1516: Two Bavarian dukes issue a decree that limits the ingredients used in brewing beer to barley, water and hops.
Referred to today as the Reinheitsgebot (purity ordinance), the decree has come to be known as a beer-purity law that was intended to keep undesirable or unhealthy ingredients out of beer. But the original text doesn’t explicitly state the reasoning behind the regulation.
An English translation of the decree simply states,”We wish to emphasize that in future in all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be barley, hops and water.”
In fact, the main intent of the decree had more to do with bread than beer.
“The government simply didn’t want people using valuable grains for beer,” said historian Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. “I think it was really just an attempt to keep beermakers from infringing on the territory of people who made bread.”
Ensuring cheap bread was critical in times of food scarcity, a real problem for 16th-century Bavaria. While barley is not very digestible and consequently does not make for good eating, grains like wheat and rye are great for bread. The Bavarian leadership wanted to head off competition for those grains, in order to keep the price of food down.
An unintended side effect of the regulation may have been a purer brew, but Ogle suspects the idea that purity motivated the rule may have germinated after World War II, when Germany’s economy was struggling.
“After the war, they were looking for ways to bolster their economy, and one thing they could do is export beer,” Ogle said. “My educated guess is it’s directly connected to this drive.”
The beer-purity angle probably really took hold in the United States in the 1960s as craft brewing was becoming more popular, Ogle said. The Reinheitsgebot is still discussed on beer blogs today.
“If here had been no craft-beer movement, there wouldn’t be anybody sitting around talking about this law today,” she said.
The name Reinheitsgebot did not appear in print until 1918, and wasn’t applied beyond Bavaria until 1871 when the German Empire was formed. According to the German Beer Institute, the law became an official part of the tax code in 1919 — despite the protestations of brewers — when Bavaria refused to join the Weimar Republic unless the law was enforced throughout the republic.
Until Germany joined the European Union in 1987, a version of the Reinheitsgebot was still part of the German tax code, with the addition of yeast (until Louis Pasteur came along, yeast’s role in fermentation wasn’t known), and the inclusion of ingredients that can also be used in other food, such as wheat.
Many German brewers still proudly claim to follow the Reinheitsgebot, and beers that do comply get special protections as a traditional food. It’s used as a marketing tool, and the beers have “Gebraut nach dem deutschen Reinheitsgebot” (brewed according to the German Purity Ordinance) on the label.
Today the penalty for not abiding by the Reinheitsgebot may only be the upturned noses of some American craft brewers. But in the 16th century, the consequences of brewing an offending beer were far more dire: They lost the beer.
“Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the court authorities’ confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail.”
Image: No, these soldiers are not confiscating transgressive beer. The caption says, “Preparations for the Kaiser’s birthday celebration at the front. Beer delivered from home is unloaded.” On the left-hand inset, “Zensiert” means “censored.” Circa 1915-1918.
Courtesy New York Public Library
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