Reinheitsgebot 1516 - The German Purity Law from 1516

In this post I will not talk about a beer in specific, but about a law. With this, I intend to bring some light upon a myth about beers which are produced nowadays "accordingly to the german purity law from 1516".

For that, I will start pointing a few reasons why this law was created; a little about its history; and the consequences of its implementation in whole Germany.

The formulation of this law has some noble objectives, as for instance, to regulate the beer commerce in all the cities of Bavaria, defining the volume of a Maß (1,069 Liters), its price and rules for exporting. But at the same time, the law stablished production and commerce limitations that would favor a monopoly of bavarian brewers against brewers from other regions, for example, from the region today known as Belgium.

A Maß - 1,069 liters of beer

The law was stablished first individually in each city, following their particular needs. For instance, Friedrich Barbossa, in the city of Augsburg, 1156, stablished a punishment for whoever would sell/serve 'bad' beer or charge irregularly for it. In 1348, the city of Weimar added 'hops', until then not allowed, to their list of beer ingredients.

The hunger crisis in Nuremberg (1393), made the regents of that city define that only barley should be used for beer, while the other grains (rice, wheat, rye...) should be solely used for feeding the starving population. In 1487, Duke Albrecht IV implemented a series of standards for beer quality control in Munich.

After the Landshut war of succession and the re-unification of Bavaria, there was also the need of unifying all the scattered beer regulations along the Duchy. So on April the 23rd, 1516, the Bavarian Purity Law was implemented by Duke Wilhelm IV and Ludwig X, in the city of Ingolstadt. The law stated that beer should contain only barley, hops and water. Hops were chosen for acting as natural beer conservatives. Some disastrous attempts to use other ingredients as conservatives (including wild mushroomns) also helped bringing the restriction upon the ingredients.

     

Hops, barley and water, the only three ingredients allowed by the original law

Finally, in 1871, during the German unification, Bavaria imposed the application of the Reinheitsgebot as a condition for them to join the new forming country. This act and the acceptance of such conditions, caused the northern german spiced beer tradition to disappear, only a few northern traditional beerstyles survived, such as the Düsseldorfer Altbier and the Cologner Kölsch.

Bayrisches Reinheitsgebot (1516)

A lot has been discussed over the years about the restrictions, and the law was modified a few times after that, in a way to adaptate to modern times discoveries, such as the fermentation process and the consequent addition of yeast tablets to beer. The beer regulating law that vigors in Germany today dates from 1993, and is a lot more flexible than the old one.

Today, some breweries still claim to abide to the old 1516 law, even though they use malted rice, malted wheat, yeast and fining agents in their beers. Don't let yourself be fooled by such marketing maneuvers.

Also, a beer does not need to follow the Bayrisches 1516 Reinheitsgebot to taste good... if you doubt this, then you should try some belgian/french spices containing monastery beer, some english ales, which contain sugar, or even taste the traditional bavarian Weissbier (which contains wheat malt and, therefore, does not abide to the 1516 purity law). Or maybe you should just read properly and more carefully the ingredients of your favorite beer.

   

        Belgian Strong Ale  -                  English Pale Ale  -                Bavarian Weissbier

The only thing you should use to pre-judge your beer is your country's food regulation agency approval.

Cheers for all the good beer!