Tagu d'biru germanus - Legu d'puritu

EUL A tagu estun zelebre lu tagu d'biru germanus i lu legu d'puritu d'anu 1516.
ENG Today we celebrate the Day of German Beer and the Purity Law of the year 1516.
DEU Heute zelebrieren wir den Tag des Deutschen Bieres und das Reinheitsgebot des Jahres 1516.

The Reinheitsgebot (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnhaɪtsɡəboːt] literally "purity order"), sometimes called the "German Beer Purity Law" or the "Bavarian Purity Law" in English, was a regulation concerning the production of beer in Germany. In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops.

The law originated in the city of Ingolstadt in the duchy of Bavaria on 23 April 1516, although first put forward in 1487, concerning standards for the sale and composition of beer.

In the original text, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops. The law also set the price of beer at 1-2 Pfennig per Maß. The Reinheitsgebot is no longer part of German law: it has been replaced by the Provisional German Beer Law, which allows constituent components prohibited in the Reinheitsgebot, such as yeast, wheat malt and cane sugar, but which no longer allows unmalted barley.

Note that no yeast was mentioned in the original text. It was not until the 1800s that Louis Pasteur discovered the role of microorganisms in the process of fermentation; therefore, yeast was not known to be an ingredient of beer. Brewers generally took some sediment from the previous fermentation and added it to the next, the sediment generally containing the necessary organisms to perform fermentation. If none were available, they would set up a number of vats, relying on natural yeast to inoculate the brew.

Hops are added to beer to impart flavors but also act as a preservative, and their mention in the Reinheitsgebot meant to prevent alternative methods of preserving beer that had been used before the introduction of hops. Medieval brewers had used many problematic ingredients to preserve beers, including, for example soot and fly agaric mushrooms. More commonly, other "gruit" herbs had been used, such as stinging nettle and henbane. Indeed, the German name of the latter, Bilsenkraut, may originally mean "Plzeň herb"; that this region was a major centre of beer brewing long before the invention of (Reinheitsgebot-compliant) Pilsener.

The penalty for making impure beer was also set in the Reinheitsgebot: a brewer using other ingredients for his beer could have questionable barrels confiscated with no compensation.

German breweries are very proud of the Reinheitsgebot, and many (even brewers of wheat beer) claim to still abide by it.

Por mori deteli i a lese totu artiklu d'Reinheitsgebot visite Wikipedia, Prost! :-)

© 2012 Amiki d'Eulingu

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