Talk:Reinheitsgebot/Archive 1

Error?

The second sentence of the first paragraph says: "only ingredients ... water, barley, hops ... only the four permissible ingredients..." Are there four ingredients or three? Just asking, and also saying that I don't know. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quodlibetor (talk • contribs) 00:59, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Answer: the original law specified only three ingredients. All modern commercial brewers in Germany add a fourth ingredient, yeast, and many also add wheat, cane sugar, hop extract (containing distilled grain alcohol), and many other ingredients (some of which, such as isinglass and carageenan, are claimed to be absent in the final product). Any claim by a modern commercial brewery in Germany that they are complying with the "1516" Reinheitsgebot is merely a marketing ploy, and is clearly dishonest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 17:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Slim references section

I know that among the previous references now missing is the article [German Reinheitsgebot - why it's a load of old bollocks]. I always thought it was a rather informative and appropriately colorful article. Other beer articles have healthy references, and without one this article becomes harder for a reader to verify. --Edwin Herdman 14:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Huh?

If the law was revoked in 1987, why in 1990 is it being enforced here:

The law still causes controversy. After German reunification in 1990 the Neuzeller Kloster Brewery, a former monastery brewery in the East German town of Neuzelle, Brandenburg, was warned to stop selling its traditional black beer, a product possibly older than the Reinheitsgebot itself,[citation needed] as it contained sugar, and thus could not be sold as "beer" under German food-labeling laws based on the Reinheitsgebot. In the end, it was allowed to sell it under the name Schwarzer Abt ("Black Abbot" but not "beer") within Germany.

The law is contra the single market of the EU. However, this EU-regulation is just applicable if we have a cross-border case. As long as we stay inside a domestic market (eg. Germany) the law is still applicable as the highest rank of law is the domestic constitution in this case. --80.109.196.100 (talk) 20:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

Older than Kosher laws and Halal laws?

Before its official repeal in 1987, it was the oldest food quality regulation in the world.

That's a law of a secular legal state rather than the rules of religions, isn't it? Whitebox (talk) 05:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Samuel Adams

Under "criticism" it a sentence says:

"Samuel Adams (beer) is reportedly the only American produced beer to be Reinheitsgebot-compliant"

This does not have a source, and is very untrue. Not only are there many breweries in America using only barley, hops, water, and yeast, Sam Adams uses many adjunct and additional ingredients (Winter Lager- Cinnamon, Orange peel, etc; Blackberry witbier- blackberries; Cherry wheat- Cherries, etc. etc.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.127.56.165 (talk) 16:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

In the case of American brewers brewing beers that adhere to the Reinheitsgebot, it's certainly possible at least for specific beers. However to say that a brewer such as Anheuser Busch is all Reinheitsgebot is absurd, as their main brand, Budweiser claims as a primary innovation the use of rice with the barley, which I think they claimed was to make their beer more appealing outside of German-American communities, to the average American palate. Rice of course, can never be in a true Reinheitsgebot brew. As part of AB-InBev they do brew a version of Beck's beer in America now, and if they follow the German recipe properly, even if they used American grown barley, that could be a beer made in the spirt of the Reinheitsgebot. Whitebox (talk) 07:08, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

No modern industrial brewer makes beer withough using yeast as an ingredient, and that is not one of the only three ingredients allowed by the 1516 law. As for beers made in the "spirit" of the law, well, anyone can claim "spirit." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 20:10, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Oldest Regulation

This is clearly not the oldest food-purity regulation. Kashrut and many others are older. If the author meant the oldest continually enforced law, that is wrong because it is no longer legally enforced. I am removing this from the article. Superm401 | Talk 07:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The purity law was indeed the first consumer protection law. It was not ment as a purity law to serve purity food just for the heck of it. It served as a consumer protection law to ensure that no poisoned ingredients were included due to the fact that people did experiment with a lot of ingredients at that time which led to many deaths. -- 80.109.212.110 (talk) 16:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to Europe. -- 80.109.212.110 (talk) 17:23, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

History

This law actually is history now. Basically a sales gimmick these days. It at least assures the health conscious that no chemicals are involved (if the small quantities of poisonous byproducts are ignored, such as ethyl carbamate!) I believe the law was declared unconstitutional around 1900 by some litigious Bavarian wheat beer brewers. The law was changed about 1860 to allow many types of malted grain, and not just barley ... Bavarians. The original idea of the law was to stop peasant tenant farmers from stealing their own wheat to make beer. The nobility took most of the valuable wheat crop as rent. Rye does not make good beer and is used only as small additive. Peasants grew less valuable barley for their own use. It makes less palatable bread, but both grains make good beer.27.33.245.94 (talk) 22:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Fly agaric mushrooms added to beer prior to the Reinheitsgebot?

I find this, though not impossible, unlikely. As this statement did not cite any source whatsoever I erased it. Siberian nomads have been documented to use the fly agaric in a number of ways, e g by crumbling them into beer (Jochelson, 1906). Evidence of any such historic or prehistoric practice among north Europeans remains to be discovered. There are however many persistent myths going around about this visually striking mushroom.

CJTBoleyn (talk) 11:34, 20 April 2015 (UTC)