St. Louis Beer Blog: German Beer Day

German Beer Day

By Nate Brinson

April 23 is recognized throughout Germany as Tag des DeutschenBieres (Day of German Beer). The quick explanation as to why is that the“Reinheitsgebot”* was declared on April 23, 1516 in Ingolstadt**, stating thatbeer must only be made with barley, hops and water.  A version of this law dominates German brewingtoday with malt, hops, water, and yeast listed as the allowed ingredients.

I guess a few questions arise. First, what prompted limitingbeer to barley and hops? The likely explanation for only allowing barley was toensure bakers wouldn’t need to fight brewers for wheat, particularly in timesof wheat scarcity (such as a bad harvest), and besides, brewing beer is easierwith barley than wheat***.

The use of hops was likely twofold. Brewers usually added somesort of flora to their beer to provide a counterpoint to the sweet taste ofmalt, and while this historical point might be exaggerated, there is littledoubt that harmful ingredients made it into beer such as deadly nightshade. Inaddition to being safe to consume, hops are a natural preservative and inhibitbacterial growth in beer, improving its quality.

Many wonder why malt isn’t in the original law. Did brewersnot use malted grains? Of course they did;  it went without saying that barley would bemalted to brew beer. Until the later parts of the 1800s, breweries maltedgrains themselves. Simply put, brewers in the 1500s were acquiring barleyinstead of malt, and therefore it was the vital ingredient to legislate.

Why wasn’t yeast included in 1516? Did they not know of itsexistence? Was beer just the result of spontaneous fermentation? Brewers certainlyknew of yeast’s importance; one of the jobs in the brewery involved harvestingthis substance (known as “Zeug”) from successful batches of beer and adding itto the next batch of fermenting beer ****. The issue was that they did notunderstand what yeast exactly was. They thought that it was formed as theresult of a combination of malt, water and hops; and since this was a byproductof these ingredients, it did not need to be listed as a unique ingredient.

Finally, has this law been in place since 1516? Not exactly.This law applied initially only to Bavaria, a dutchy in the Kingdom ofGermany/Holy Roman Empire. By the end of the turn of the 20^thcentury, the law also applied to the neighboring regions of Baden and Württemberg.In 1906*****, the 35-year-old German Empire adopted the law for the entirecountry. It needed to be reestablished in 1919 for the new German (Weimar)Republic as well as in 1952 for the Federal Republic of Germany (aka WestGermany). As the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) did not havesuch a strict restriction on beer ingredients, the united Federal Republicneeded to once again codify the law in the Vorläufiges Biergesetz (Provisional Beer Law).

I hope that provides a bit of historical background to theDay of German Beer. In our next post, we’ll get into a deeper discussion of thelaw, including a few hot-button topics.

At the very least, I hope you’re inspired to drink aGerman-style beer! Prost!

* Historical beer author Andreas Krennmair notesthat the term “Reinheitsgebot” wasn’t used until the beginning of the 20^thcentury. It was previously referred to as the “Substitutionsverbot(substitution ban) or the “Surrogatsverbot” (surrogate ban).

**  Krennmair gives anexcellent explanation of the actuallaw announced on April 23, 1516 as well as other aspects.

*** Some families had privileges to brew with wheat and thestate eventually gave more , and therefore wheat beer never disappeared fromBavaria.

**** This person was known as the “Hefener”, and this personunderstood that yeast from a successful batch would make the next batchsuccessful as well.

**** The 1906 version and subsequent laws allowed wheat andother ingredients in “top-fermented” (aka ales) beers to fit in with otherGerman brewing traditions. However, the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württembergrestrict to nothing but malt, hops, water and yeast.

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