A crown cap, reading "500 Years of Reinheitsgebot in Munich (since 1487)" on a bottle of German beer

The Reinheitsgebot (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnhaɪtsɡəboːt] ( listen), literally "purity order"), sometimes called the "German Beer Purity Law" or the "Bavarian Purity Law" in English, was a regulation concerning the production of beer in Germany. In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops.

The law originated in the city of Ingolstadt in the duchy of Bavaria on 23 April 1516, although first put forward in 1487,^[1] concerning standards for the sale and composition of beer.

The text[link]

In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops. The law also set the price of beer at 1-2 Pfennig per Maß. The Reinheitsgebot is no longer part of German law: it has been replaced by the Provisional German Beer Law, ^[2] which allows constituent components prohibited in the Reinheitsgebot, such as yeast, wheat malt and cane sugar, but which no longer allows unmalted barley.

Note that no yeast was mentioned in the original text. It was not until the 1800s that Louis Pasteur discovered the role of microorganisms in the process of fermentation; therefore, yeast was not known to be an ingredient of beer. Brewers generally took some sediment from the previous fermentation and added it to the next, the sediment generally containing the necessary organisms to perform fermentation. If none were available, they would set up a number of vats, relying on natural airborne yeast to inoculate the brew.

Hops are added to beer to impart flavors but also act as a preservative, and their mention in the Reinheitsgebot meant to prevent alternative methods of preserving beer that had been used before the introduction of hops. Medieval brewers had used many problematic ingredients to preserve beers, including, for example soot and fly agaric mushrooms. More commonly, other "gruit" herbs had been used, such as stinging nettle and henbane. Indeed, the German name of the latter, Bilsenkraut, may originally mean "Plzeň herb"; that this region was a major centre of beer brewing long before the invention of (Reinheitsgebot-compliant) Pilsener.

The penalty for making impure beer was also set in the Reinheitsgebot: a brewer using other ingredients for his beer could have questionable barrels confiscated with no compensation.

German breweries are very proud of the Reinheitsgebot, and many (even brewers of wheat beer^[3]) claim to still abide by it.

History[link]

Reinheitsgebot was introduced in part to prevent price competition with bakers for wheat and rye. The restriction of grains to barley was meant to ensure the availability of sufficient amounts of affordable bread, as the more valuable wheat and rye were reserved for use by bakers. Today many Bavarian beers are again brewed using wheat and are thus no longer compliant with the Reinheitsgebot.

The Reinheitsgebot formed the basis of legislation that spread slowly throughout Bavaria and Germany. Bavaria insisted on its application throughout Germany as a precondition of German unification in 1871, to prevent competition from beers brewed elsewhere with a wider range of ingredients. The move encountered strong resistance from brewers outside Bavaria. By restricting the allowable ingredients, it led to the extinction of many brewing traditions and local beer specialties, such as North German spiced beer and cherry beer, and led to the domination of the German beer market by pilsener style beers. Only a few regional beer varieties, such as Kölner Kölsch or Düsseldorfer Altbier, survived its implementation.

Regulations similar to those of the Reinheitsgebot were incorporated into various guild regulations and local laws all over Germany, and in 1952, they were incorporated into the West German Biersteuergesetz (Beer Taxation Law). Many brewers objected to the law at the time, disagreeing more with the amount of the tax than the ingredient requirements. The law initially applied only to bottom-fermented ("lager") beers, but brewers of other types of beer soon accepted the law as well.

In May 1988, a European Court of Justice ruling led to the Reinheitsgebot being lifted, allowing ingredients beyond what was listed in the Biersteuergesetz; this meant that anything allowed in other foods was thus also allowed in beer. The lifting of the Biergesetz, however, only concerns imported beer. Beer brewed in Germany still has to abide to it.

After German reunification in 1990 the Neuzeller Kloster Brewery, a former monastery brewery in the East German town of Neuzelle, Brandenburg, was warned to stop selling its black beer as it contained sugar. In the end, it was allowed to sell it under the name Schwarzer Abt ("Black Abbot") but not "beer". This decision was repealed by the Federal Administrative Court of Germany through a special permit, after legal disputes lasting ten years, known as the "Brandenburg Beer War", so the "Schwarzer Abt" can be called "beer" again.

The revised Vorläufiges Biergesetz of 1993 is a slightly expanded version of the Reinheitsgebot, allowing, besides water, malted barley, and hops, for yeast to be used for bottom-fermented beer, and for different kinds of malt, and sugar to be used for top-fermented beer. All ingredients and the process itself are subject to additional regulations.

Thus, German breweries continue to comply with the Biergesetz, often claiming compliance with the Reinheitsgebot even when it is patently incorrect (for example, for wheat beers, which were prohibited by the Reinheitsgebot), using this compliance as a valuable marketing tool.

Until superseded by a change in EU law, the Reinheitsgebot was also enforced in Greece from the early 19th century due to a law by the first Greek king, Otto (originally a Bavarian prince) that had remained in effect for over a hundred years.

When it was in effect, the law drew criticism from foreign brewers as a form of protectionism that allowed West Germany to prohibit beers from Belgium and England which contained sugars, adjunct grains such as corn and rice, and clarification and fining agents. Many German and American beers such as Anheuser Busch, for marketing purposes, continue to claim to abide by the rule.

See also[link]

• Beer in Germany styles of beer produced despite this limitation

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Dornbusch, Horst D. (1997). Prost!: The Story of German Beer. Boulder, CO: Siris Books. ISBN 0-937381-55-1. 

External links[link]

• English translation of the 'Reinheitsgebot'
• German Beer Purity Order, 1516