Reinheitsgebot: Bavarian Beer Laws

this episode of the history guide brought to you by the great courses plus [Music] beard proudly stands as the most consumed alcoholic beverage worldwide if you think we drink a lot of beer in the united states where we drink roughly 72.7 liters or just sort of 20 gallons per adult per year realize that only places is this number 20 on the list of rankings of countries by per capita beer consumption well behind the world leader czech republic where they drink some 188 liters or just short of 50 gallons of beer per adult per year worldwide production of beer is around 1.2 billion hecto leaders annually and in the united states alone in 2020 beer sales represented 22 billion dollars and about a quarter of that in america is craft beers that's this kind of beers that add flavorings like fruit or coffee or pumpkin spice there's some 8 200 craft breweries in the united states alone but a law instituted in bavaria some 500 years ago was intended to prevent exactly that adulteration of brew and it still impacts the industry today the bavarian rain heights go boat or laws regulating the brewing of beer deserve to be remembered but before we hop into 16th century bavarian beer regulations i'd like to talk about something else that's very popular in my home the great courses plus we've been members for a long time and this history guy and i really love it in fact we have committed to watching a lecture every morning as we start our day if you are lifelong learners like us trust me you will love the great courses plus it's a subscription on-demand video learning service where you can take courses in hundreds of subjects and thousands of lectures from top professors from all over the world you can enjoy courses on video or audio and on all your devices or your tv we love that you can take courses at your own pace there aren't any tests or quizzes there's new subjects lectures and professors added every month we've been enjoying several courses one of the ones that we've been enjoying lately is called 30 masterpieces of the ancient world by professor diana mcdonald of boston college the course explores early masterpieces of ancient art from cave art to the new world it's a fascinating insight into history that reels much about culture today but the great courses plus isn't limited to history there's also science math literature business self-help and even hobbies ms history guy has been learning to play guitar and don't all great stories involve pirates and the best part is that our viewers get a special free trial membership if you use the link thegreatcoursesplus.comthehistoryguy that's thegreatcoursesplus.com the history guide that link is also in the description i hope you love it as much as we do and many times in history beer was safer to drink than water because the production process includes boiling boiling eliminates parasites viruses and bacteria that can cause illness there's proof that beer has been brewed for at least 6 000 years most likely originating in mesopotamia but perhaps beginning with the sumerians hard evidence comes from written proof of a recipe for beer that also happens to be a poem honoring the sumerian goddess of brewing the poem describes beer made from bread made with barley iranian pottery that is approximately 7 000 years old also bears evidence of brewed beer archaeologists also believe they found an ancient brewery in china dating back 5 000 years which contained the bats ovens funnels containers and chemical evidence of grains and beer byproducts the babylonian empire built upon the sumerian culture inheriting their beer brewing ways and brewed 20 different beers their king hammurabi had beer regulations in the codex hammurabi written circa 1750 bc which is considered to be the most complete longest legislative text of the ancient near east according to the codex workers received two liters of beer per day officials got three and managers and high priests earned five per day in ancient egypt beer was made from rich yeasty bread that was lightly baked crumbled mixed with water and dates strained fermented in bats and stored in large jugs workers were often paid in beer and for those living and working at giza was included in their daily rations beer was a staple not only for the egyptian diet but also in offerings to the gods one egyptian inscription from around 2200 bc reads the mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer the oldest evidence of beer brewing in germany comes from northern bavaria where a three thousand year old burial croc was discovered in 1935. the well-to-do tribesmen had been buried with provisions for his afterlife and remnants of bread with the mash remained in a crock after three millennia however ancient europeans were illiterate so what we know of them came from the writings of their literate invaders from the south when the romans began to venture further north into europe they ran into the germanic tribes of forest dwelling beer brewing barbarians although sophocles wrote in 450 bc that the best diet for greeks included bread meat vegetables and beer in moderation the greeks and romans with their fermented grapes notoriously looked down upon beer drinkers greek historian military leader and author xenophon wrote there were stores within of barley wheat vegetable and wine made from barley