{"id":17892,"date":"2016-04-22T16:30:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T04:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=17892"},"modified":"2017-09-01T19:00:58","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T07:00:58","slug":"reinheitsgebot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/04\/22\/reinheitsgebot\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinheitsgebot’s last birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Screenshot<\/a>
“It’s the Reinheitsgebot that fuels our creativity” \u2014 according to a ludicrous ad campaign<\/a> from a group of German brewers (brought to my attention by Bryan Roth<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s my contribution to the teetering pile of Reinheitsgebot-related reckons that are surfacing around the thing’s putative 500th birthday \u2015 which is being celebrated despite the old law no longer being in force, the new law not being so old (obviously) nor so simple, and the whole thing being colossally pointless in the first place. I wrote the below for the most-recent edition of SOBA’s<\/em>\u00a0Pursuit Of Hoppiness magazine but have added back in a few asides that had to be cut from the print version for space and\/or tone. Think of this as the Extended Edition. If I had the coding skills to better-emulate the famous footnotes for David Foster Wallace’s\u00a0<\/a><\/em>The Host<\/a>, I’d do that. This’ll have to suffice. If you need more Bonus Material, I’ve ranted down these lines before<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/span>For the record, the original text was written entirely under the influence of Kraftwerk and Reinheitsgebot-compliant beers. The latter was a complete coincidence, only realised in hindsight. To compensate, the annotation and uploading was undertaken while drinking beers that firmly had their thumb in the Purity Law’s eye.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This year marks the five-hundredth anniversary<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of a surprisingly-short text<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> that came to be known as Reinheitsgebot, the (\u2018Bavarian\u2019 or \u2018German\u2019) Purity Law. It mandated that \u201cthe only ingredients for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and its mythology has proven so strong that it\u2019s still not uncommon<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> to see breweries in New Zealand namedropping it in marketing material and referring to it as part of their mission or philosophy \u2014 half a world and half a millennium away.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cmythology\u201d because the law is vastly overhyped, misunderstood and of basically no relevance to a properly broad view of beer. Almost all of the original 1516 decree concerns the\u00a0price<\/i> of the product,<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> not its process, and its list of only three permissible ingredients renders brewing impossible<\/i> since it predates the discovery of, and therefore omits, yeast. That may seem pedantic, but it\u2019s a healthy reminder that old laws and not necessarily good laws. Few of us would be keen to visit a hospital that followed Sixteenth Century standards of hygiene.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cPurity\u201d is also very much the wrong word for what the law sets out, which is (at best) merely simplicity via restricted ingredients. There\u2019s nothing in the text by way of food safety or consumer protection; no rules about freshness<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> or cleanliness are anywhere in sight. And its initial simplicity was soon lost, anyhow: unsurprisingly, the decree didn\u2019t survive unchanged through the creation (and later reunification) of Germany, nor the country\u2019s participation in European trade and shared regulation. Reinheitsgebot\u2019s descendant, the Vorl\u00e4ufiges Biergesetz, is more complicated and is shot through with exceptions and odd clauses almost as much as you\u2019d find in other countries.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> And still, somehow, the spectre of \u2018Purity\u2019 \u2014 as some longrunning and praiseworthy Bavarian tradition \u2014 trudges on.<\/p>\n

The decree of 1516 didn\u2019t succeed in codifying The Right And Best Way To Brew Beer. The shallow reason for this is that it wasn\u2019t trying<\/i> to \u2014 it was an unremarkable piece of market intervention to control prices and allocate resources (barley for brewers, wheat for bakers)<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0\u2014 but the deep reason is that beer is as varied as the humans who make it and drink it, and thus has it always been. Our planet is literally covered in interesting flavourful things, and we are an endlessly creative species. The three-ingredient notion of beer in the Reinheitsgebot was new and shouldered aside many traditional families of recipes.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It\u2019s an aberration, not a baseline; freak, not foundation.<\/p>\n

