Bavaria is known for a lot in the world. Lederhosen, yodelling, BMW … But the beer certainly has a particularly strong influence on the image of Bavaria in the world. And there is a lot involved. The Bavarian Purity Law, the Oktoberfest, the Munich Hofbräuhaus, the beer gardens and so on and so forth. Much of this may sound superficial at first and have little to do with Bavarian history. A lot of it is just cheap marketing talk. Nevertheless, beer plays a not insignificant role in Bavaria's history. The Purity Law is only a small part of it, but it already shows the direction in which things are headed. Because at the end of the day, the Bavarians have always been primarily concerned with one thing:money.
When people still drank wine in Bavaria
The success story of beer in Bavaria is quite improbable. For centuries, Bavaria was primarily a wine country. At least since the Romans, wine has been cultivated across today's Free State and drunk with great enthusiasm. In view of the warm climate in large parts of Bavaria, this is not a far-fetched idea either. In the Middle Ages, beer was not common until much further north. In the Hanseatic cities, for example, beer was one of the staple foods and one of the more important commodities. It is no coincidence that the largest number of breweries among medieval German cities was found in Hamburg. In the south, at most, the monks drank beer on a larger scale. According to legend, this is because, unlike wine, it also fills you up, which is not entirely impractical during Lent. On the other hand, anyone who has ever attended the strong beer festival at Munich's Nockherberg can attest to how well it works on an empty stomach...
In the broad mass of the southern German population, beer only really caught on in the 16th century. That was a time when halfway consistent beverage quality could be secured for the first time. At that time, however, the beer had nothing to do with what we would call Bavarian beer brewed according to the Purity Law today. The bottom-fermented beer, which at some point became the typical Bavarian Helle, was only just gaining ground at the time. Most beers of the late Middle Ages and early modern times were probably more of a brown brew with all sorts of possible and impossible ingredients anyway. Of course, that doesn't mean it wasn't tasty. Sometimes at least. At some point, however, the Bavarian Electors stepped in to ensure the quality of their beer themselves!
The Purity Law | Quality assurance or control measure?
The Bavarian authorities quickly recognized the most important quality of beer:it could be taxed! As a result of this knowledge, the first regulations soon followed. The most famous of these is the so-called Purity Law of 1516. At that time, however, it was not called the Purity Law. Rather, the brewing rule was mentioned in passing in the Bavarian state regulations. It famously said that beer should only be brewed from water, barley malt and hops. In addition, maximum prices for beer in Bavaria were also set. If you now ask about the historical reasons for this "purity law", you can find two possible answers.
The optimists would say it was about ensuring the quality of the beer. In the time before 1516, as already mentioned, beer was brewed with all sorts of ingredients. Instead of hops, numerous herbs were used and in some cases these were not only used because of their taste, but above all because of their effect. In short:In addition to the alcohol, additional intoxicants were added to the beer. But that should not have been the only reason for the purity law. The restriction to barley proclaimed therein is also intended to prevent the much more valuable wheat from ending up in beer. It should instead remain available for making bread. Pessimists, on the other hand, would claim that the Purity Law was primarily a tax measure by the Bavarian state. Beer had long been one of the better sources of income for the electors. With a regulation in the form of the state code, beer production in the state could be standardized and thus made easier to tax.
However, one thing is certain:the so-called Purity Law of 1516 initially had very little impact and was not what its current name would have us believe. No wonder the word "Purity Law" wasn't used at all before the 20th century (aka the marketing era). There were also brewing regulations before 1516 that were very similar to the later Purity Law, for example in Munich or in far-away Thuringia. In the later 20th century, the marketing geniuses of Munich's major breweries also began to speak of the "Munich Purity Law" of 1487. Well, who believes it. In any case, just a few decades after 1516 it was again permitted in Bavaria to use juniper, caraway or laurel in the brewing process.
