When it comes to beer, I’m a truly multicultural consumer, but I have a fondness for certain dark, bitter German beers. Most of these are sold in the United States with a notice that says “Brewed in accordance with the German Beer Purity Law of 1516”. St. Pauli’s Girl immediately comes to mind, as does the one with the picture of the monk rubbing his stomach orgasmically (I can never remember the name, something German that begins with an F).
Now, I never really cared about this disclaimer. I don’t really care how beer is brewed, as long as it tastes good. But I eventually came to learn that the Purity Law basically prohibited the use of preservatives.
Recently, a German acquaintance of mine informed me that German brews imported to the U.S. do, in fact, contain preservatives, and that the use of that label is essentially false advertising.
Does anyone have any detailed info on the exact nature of this “Infamous” brewing law, and wether import companies might be fudging it a little by claiming “strict accordance” with it?
There seems to be a number of webpages regarding the Reinheitsgebot, or “German Purity Law” of 1516. Here’s one. The bit about no preservatives seems to be covered by this part:
An example of the marketing of beer along the lines of this old law (tradition as a selling point, gotta love it!) from my own country, and the Wanaka Beerworks. Note that my fellow Kiwis are a year out, quoting “1515”. Oh, well …
Um, if they’re claiming that the beer imported where you are, Keith Berry, is only made of “barley, hops and water”, but there is also Preservative Chemical 109 or whatever, then yes, strictly, the importers ain’t doing it right.
Thanks for the info…hmmm…I wonder if preservatives are being added AFTER the brewing process, so that the claim of “Brewed in Strict Accordance” can be sort of cheesily upheld.
After all, there has to be some kind of preservatives in there; I can’t imagine them brewing it in Germany, having it sit around in a warehouse for X amount of time, then putting it on a boat and shipping it here, then more warehouse time, then having it set on a shelf for weeks or possibly months before being purchased and consumed…all without preservatives? That beer would be a science experiment in fungus by the time we got it.
I can’t taste the difference anyway. Fordham Brewery, a local Maryland beermaker, sells “pure, non-preservative” versions of their Copperhead Ale at some festivals, and be damn if it doesn’t taste the same as the preservative-type you buy at the liquor store.
That name “Wanaka” is awesome. I’d drink their beer just for that reason.
Beck’s used to be my regular drink. It too made claim of being brewed in strict accordance with the purity law.
I heard from a local beer distributor that Beck’s “preserved” their export beer by filling the headspace with nitrogen, effectively eliminating a source of oxygen for aerobic decomposition to take place. (He just mentioned the nitrogen bit, and I ran on about the aerobic part.)
Whether that’s truly a preservative, who knows?
Anyway, on the bottles is stamped an expiration date which is 1 year from the date of bottling. And unlike milk where you can safely drink it a few days after the expiration date if it’s been kept cold, Beck’s was always dead on.
Every time I bought some that was even a week past expiration, it was undrinkably skunky. And a week before expiration, no problem at all.
One more area in which to be impressed with the precision and accuracy of German manufacturing.
