.steincenter.com, steins were invented in the 1300s in Europe. Early on they were often designed to depict many themes.
The Sippel family has continued that tradition into modern times by commemorating spacecraft and UAV’s but also more traditional subjects like the 50th anniversary of Minster Oktoberfest.
