Reinheitsgebot

Bavaria in 1516, concerning standards for the sale and composition of beer. In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley, and hops. Key provisions of the Reinheitsgebot as it stands in Germany today state that "For the preparation of beer, only malt, hops, yeast and water can be used." Thus compared to the original law, unmalted grain is no longer acceptable now, on the other hand malt of other grains than barley is now acceptable.

The Reinheitsgebot (Purity Precept), referring to the purity of beer, was passed by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria on April 23rd, 1516 and originally only in effect in Bavaria itself. It regulated, among others, the price of beer per Maß (1.069 liters) over the year (not more than 1 Pfennig from Georgi to Michaeli day and not more than 2 Pfennigs from Michaeli to Georgi day), and the ingredients: We especially desire that from now everywhere in our cities, markets and in the country, no parts should be used for any beer except barley, hop and water.

Note that no yeast was mentioned in the original text - probably due to the fact that little was known about its role in fermentation and it was not considered an "ingredient", as the brewers simply took some yeast from the last fermentation and added it to the next. If none was available, they would just set up a number of vats, and usually yeast wold "appear of itself" in some of them. Actually of course it developed from contamination with yeast cells, but the basic rule of modern biology that all life forms descend from living ancestors was not yet known -- people at the time also believed, for example, that worms appear of themselves in rotting materials.

The restriction of the grain to be used to barley was probably meant to ensure the availability of sufficient amounts of affordable bread, as the more valuable wheat and rye were thus de facto reserved for use by the bakers. Today such a restriction doesn't exist any more and many Bavarian beers are in fact brewed from wheat malt again.

The restriction to hops was probably meant to stop the many inferior methods of preserving the beer that had been in use before the (then relatively recent) introduction of hops into brewing. Medieval brewers had used many problematic ingredients to preserve beers, including for example soot and fly agaric mushrooms.

The penalty for not complying with this was also set in the Reinheitsgebot - a brewer using other ingredients for his beer should have the barrels in question taken away at no compensation.

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) -- the brewers objected against that law at the time, but not because of the list of allowed ingredients, which they accepted, only because they thought the tax mandated by the law was too high and would hurt their sales. The list of allowed ingredients by law applied only to Pils-style beers, but brewers of other types of beer quickly accepted it voluntarily.

The regulations pertaining to the ingredients have since been removed from there - a quick survey of the current form of the Biersteuergesetz yields no references to what ingredients are allowed - and moved into the normal law regulating additives in food, protecting beer brewed following the Reinheitsgebot regulations as a special "traditional" food.

Although many other additives would be allowed in German beer nowadays because the EU laws are now supreme in the area of food safety - basically any ingredients are allowed that are allowed in other food as well - most German breweries still follow the Reinheitsgebot regulations and use that fact for marketing, usually by printing the fact the beer was brewed obeying the Reinheitsgebot onto the label.