The Reinheitsgebot (literally "purity requirement") is a regulation that originated in the city of Ingolstadt in the duchy of Bavaria in 1516, concerning standards for the sale and composition of beer. Recently, an older, similar scripture has been found in the city of Weißensee in Thuringia. Ingolstadt is a city in the Federal State of Bavaria, Germany. ... The Free State of Bavaria  (German: Freistaat Bayern), with an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ... // Events March - With the death of Ferdinand II of Aragon, his grandson Charles of Ghent becomes King of Spain as Carlos I. July - Selim I of the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Mameluks and invades Syria. ... Beer, generally, is an alcoholic beverage produced through the fermentation of sugars suspended in an aqueous medium, and which is not distilled after fermentation. ...

The text

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 The Reinheitsgebot is no longer part of German law: it has been replaced by the Provisional German Beer Law (Vorläufiges deutsches Biergesetz), which allows constituent components prohibited in the Reinheitsgebot, such as wheat malt and cane sugar, but which no longer allows unmalted barley. Water (from the Old English word wæter; c. ... Binomial name Hordeum vulgare L. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a major food and animal feed crop, a member of the grass family Poaceae. ... Species Humulus lupulusL. Humulus japonicusSiebold& Zucc. ... The pfennig was a small German coin valued at 1/100 of a Deutsche Mark and other German currencies with the name Mark. ... The Maß (or Mass) is an Austro-Bavarian unit of volume, 1. ...

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 was available, they would just set up a number of vats, and usually yeast would "appear by itself". Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French microbiologist and chemist. ...

Hops are added to beer as a preservative, and their mention in the Reinheitsgebot meant to prevent inferior 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 herbs had been used, such as stinging nettles, which are related to hops. A preservative is a natural or synthetic chemical that is added to products such as foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological samples, etc. ... Soot, also called lampblack, Pigment Black 7, carbon black or black carbon, is a dark powdery deposit of unburned fuel residues, usually composed mainly of amorphous carbon, that accumulates in chimneys, automobile mufflers and other surfaces exposed to smoke—especially from the combustion of carbon-rich organic fuels in the... Basidiocarps (mushrooms) of the fungus Leucocoprinus sp. ... Binomial name Urtica dioica L. The Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica and sometimes jaggy nettle or burning weed) is a herb native to Europe, Asia, and North America, the best known member of the nettle genus Urtica. ...

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) claim to still abide by it.

History

The 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 Düsseldorfer Altbier, survived its implementation. Flag of the German Empire, 1871–1919: black-white-red Coat of arms The term German Empire commonly refers to Germany, from its foundation as a unified nation-state on January 18, 1871, until the abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918. ... 1871 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Pilsener or pilsner is a style of beer, developed in the city of Plzeň (Pilsen in German/English), Western Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). ... Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and (together with Cologne) the economic center of Northwestern Germany. ... Altbier (often abbreviated to Alt) is a dark, top-fermented type of beer from Düsseldorf and the Niederrhein region in Germany. ...

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) and vorläufiges Biergesetz (Provisional Beer 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. 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... A half drunk pint of lager Lager is the term casually used in English to describe bottom-fermented beers of German and sometimes of Czech styles, though in the latter case the term Pilsener is more common. ...

In May 1987, a European Court of Justice ruling led to the Reinheitsgebot being lifted, allowing ingredients beyond what is listed in the Biergesetz; this meant that anything allowed in other foods was thus also allowed in beer. The ingredient requirements have since been moved from the Biersteuergesetz into the regular food additives laws, though beer brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot receive special treatment as a protected, "traditional" food. Look up May in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is formally known as the Court of Justice of the European Communities, i. ...

Most German breweries continued 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 the 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. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... King Otto of Greece Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria and King of Greece (Salzburg, June 1, 1815 - Bamberg, July 26, 1867) was made the first modern king of Greece in 1832 under the Convention of London, whereby Greece became a new independent kingdom under the protection of the United... Bavarian can either when used as an adjective, refer to the German state of Bavaria; or refer to the Bavarian or Austro-Bavarian language, a group of closely related Austria and the South Tyrol. ...

Criticism

The law still causes controversy. 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 traditional black beer, a product possibly older than the Reinheitsgebot itself, as it contained sugar, and thus could not be sold as "beer" under German food-labeling laws based on the Reinheitsgebot. In the end, it was allowed to sell it under the name Schwarzer Abt ("Black Abbot" but not "beer") within Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) took place on October 3, 1990, when the areas of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR, in English commonly called East Germany) were incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, in... This article is about the year. ... The Neuzelle Kloster Brewery is located in Neuzelle, Germany, and is best known for its Neuzeller Anti-Aging-Bier. Helmut Fritsche purchased the Neuzeller brewery in 1992, which has been producing beer commercially for over 400 years, and is situated on the grounds of a 12th century monastery. ... Neuzelle is a town in Germany, along the border with Poland, probably best known for its Neuzeller Kloster Brewery. ... Surrounding but excluding the national capital Berlin, Brandenburg is one of Germanys sixteen Bundesländer (federal states). ...

When it was in effect, the law drew criticism from foreign brewers as a form of protectionism that allowed West Germany to prohibit non-compliant imports, even high-quality beers from countries such as Belgium and the United Kingdom with their own long brewing traditions. Protectionism is the economic policy of protecting a nations manufacturing base from the effects of foreign competition (such as including Dumping) by means of high tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and other means of reducing importation. ...

External links

• English translation of the 'Reinheitsgebot'
• The Reinheitsgebot - what a load of old bollocks, a dissenting view on the law.