King Gambrinus (sculpture)

King Gambrinus can refer to a number of statues made by different artists in the United States depicting the European folk hero Gambrinus. They were designed as ornamentation for brewery buildings. The trend began in European, where there are many other sculptures of Gambrinus adorning brew-houses and breweries.

King Gambrinus was a wooden statue carved around 1857 by American artist Gustav Haug and installed on the roof of the Pabst Brewhouse in Wisconsin. Artist Carl Kuehns later created a wooden copy in 1872. By 1966, it had rotted and a new cast aluminum version was made, it stood at the brewery until 1996. It now stands at the Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee, outside the Guest Center.

King Gambrinus also refers to about a dozen large zinc statues that were sculpted and cast in the 19th century by J. W. Fiske & Company for use as architectural statues on brewery buildings in the United States. Five are known to still exist, four are in museums.