in great big bowls the grains of barley malt lay floating in the beverage up to the lip of the vessel the beverage without add mixture of water was very strong it's a taste you must acquire roman author plony wrote a few centuries later that the populace of western europe have a liquid with which they intoxicate themselves made from grain and water the manner of making this is somewhat different in gaul spain and other countries and it is called by different names but its nature and properties are everywhere the same the people in spain in particular brew this liquid so well that will keep a good long time so exquisite is the cunning of mankind and gratifying their vices and appetites that they have invented a method to make water itself produce intoxication despite their initial disdain the romans accepted beer at least improved it in 1978 a complete roman brewery was discovered in bavaria as evidence of the first modern brewing process with the facilities required for malting mashing and wart boiling as the roman empire waned the european tribes continued with their traditions with the women making the bread the stew and the brew while beer brewing in antiquity consisted of combining ingredients and relying on wild yeast to eventually ferment the concoction the modern beer brewing technique is quite involved first grains or malt are milled to break up the kernels creating a product called grist the grist is then mixed with water in large tanks for mash conversion a process in which the enzymes in the malt break down the starches into sugars this mash is then pumped into another tank where the liquid which is now called wart is separated from the grain husks the word is boiled and hops are added after this boil the hops and any remaining grains are once again separated from the liquid as then cooled and yeast is added the yeast ferments the liquid creating alcohol and carbon dioxide this new beer called green beer is pumped into yet another tank for maturation and finally after being deemed ready by the brewer the beer is filtered carbonated and cellared for a further three to four weeks before bottling when christianity spread monasteries were established all over europe the monks often fasted but did not consider liquids including beer to break the fast their beers were nourishing and the christian trade of taking in travelers meant they shared their bigger food supplies and their more ample beer supplies with travelers forming the first taverns but these trends had an economic impact in 1487 a law was passed in the duchy of munich that was then formalized after the 1503 reunification of bavaria by wilhelm iv duke of bavaria who was co-regent with his younger brother louis the tenth on april 23 1516 wilhelm introduced a series of decrees that in translation run just over 300 words total mostly concerned restrictions on prices stating what could be charged during different seasons the duke also reserved the right to change the law during grain shortages but in the third provision before total there is a limit on the ingredients of beer it reads 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 whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance shall be punished by the court authorities confiscating such barrels of beer without fail the purpose of this decree was not explicitly stated one historian marine ogle author of ambitious brew the story of american beer believes that it was perhaps made to keep grains for bread safe from the insatiable beer brewers wheat and rye are more easily digested than barley and so by preserving those grains for bread making the price of bread was not driven higher by competition from beer brewers food scarcity famine and subsequent riots were a real threat in the 16th century europe others believed it was a food safety regulation in 2016 the bbc noted that according to the german brewers association one of the goals of the purity laws was to stop unscrupulous brewers from adding dubious toxic and even hallucinogenic ingredients as preservatives or flavorings they included herbs and spices such as rosemary caraway henbane thorn apple wood shavings roots soot or even pitch brewers today quickly noticed that yeast arguably the most important addition to the whole process is not included in the list of acceptable ingredients many believe this to be because they didn't understand yeast at the time however in the middle ages there was a profession known as the hefner heffa meaning yeast after fermentation there's a layer called zoig literally stuff at the bottom of the tank the hefner would harvest this press out the remaining beer and add a small amount of the zoid to the next batch so yeast goes in and more yeast comes out furthermore in modern implementations of the decree any item that is added to the beer and is subsequently removed is not a true ingredient it does not remain in the final product therefore keeping in line with the decree also important to note is that these restrictions on ingredients only affected bavarian lagers in which the yeast is fermented at cool temperatures to the north ales were brewed using a variety of ingredients up to it including tree bark fruit and spices and so for centuries bavaria had this rule regarding their beer while the rest of the world went about brewing with wheat or whatever grains they had