One of the many things the German people are renowned for is beer. Beer is an essential part of their culture and ancestry, with over 1300 various breweries spread across the land. The Czechs and the Irish are the only ones above the Germans as far as beer drinking per person. The history of Germanic beer goes back to the origin of the country when monks began to experiment with brewing about one-thousand A.D. Eventually, brewing became really lucrative for the monks and the country's leaders began to regulate the production of the brew. The most famous and significant component to effect Germanic brewing came about in fifteen-sixteen with the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, or the purity requirement.
The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot was ordered by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria to help ensure that Bavarian beers were made of high quality. The law says that beers must only consist of water, hops, and barley. The Reinheitsgebot is the oldest legislation placed on beverages in the world and has not been changed in almost 500 years. Yeast is the only augmentation to the list of crucial ingredients in the act. Manufacturers in the past before that had just used the yeast that was naturally in the air. Bavarian beer makers were soon considered the superior producers of beer because of the stern code of quality following by the purity standard. More and more breweries began to follow the act as the notoriety of the Bavarian breweries continued to spread.
As a result of the Reinheitsgebot, German beers have a long-standing notoriety of producing quality beers made out of the best ingredients. As time went on and Germany started to export beer, a lot of cities became famed brewing spots. By 1500, Scandinavia, Holland, England, and as far as India primarily recieved their beer from one of the 600 breweries in the town of Bremen. Two more famed brewing cities were Einbeck and Braunschweig. In modern Germany, most of the country's drinking people still choose fabbier, or draught beer, over bottled beer because of it's full-bodied taste and right amount of foam. Used still today, German beer steins became popular around the time the purity standard came along in an effort to stop more outbreaks of the bubonic plague.
During the time of the black plague, Germany began several laws to stop its people from getting ill. Large amounts of infected flies would land in citizen's food and spread the infection. This led to the German beer stein, a drink vessel with a closed lid that is used with the thumb so a person could stop infection and still be able to drink with their free hand. Beer consumption went up exponentially as people started to realize the disease spread in unclean conditions with stagnant water. German beer steins were originally made of stoneware with pewter tops. As the pewter guild grew, German beer steins began to be made entirely of pewter and remained that way for over 300 years. Eventually, porcelain and silver German beer steins were introduced and continue to be manufactured in the present.
Over five-thousand kinds of beer are made nowadays from more than 1350 breweries within Germany's lands. The oldest brewery in the world still in operation in the present is the Benedictine abbey Weihenstephan, that has been producing beer since one-thousand and forty. The most concentrated area in Germany for beer makers is the Franconia region of Bavaria near the city Bamberg. The majority of beers can be categorized by ales and lagers but German beer makers make a large variety of tastes. Most beers have an alcoholic content ranging from 4.7% to 5.4% but some kinds can be as high as 12%, making them stronger than most wines.
Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com
Michael Usry is a long-time beer lover and contributing author for "Beer Maniac" fanzine in Austin, Tx. He is also a top affiliate at beer tap handles, and german beer steins, websites for household draft beer accessories.
