500 years of Reinheitsgebot

Dear beer enthusiasts,

on the 23rd of April of 1516 the Reinheitsgebot was signed in the city of Ingolstadt, a few kilometers north of Munich. That happened roughly 10 years after the end of the Landshut war of succession, during which, Bavaria was divided in two factions,

That law summarized the previous regulations created individually in many cities throughout the duchy of Bavaria. And nothing better to help unify Bavaria than making official through the whole duchy a law that protects the purity of beer!

Representation of a text extract of the 1516 Reinheitsgebot

Yes! Previous to the purity law, many have attempted brewing with different, odd ingredients, some adding potentially dangerous herbs and even mushrooms to their beer. So the purity law stated clearly that, from that day on, only barley, water and hops should be used to produce beer. Any conscious attempt to use different ingredients, would result in the confiscation of the barrels produced.



But why limiting the used of malted grains to only barley? Nowadays, many breweries around the world use cheaper malts (for instance, rice malt) to bring their costs down, and that represents a big drop in quality for the consumer... but that was not the reason back in 1516. At that time, it was important for the cities to stock on wheat, rice and rye. Those grains should be used to feed the population and avoid famines like the one in Nuremberg in 1393, and not to produce beer.

Also, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot regulated the volume of a "Maß" (1,069 liters) and the price to which it should be sold depending on the type of beer and season of the year.

So, it is pretty clear that the law made sense at that time... but does it sill make sense 500 years later?

To answer that, we have to take into consideration that many things have changed in 500 years, economically and technologically speaking. Here are just three examples that should leave no doubt about that:

1 - Fermentation was discovered.

That means yeast had to be included in the list of allowed ingredients, because that is a lot more hygienic than adding old beer to the brewing process for "good luck"! (YES! That is what old time brewers used to do back when people had no idea about how the fermentation really worked)

2 - Agriculture technologies and logistics advanced quite a lot since the 1500's

There is no need to limit the use of grains to only barley. Wheat and rye can be easily used to produce beer without risking a local famine or a global shortage of bread.

3 - Economics and capitalism.

Feudalism is over, and most states no longer regulate the price of beer, prices are now determined by the global and local markets. That part seems to be very well understood by breweries nowadays, even those who claim to abide to the 1516 Reinheitsgebot.

As the times changed, the laws also changed, that's what we call progress. Nowadays, many legally produced types of beer don't follow the old 1516 regulation anymore... care for some examples?

Milk stouts, for instance, have milk sugars (lactose) in their composition, which help achieving the high fermentation needed to produce this very exquisite type of beer.

English Milk Stout

Many Belgian Ales have herbs and spices in their recipe, which give the beers their unique taste, and brought Belgium the fame of one of the best beer-producing countries in the world

World famous Belgian ales

Last but not least, weissbiers contain wheat malt, and are among the most traditional beer types. Schneider & Sohn produces solely weissbiers (and very good ones), they are a very traditional and respected brewery and are ironically located about 30 km away from Ingolstadt, where the law that prohibited the use of wheat malt was signed!

Schneider & Sohn - Producing Weissbiers only!

It is quite clear that, today, a beer does not need to follow the 1516  Bavarian Reinheitsgebot to be tasty.

The breweries that claim to follow that old rule do this mostly for marketing purposes... after all, no modern brewery wants to have their prices dictated by the state, and if you ever visited Oktoberfest in Munich, you know that what they call a "Maß" is poorly drafted and barely amounts to 1 liter, much less the 1,069 l determined by the 1516 law

Nevertheless, despite of all my argumentation about how this law doesn't make sense anymore in modern times, the 500th anniversary of the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot is still a date to be celebrated. It's undeniable that the enforcement of such a law did make sense back then, protected the consumer and helped popularizing beer even more.

There were some other, not so nice, consequences of the enforcement of this law, which I mention in a previous post, but you can't really blame those who created the law for that.

For all that it matters, the 1516 Reinheitsgebot was created with the noble goal of ensuring the production of good beer! Therefore, its 500th anniversary should be celebrated with a glass of good beer!

It doesn't matter if you do it with a tall glass of Weissbier, a pint of stout, a 500 ml bottle of Roggenbier (rye based beer) or a Maß Helles produced accordingly to the old law.

To the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, and to all good beers!

Prost!