using clarifying agents or flavorful additions and the variants seem to like it that way a january 2014 edition of the new yorker quotes an american console named george c tanner who was stationed in chemnitz germany in 1886. beer is the national beverage and is used as such if not to a greater extent than water then assuredly equally so but very insisted that the laws be applied throughout germany as a precondition for german unification in 1871. first the empire really taxed the use of other ingredients mostly used in the north but in 1906 the law was applied across all of germany but the law called the act to amend the beer brewing tax act set different rules for top fermented and bottom fermented beers the website of the loudon brewing company of leesburg virginia explains have you ever had a half a bison how about a rogan beer a ghost a dunkle bison these traditional german beers include ingredients that are forbidden by the original purity law namely wheat and rye they also happen to be ales and not lagers and the original law was intended for bottom permitted beers only according to a 2016 blog post on the webpage of the library of congress the purity law was tested in 1893 in a legal case over spoiled beer in the case a brewer accidentally dropped a cat into the mashton which was killed and almost completely dissolved initially the very entire regional court acquitted the brewer after hearing from an expert witness who claimed that the boiling of animals such as rats and mice was commonplace and unavoidable but fortunately and i think we can all agree rightly that court's decision was overturned by a higher court the imperial court of justice which noted that the regional court's decision could be interpreted to suggest that animals are a usual ingredient in beer in 1919 as a precondition for joining the weimar republic bavaria insisted on a guarantee that national beer purity laws would not supersede bavaria's stricter laws the act by which the free state of bavaria and baden joined the beer tax community of the weimar republic in 1919 was the first version of the regulations to officially use the term reinheit's gabot purity law to describe the law the reinheitsgebot allowed for leniency for ales while maintaining the restrictions on lager the law raised new issues when germany became a member of the european union in 1958 the loudoun website explains when germany adopted the reinheitsgebot into their tax law it created a precedent that beer could not be labeled as beer unless it adhered to the purity law guidelines germany began to reject imported products labeled as beer if they violated the german definition of beer and therefore sales of these imports was prohibited during the formation of the european union this was seen as a violation of trade agreements in 1984 the european court of justice ruled that the restrictions on foreign beers that did not conform to the reinheitsgebot was a violation of the treaty on the functioning of the european union germany was forced to accept imports of non-reinheit's gabot conforming beers by european courts but the decision seemed only to reinforce their belief that their pure beers were superior bavarian brewers tend to brag that their beer is still brewed according to the reinheitsg boat the bavarian brewers association has registered the trademark bavarian beer but the reinheits bagot has faced challenges over time critics complain that it doesn't really protect the consumers in the ways that it claims 1993 additions to the law allowed for some industrial chemicals that were part of the brink process for example polyvinyl polyprolidone or pvp to be included in the beer even under the law so long as it remained only in technically unavoidable amounts and after german reunification in 1990 a prolonged legal battle that became known as the brandenburg beer war resulted in a court decision that gave an exception to a bottom brewed beer that was brewed in former east germany that allowed it to be called beer despite being sweetened with a pinch of sugared syrup and the rules have not prevented industrial brewers from producing what spiegel international calls interchangeable beers that the consumer can no longer distinguish on the basis of taste but merely on the basis of tv advertising images but a spokesman for the bavarian brewers association notes that the laws still allow experimentation and great beer in a 2016 article in the guardian the spokesman said anyone who believes that the reinheitsgebot serves to limit creativity and gives rise to monotonous beers merely has to look to the immense diversity of the country's beer which is the envy of the world today the reinheitsgebot is facing challenges even inside bavaria where brewers are looking for more flexibility in order to adjust to more modern tastes but the more than 500 year old tradition still has its advocates as the new yorker magazine explains the reinheitsgebot still occupies an almost mythic space in the german brewing industry's collective psyche where many brewers see it as an emblem of high quality traditional beer i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 103,580

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, Reinheitsgebot, beer, bavaria, germany, beer laws

Id: o8eOribA6qI

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Mon May 10 2021