The next tax trick | the wheat beer monopoly
In the 16th century, the Bavarian electors began to regulate brewing. However, this process was far from over with the Purity Law. However, there was still a very practical problem that had to be solved first. In the meantime, the bottom-fermented lager beer had prevailed. The problem, however, was that bottom-fermented beer can only be brewed at low temperatures – i.e. in winter. However, since not all brewers took it so seriously, the beer quality fluctuated on the one hand – Purity Law or not. On the other hand, there was also an acute risk of fire when brewing in summer. So, in 1539, the Bavarian Elector issued a new decree:from now on, beer could only be brewed between Michaelmas (September 29) and Georgi (April 23). From now on, all the beer that was to be drunk in the summer had to be pre-produced. To make it last longer, the original wort was increased and the whole thing was then usually brewed and stored at the end of the brewing season in March. The March beer was born.
In addition to the trendy bottom-fermented beer, there were of course still top-fermented variants, such as wheat beer or wheat beer from Bohemia. This has now been declared illegal with the Purity Law, probably more by mistake than on purpose. But as I said before, people didn't take the Purity Law that seriously back then anyway. Thirty years after 1516, the elector granted the first nobleman in Bavaria the right to produce wheat beer again. And this beer was then also exempt from the Michaelmas-until-Georgi rule. So much for the fire safety argument. All of this soon turned out to be a gross mistake for the Bavarian state. It was noticed that the wheat beer was very well received and that an attractive source of income had been given away. It was fortunate that the noble family, which had been granted the exception, died out in 1602. The Bavarian princes then retained the rights - the beginning of the Bavarian wheat beer monopoly.
From the early 17th century, only the Bavarian state was allowed to brew and sell wheat beer itself. He had created a monopoly. That was even better than a beer tax! And people were crazy about the stuff. After all, the quality of the other beers continued to fluctuate enormously and the electoral breweries were able to guarantee a more or less constant quality with their wheat beer. That would put a nice chunk of money into the treasury for the next 200 years. But the money was also badly needed. After all, the Thirty Years' War followed soon after the establishment of the wheat beer monopoly.
Bavaria's beer on the way to modernity
This Thirty Years' War had even more important effects on the role of beer in Bavaria. In the course of the Swedish occupation, large parts of the Bavarian wine country were destroyed. After the war, many places decided without further ado to grow hops instead of wine. It was easier to care for, produced the first yields faster and, besides, beer tastes better than wine anyway. As a result, beer finally established itself as the everyday drink of the masses in Bavaria. Other milestones in Bavarian beer culture followed in the 19th century. The Oktoberfest was held for the first time in 1810, almost at the same time as the Bavarian beer gardens.
Their story is an interesting one. Because the brewers weren't stupid. Since the Michaelmas-to-Georgi rule still applied, brewing for the summer still had to be done in the 19th century. The beer was then increasingly stored in beer cellars, which were dug into hills near cities all over the country. In the summer, of course, the brewers could have sold this beer to the bar operators. However, many chose to simply serve it directly above their cellars. Most of the brewers had already planted large, shady chestnut trees there anyway. A few tables and chairs and the cozy Bavarian beer garden was born! The restaurateurs finally complained to the Bavarian King Ludwig I, who found a compromise solution that still characterizes Bavaria today. Brewers were allowed to serve their beer directly at the beer cellar, but unlike the bar operators, they were not allowed to sell any food. And that's why you can still take your own snack to the beer garden today. The cooling function of the cellar became obsolete with the invention of the cooling machine in the 1870s. But the beer gardens are still there today.
But the long history of beer in Bavaria does not end there. Rather, it is still being written day by day today. Beer has always played a major role in Bavaria's recent history. The first Bavarian freight train, which ran from Nuremberg to Fürth in 1836, naturally transported beer. Rising beer prices drove the people of Munich to revolution several times. But good. They obviously don't do that anymore. Nowadays the Bavarians dutifully pay €10.70 for their beer at the Wiesn. Incidentally, this should – inflation or not – also violate the Purity Law.