Interesting article on the Reinheitsgebot

OK, see...the first and seemingly most "salient" point he makes to his "Meinung" about the Reinheitsgebot is that the mention of "Gerste" (barley) -- and exclusion of Weizen -- is an indication that the RHG is in part simply a tool for the nobles (who continued to brew and drink the very popular Weizenbier style) to reserve that privilege for themselves while "officially" limiting the use of Weizen for baking.

However, in the Bamberger RHG from 27 years earlier, the text uses the term "Malz" (malt) instead of Gerste (barley), thus not necessarily limiting the use of Weizen (that is malted) for brewing beer. As the author himself points out, the fact that the "Bayerischer" version of the RHG mentions this didn't exclude the brewing of Weizenbiere elsewhere. But on those places where it was still brewed, a form of RHG dictating the purity of beer, was still/already in existence.

I don't think it is as cut and dried (!) as many want to make it...

Happy to go point by point here to finally try and clear up these various understandings (or Meinungen)...

 

...in short, it would seem that the general concept of a German beer purity law was a shifting concept that certainly contained elements intended to increase the rulers'/nobles' revenues (the way politicians tack on clauses to bills these days to benefit themselves/their constituents), but at its heart it was still primarily a protection of quality.

 

Do you think the mention of Ingolstadt in that passage indicates that it was (again) the royals/nobles there that were skirting the RHG for their own purposes/benefits? Or maybe these beers that utilized the salt and herbs were part of lower-grade beers that weren't necessarily subject to the RHG? At any rate, it seems to be a rather fluid document (not surprising considering the fluid geo-political situation).

 

Ron my understanding of the German psyche is that they fastidiously follow the law (e.g., won’t cross the street until it is legal to do so, etc.). Is this more a manifestation of modern day Germans?

Cheers!

 

Yea, seems so. But the geo-political changes over the course of the 500 years the RHG has been in existence have been -- to put it mildly -- pretty extreme. In light of this fact, it's pretty amazing and significant that it has survived, and been in continuous use, in some form or other.

 

Well, sort of, but in some ways its less amazing if considered in a broader context. There are a number of other examples of legal codes having survived hundreds of years and having had even more wide-spread and profound effects than the RHG. With many of those effects often not having been anticipated by those who originally formulated the laws.

To mention only two examples, consider the Magna Carta. The individual rights granted the nobility by King John at Runnymede in 1215 have survived, flourished, been elaborated and extended over the years and had such interesting side effects as the American Revolutionary war and subsequent independence.

Similarly, the Code Napolean, while not nearly so old as either had a great effect and was eventually adopted by many European countries, a number of the developing countries outside of Europe (and is still in many ways the basis for the legal codes in Louisiana).

 

Yep.

I guess we'll see if the artistically constraining, boring old RHG can survive the "craft" revolution with its vanguard of Koch, Calagione, and Co.

 

Ron, since the issue has come up more than once, would you be willing to elaborate on your reasons for a portion of your online essay about the RHG being a load of old b****.

In particular the second point made in the table that lists points about the RHG and says that the original RHG was a bread protection law. I've personally have taken that point on board as I've also found a good bit of information that supports that inference, but have been asked, as have others, to provide primary documentation. Having neither access nor the essential language skills I'd much appreciate it if you could elaborate on your reasons for arguing the RHG was basically about bread. Thanks!

 

Well you really need to take that up with them rather than those of who have no dog in that fight.

 

Sorry for getting off topic.

 

Ok, thanks!

 

What is the information that you found that supports that inference?

 

This makes things much more complex and before getting into such issues its important to have agreement that our central purpose is to step back from a number of other possible issues and identify and focus on the primary question which seems really to be about the central intent of the RHG in the minds of those who put it in place. Not its name, not its side effects, but what motivated the Duchy to formulate the RHG as they did.

This mean that whether it leads to better beer or not is actually irrelevant and is quite debatable in a different context in several ways. (Even if we want to credit the Duchy with being able to foretell the future of German beer.) As an example, why are there so many good beers brewed in countries where the RHG never took hold? For example, I think we could both easily agree that both the UK and Belgium brew some really fine beers as well. Similarly we could ask why are there so many poor beers brewed under the RHG? But we won't got there since a focus on beer quality is not the true issue here. The issue we are after is/was whether the RHG was truly a "purity" law or whether was it a "bread protection" law that also happened to include Purity in its name. Its other incidental or modern side effects are not at issue. Only trying to figure out the intent of the framers of the law.

