Back to the Roots?

In an earlier blog, I wrote that most beer drinkers know about the German purity decree. This decree isn't German, since Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria issued the Reinheitsgebot on April 23, 1516. Since 1994, people have celebrated the Tag des deutschen Bieres (Day of the German Beer) on April 23.

The other day in Munich, Red Baron was shocked to learn, from a sign on a Maibaum at Viktualienmarkt (Munich's tourist food market), that the Munich Reinheitsgebot dates back to anno Domini 1487. In that year Duke Albert IV the Wise of Bavaria-Munich cast an order of the Munich magistrate of 1453 into law, dass Bier und Greußing* nu füran auch aus nichts anderem dann Hopfen, Gersten und Wasser gesotten werden (that from now on and forever beer and mild beer shall be seethed using nothing else than hops, barley and water).
*a beer with less hops

Yeast is not mentioned here because, in those days, bacteria in the surrounding air started mash fermentation spontaneously. This is similar to my mother's method of leaving milk in an open receptacle in our kitchen for two or three days until it set.

Six years later, on February 16, 1493, Duke George the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut issued another purity decree for his territory: Item die Bierbräuer und andere sollen auch nichts zum Bier gebrauchen denn allein Malz, Hopfen und Wasser, noch dieselben Bräuer auch die Bierschenken und andere nichts anderes in das Bier thun, bey Vermeidung von Strafe an Leib und Gut (Also the beer brewers shall use nothing else for making beer than malt, hops, and water and shall as the beer-houses not put anything else into the beer thus avoiding punishment for body and property).

Following the reunification of the various parts of Bavaria Duke Wilhelm IV proclaimed on April 23, 1516, the above mentioned common purity decree for the whole of Bavaria: Wir wollen auch sonderlichhen dass füran allenthalben in unsern stetten märckthen un auf dem lannde zu kainem pier merer stüchh dan allain gersten, hopfen un wasser genommen un gepraucht solle werdn (We want in particular that everywhere in our towns, markets, and in the countryside to any beer no more than barley, hops, and water shall be taken and used). Later, this Bavarian purity decree formed part of the Reichsbiersteuergesetz (Imperial taxation law for beer) and was called Vorläufiges Biergesetz (Preliminary Beer Law) in the Federal Republic. Preliminary because its articles are now part of the Lebensmittel- und Futtermittelgesetzbuch (Legal code for food and fodder) of September 1, 2005.

Back to the roots? We Germans shouldn't be too proud, as in 1438 Duke Philip III the Good of Burgundy issued a Pflichtenheft (functional specification document) demanding that, for the production of bierre, only water, Burgundian hops, and barley be used. Purists claim that Duke Philip was not concerned with the beer's purity but instead wanted to protect the monopoly on Burgundian hops.

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