I asked my wife to drop me off at Mrieħel where she had a meeting. I walked back home and the first picture I took was this 12m high poster of the most popular beer in Malta. The Cisk Lager. It stands against one side of the factory which is being renovated. This photo is actually three shots stitched together as I could not move further back to capture it in one photo.
The word Cisk has an interesting story -- The name "Cisk" originates from Giuseppe Scicluna's nickname "Iċ-Ċisk" which developed out of the local mispronunciation of the word "cheques" which was introduced into local circulation by the Scicluna Bank.
If you care to read more:
"Cisk Lager, the iconic Maltese beer brand, is closely linked to Malta’s history and its industrial and economic evolution.
Cisk Lager was launched by the Malta Export Brewery, originally as Cisk Pilsner.
The history of Cisk started in 1840, when Malta’s first privately-owned bank was established by Giuseppe Scicluna.
In those days the average businessman, and indeed the ordinary man in the street, hoarded their hard-earned cash either in a brass-bound box under the bed or concealed in various leather pouches hidden in their clothes. At most, it would be handed over to the bank to be placed in a vault and to be withdrawn as the need arose. Mistrusting bank notes and demanding bags of coins, it was only when the bank’s customers realized that they too could pay creditors with notes, that the customers agreed to operate current accounts with Scicluna’s Bank against which they could draw cheques.
Very soon, semi-literate depositors coming in from various country districts, who found difficulty in pronouncing the word ‘cheques’, corrupted the word into ‘cisk’. Giuseppe Scicluna himself soon became known as Ic-Cisk (The Cisk).
In 1928 Scicluna’s Bank took over the operations of one of its clients who was granted a temporary exclusive licence to manufacture Pilsner and Munchener type beers. The company became known as The Malta Export Brewery and the story of Cisk began." ref
https://www.farsons.com/en/news-detail/20080619-celebrating-80-years-of-cisk