Second it seems essential to agree that in the absence of a definitive paper trail it becomes necessary to focus on what other indicators or indirect evidence can be found to support one inference or the other. This is also where contributing to this discussion, if he is willing, may help @patto1ro jiggle his memory about why he made the claim of bread protection in the first place. I've read enough of his stuff to be convinced that he didn't just pull it out of his...hat for the sole purpose of having something provocative to say.

It is a corollary of this indirect approach is that our goal is to bring togther a pattern of clues rather than evaluate each single factor on a case by case basis. (If only because down that road lies the trap of missing the forest for the trees.) In other words, can we assemble enough clues, each of which may be ambiguous or flawed by itself in isolation, but when viewed as a total set create a pattern that points us to an answer for the basic question and/or allows for further detective work in raising other questions and things to look for that will confirm or disconfirm one conclusion or the other.

For example, the other night I posted a link to a site about historical weather events that had major impact on segments of the earth. The author was a climate specialist who may never have even heard about the RHG and was simply reporting that in 1515, the climate (including the growing and harvest seasons) in what we now think of as Germany as a whole was unusually damp (and probably chilly as well). These conditions are known to have an impact on how much grain can be harvested (see the thread in Beer News about a week ago about the possibility of a North American barley shortage having "brewers foaming"). Thus there is at least one good reason to believe that in a predominantly agrarian economy where many survive on basic subsistence farming and by selling any surpluses, there may well have been a grain shortage developing that was a) driving prices rapidly upwards and b) threatening potential major hardships for many.

In terms of raising a new question, and this is something new to me (and thanks for mentioning it) to which I have no access, it seems a good idea to look at the prior local "purity laws" you've found evidence for. In surveying those, how many of them focus on excluding wheat from the brewing process? Similarly, we can ask of the original RHG, why was wheat excluded from brewing? Exactly what is impure about brewing with wheat? (IIRC you and others have mentioned that wheat beers were being done and were reasonably popular pre RHG.) And when we then realize that, perhaps not immediately post RHG, the Duchy did allow its "state owned" brewery to use wheat long before it was incorporated into the revised RHG there is the interesting question of why brewing with wheat for the general public was considered impure but was not impure if done by the Duchy's brewery? Was their brewery somehow more sanititary (in an era when sanitation and disease transmission were poorly understood if at all) or were they somehow more "pure" in ways that average brewers producing beer for sale to the public were not?

Looking at the grains involved, why not exclude rye from both uses? But this time in Europe in a number of European regions it was recognized that people who contacted, worked with, ate, etc. rye that had been raised in damp growing/havesting conditions caused an illness. (Even though it was hundreds of years before the illness had a modern medical name and a cause was identified. Today we call it Ergotism and it is caused by a fungus that is found on Rye being grown/harvested under damp conditions.)

Similarly, if the RHG is all about purity, why are there price controls imposed in the original version? Its not clear how that contributes to ensuring purity. But on the other hand, if the intent of my legislation is to cap or reduce the rising cost of grains then imposing price controls on the end product of the use of those grains seems a quite reasonable indirect way of discouraging brewers from paying quite high prices to get their grains and passing their price increases on to someone else. Similarly, if we pose the law as a form of "purity" control because there is precedent and acceptance already we increase the likelihood of having critical segments of the public on board with the new law (and perhaps even becoming watchful eyes who will report what the brewers are up to if they begin taking short cuts to get around the law by making side deals with farmers or substituting "impure" ingredients...).

There's more but this "essay" has already grown too long.

 

It also, just now, occurs to me that @Crusader may know of have encountered different bits of history and/or information that could contribute to working out some answers here.

 

It's quite possible that the word "purity" may simply be a way of saying that beer should be brewed "purely" from certain ingredients.Purity these days carries an undertone of quality but the RHG wasn't written these days and perhaps we see something which wasn't there when it was enacted.

 

First, yes, I think we can agree that the purpose is to try and better understand the central intent of the RHG in the minds of those who put it in place.

