In my paper I present the Real Csíki Beer Manufacture, established in Csíkszentsimon in 2014, and based on my ongoing local field research I focus on how the economic branding connected to Szekler minority identity-symbols and the local product consumption bears significant social and political content in the framework of a ruling state nation. Both the production and the characteristics and communication of the product are adjusted to the Szekler ethnical group, it stresses certain characteristics in the name of the local tradition, which draws on the remembrance of the cultural heritage as a symbol system from the past. They invented a tradition underpinned with historical factors which they connected to the already existing minority nation concept.
Globalisation, mobility and the multiculturalism lead to increasingly incorporate ethnicity and identity in the social, political, cultural relationships. In this increasing nation-consciousness, in the process of the strengthening of identity-policies, Csíki Beer as a par excellence national product functions as political and economical tool as well, in brief it visualizes a kind of patriotism. The aim of the paper is to describe the discourses and knowledge of the “bottom”, that is the community of Csíkszentsimon.
Keywords: Szekler minority, identity discourses, ethnic marketing, Csíki Beer, tradition
