Comedy | October 25, 2009 | 2 comments

German Purity Cult

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remanns
Several years ago, Morgen and I visited Germany—more specifically, the region in southeastern Germany known as Bavaria. Although Germany ranks third in per-capita beer consumption (after the Czech Republic and Ireland), it is clearly a place where people take their beer very seriously. Bavaria, in particular, is home to the oldest (non-religious) legal standard of food production still in force: The legendary Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, known in German as the Reinheitsgebot.

The Duke of Beers
The short version of this law, which was enacted on April 23, 1516 by Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV (a.k.a. William IV), is that beer may contain only three ingredients: barley, hops, and water. Ostensibly, this makes the law one of the oldest “consumer protection” regulations, instilling confidence in purchasers that the beer they get will contain no questionable grains or additives. (Among the additives the law sought to ban were some commonly used herbs that had hallucinogenic effects.)
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