Second, I'm not sure I agree we need to jump into focusing on what other indicators or indirect evidence can be found to support one inference or the other. Rather I think it's best to focus first on the text of the 1516 RHG to see what is in there and what is not.

One thing that is *not* in there is any reference to Weizen. Here is the complete text of the Bavarian RHG from 1516:

„Wir verordnen, setzen und wollen mit dem Rat unserer Landschaft, dass forthin überall im Fürstentum Bayern sowohl auf dem Lande wie auch in unseren Städten und Märkten, die keine besondere Ordnung dafür haben, von Michaeli (29. September) bis Georgi (23. April) eine Maß (bayerische, entspricht 1,069 Liter) oder ein Kopf (halbkugelförmiges Geschirr für Flüssigkeiten – nicht ganz eine Maß) Bier für nicht mehr als einen Pfennig Münchener Währung und von Georgi bis Michaeli die Maß für nicht mehr als zwei Pfennig derselben Währung, der Kopf für nicht mehr als drei Heller (gewöhnlich ein halber Pfennig) bei Androhung unten angeführter Strafe gegeben und ausgeschenkt werden soll. Wo aber einer nicht Märzen sondern anderes Bier brauen oder sonstwie haben würde, soll er es keineswegs höher als um einen Pfennig die Maß ausschenken und verkaufen. Ganz besonders wollen wir, dass forthin allenthalben in unseren Städten, Märkten und auf dem Lande zu keinem Bier mehr Stücke als allein Gersten, Hopfen und Wasser verwendet und gebraucht werden sollen. Wer diese unsere Anordnung wissentlich übertritt und nicht einhält, dem soll von seiner Gerichtsobrigkeit zur Strafe dieses Fass Bier, so oft es vorkommt, unnachsichtig weggenommen werden. Wo jedoch ein Gastwirt von einem Bierbräu in unseren Städten, Märkten oder auf dem Lande einen, zwei oder drei Eimer (enthält etwa 60 Liter) Bier kauft und wieder ausschenkt an das gemeine Bauernvolk, soll ihm allein und sonst niemand erlaubt und unverboten sein, die Maß oder den Kopf Bier um einen Heller teurer als oben vorgeschrieben ist, zu geben und auszuschenken. Auch soll uns als Landesfürsten vorbehalten sein, für den Fall, dass aus Mangel und Verteuerung des Getreides starke Beschwernis entstünde, nachdem die Jahrgänge auch die Gegend und die Reifezeiten in unserem Land verschieden sind, zum allgemeinen Nutzen Einschränkungen zu verordnen, wie solches am Schluss über den Fürkauf ausführlich ausgedrückt und gesetzt ist.“

Thus, the inference that wheat was somehow explicitly forbidden in the RHG -- because the Bavarian brewers/authorities thought it impure, the royals wanted a monopoly on it, and/or it was meant to be reserved for baking -- has absolutely no basis in the primary source document.

Similarly, neither was Roggen (rye) explicitly mentioned in the RHG from 1516. The text simply says that "only barley, hops, and water can be used or utilized" (allein Gersten, Hopfen und Wasser verwendet und gebraucht werden sollen). However, in the Nuremberg RHG of 1293, apparently rye, oats, and wheat were explicitly forbidden. In the Bamberg RHG from 1489, the text doesn't mention barley explicitly, but rather that only "malt" (Malz) be utilized. Of course barley, wheat, rye, call all be malted.

So the primary source material does have quite a bit to say about these matters. Still, I would agree that it isn't necessarily counterproductive to look at a "pattern of clues" -- but why not start with what is actually stated in these various versions of the "Bavarian" RHGs? In each, the ingredients are limited to brewing grains, hops, and water. Why would they do this? And, perhaps more importantly, why do these "purity laws" seem restricted to the area now known as Bavaria -- since great beer was being made elsewhere?

One explanation might be the fact that because EVERY farmer in places like Bamberg/Nuernberg (and I believe many other areas of present-day Bavaria) had the right to brew -- and every farmer was taxed on his/her beers -- the need for a formal quality control decree was greater than in places where not everyone was permitted to brew, since the quality would almost certainly have varied more greatly. (More brewers with fewer restrictions to entry in the trade means a higher probability of poor product. Sound familiar? )

Much more to be said here, but this seems like a good start....