You probably already know that Reinheitsgebot (purity law) is a law regarding the purity of German beer. You might already know that it is the oldest food purity law that is still around. But there is a lot more to it than that. In fact, it gets downright confusing at times, but we’ll try to keep it simple.
First, the word Reinheit appears nowhere in the original law. Originally called Surrogatverbot (adjunct prohibition), this law was issued in 1516 for a couple of reasons, depending on whom you ask:
To keep brewers from making beer with unwholesome ingredients—animal parts, roots, Prestone, whatever was on hand, basically
To preserve wheat and rye for bread, thereby keeping bread more widely available and cheaper.
There were undoubtedly other motivations, but then we’d be wading too deeply into politics. So back to the name: In 1918, in one of the many legislative discussions regarding the law, a member of parliament referred to it as Reinheitsgebot in and it stuck. It’s still around tucked away in a lonely corner of the German tax code somewhere.
At the risk of confusing matters, it is worth noting that the original purity law was Bavarian, not German. The Bavarian Purity Law allowed nothing but malt, hops, water and yeast for all bottom-fermented beers (lagers) and select other ingredients—malted wheat, malted rye, for example—in in top-fermented beers (ales). In 1516, when the law was issued, nobody knew that it was yeast that caused fermentation, or even what yeast was. Because of this, yeast was not mentioned in the original law, but was added after its discovery in 1700s. So you may well wonder how brewers got their beers to ferment prior to them knowing about yeast. They generally used a little sediment from a previous batch for fermentation.
The Purity Law for the rest of Germany was more lenient than the Bavarian Purity Law. But when Bavaria merged with the rest of Germany as the Weimar Republic, one of the conditions of Bavaria’s joining was that all of Germany adopt the Bavarian Purity Law. (This was around the time the Reinheitsgebot name came about.) Before we get too much deeper than this, suffice it to say that changes in the law throughout the course of its existence have involved a lot of historical, geographical and political details that are well beyond the scope of this article, so we’re sticking with the high level.
So is the law still relevant? That is debatable, but in the late 1980s, the European Court ruled the law a restraint to free trade and rendered it kaput. So regardless of whether it’s relevant, the Reinheitsgebot is no longer in effect. Nonetheless, for the sake of pride and tradition, many German brewers still adhere to it. And when you think about the hidden and not particularly healthy ingredients in some beers (propylene glycol comes to mind), the Reinheitsgebot is not bad marketing either.