Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Another reinheitsgebot loophole

Not being a German brewer I'm not entirely certain what their 'beer purity law', the reinheitsgebot, is. Though it's usually given as 'only water, barley, hops and yeast can be used to make beer' it's considerably more complicated than that. Other grains, and some reason sugar, are allowed in top fermented beers for example.

I fact I do have suspicions that a lot of German brewing practice is designed to drive a cart horse over the spirit of the law whilst staying exactly within the letter of it.  An article in a recent Brauwelt highlights the various possibilities that exist for variety whilst staying within the law. An interesting one I hadn't heard of has been translated as follows:
"reviving historic beer styles which were customarily brewed in certain parts of Germany before the Purity Law came into force in those areas and for which the legal status of traditional speciality beers, exempted from the obligation to comply with the Purity Law by a provision of the current German brewing industry regulating legislation, can therefore be claimed" 
It seems there are exemptions for historic local specialities. So surely it's time for German brewers to study some of Ron's works.
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6 comments:

  1. BryanB2 February 2016 at 11:18

    Totally agreed - the old Reinheitsgebot was one big loophole. It was/is all about marketing and market protection, not beer quality.

    You can read the current Provisional Beer Law (Vorläufiges Biergesetz) online, there's nothing in it specifying or exempting "traditional" beers. What there is, via clause 7, is the ability to apply for exemptions via your local state (ie. Saxony, Bavaria, NRW...) authorities.

    The last I heard though, this was an expensive process for an individual brewery. So it would make a lot of sense for the authorities to come up with a blanket exemption for local traditional specialities, though like you I'd not heard of this before.

    If it does exist I assume it'll be at state-level, so you're probably OK as a brewer in NRW or Lower Saxony, say, but good luck if you're in Bavaria! (I guess you read about Camba's travails with the local authorities?)

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    1. Ed2 February 2016 at 13:24

      Interesting, I haven't found it in English. Exemptions on individual case by case basis sounds a right pain in the arse. The Camba the people barred from doing a milk stout?

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  2. Pivní Filosof2 February 2016 at 11:29

    So surely it's time for German brewers to study some of Ron's works.

    Who wants to do that when watermelon-infused, barrel-aged, rosemary Double Black IPA is what everybody wants to drink in Germany? /s

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    1. Ed2 February 2016 at 13:26

      You're probably right, they need to get innovative until they have exactly the same range in craft beer bars as anywhere else.

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    2. BryanB2 February 2016 at 13:56

      To be fair, they are also doing crafty twists on German staples too - eg. dry-hopped Exports, single-hop Pilsners, black Pils - as well as local versions of international staples, eg. IPAs with only German malts and hops. All of which as far as I'm aware are compliant with the VB, if not with later versions of the Einheitsgebot.

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    3. madtom3 February 2016 at 23:02

      Let's not be fair, Bryan. Let's take the ignorant anti-innovation route. So much more clever.

      "Craft beer tastes of grapefruit", says the Ed the Blogger. It's funny, but not because it is true.

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