German beer generally has an excellent reputation, but the \u2018Purity Law\u2019 doesn\u2019t deserve any of the credit for that. There is a lot to be said for the ability of arbitrary constraints to inspire creativity, like a novelist writing without using the letter e<\/i>,<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> but the worth of the end result is always to be judged on its own merits, not merely whether it navigated the limits placed on it: that entirely e<\/i>-less novel might still be terrible. Generations of Germans have invented technically-compliant ways of broadening their beer, often to obvious success. But the overall effect has been more stifling than stimulating,<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and we\u2019d all be better off letting this be Reinheitsgebot\u2019s last observed anniversary.<\/p>\n

Postscript:<\/span>\u00a0I’ve fixed it.\u00a0While uploading this \u2015 and talking about it with a few people through the week \u2015 I’ve stumbled upon a proposal. You (those of you who want to) can keep the Reinheitsgebot, even in its heavily-mythologised form, if you just treat it more like the Trappist appellation. Compliance could be regulated by a membership body, complete with a trademark-protected badge and everything. Germans could join, or not. Non-Germans could join, or not. Pretending it’s the solution for everyone (or even just for one country) is a non-starter. So let’s stop. Surely those proud Reinheitsgebotters of the Radeberger Gruppe (who funded the glossy campaign at the top of this post) would be fine with that and could lead that charge. I mean, they’re not just in it to perpetuate some unearned advantage and control their local market, surely..?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s my contribution to the teetering pile of Reinheitsgebot-related reckons that are surfacing around the thing’s putative 500th birthday \u2015 which is being celebrated despite the old law no longer being in force, the new law not being so old (obviously) nor so simple, and the whole thing being colossally pointless in the first place. … Continue reading Reinheitsgebot’s last birthday<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[36,72],"class_list":["post-17892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blahblah","tag-brandwank","tag-pursuit-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3735,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/10\/hofbrau-maibock-reinheitsgebot\/","url_meta":{"origin":17892,"position":0},"title":"Hofbr\u00e4u Maibock (and the gdmfing Reinheitsgebot)","author":"Phil","date":"July 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Beer first, rant second. It was a favourite rant, back when I was bartending, but for once I should go beer first. And despite the seemingly-faint praise in my notes, I really did quite like this one. That garish and comical HB tap has been at the Malthouse (at least)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hofbrau Maibock","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Hofbrau-Maibock-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18857,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/02\/24\/will-it-gaff\/","url_meta":{"origin":17892,"position":1},"title":"Will It Gaff..?","author":"Phil","date":"February 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing in the strange experimental spirit we started with our 'Will It Shandy..?' investigation, Dylan \u2015 of The Bottleneck blog, and my comrade \/ direct superior at Golding's Free Dive \u2015 and I ask the yet-more-nonsensical question: Will It Gaff? We realise that's probably not really a noun, nevermind a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Podcast episodes"","block_context":{"text":"Podcast episodes","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/podcast-episodes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18730,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/28\/boycotts\/","url_meta":{"origin":17892,"position":2},"title":"Boycotts in Boomtime","author":"Phil","date":"January 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This piece originally appeared in the summer edition of SOBA's magazine,\u00a0The Pursuit of Hoppiness. A few recent discussions of whether (and how) we should more-openly mix our politics and our pitching or\u00a0purchasing have reminded me to belatedly post it here. Introducing himself and his mission, Michael Jackson (the drinks writer,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The header from my Pursuit of Hoppiness piece (Summer 2016, p60)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Boycotts-header.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5609,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/06\/02\/made-to-match\/","url_meta":{"origin":17892,"position":3},"title":"‘Made to Match’","author":"Phil","date":"June 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So, it looks like Lion \u2014 one half of the local brewing duopoly, and ultimately a subsidiary of Kirin* \u2014 is taking out a series of infomercials on TVNZ. Product placement so thick it amounts to entire blocks of 'programming' was probably the invention of home improvement shows and hardware\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mediawatch"","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"'Made to Match' landing page","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Landing-page-1900-212x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5513,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/05\/05\/666-black-se7en-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":17892,"position":4},"title":"666 ‘Black Se7en’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"May 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The days are just packed. 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As if I really need an excuse.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"O'Hara's 'Celebration' Stout","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/OHaras-Celebration-Stout-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17892"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19251,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17892\/revisions\/19251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}