A lot of us know how big beer is in Germany. Germany as you may know hosts the notorious Oktoberfest every year. I chose to do my German final paper on the history of the German beer. I feel like this is a cool topic to dive into and most importantly learn.
There is a famous brewing law called Reinheitsgebot. This is also known as he Purity Law. The Purity Law is a law that has not been changed and is one of the oldest food regulation laws. Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria enacted this law while he was ruling in 1516. A big part of German beer is that is a lot different than how it is made in America and some other countries. The Purity law says beer should only be brewed from barley,hops, and water. Bavarian beer became big because of this regulation. Other parts of Germany took action to also enforce this law. Yeast is a huge ingredient in German beer.
It was actually not known the effect of yeast in brewing when the Purity law was written. Brewers a long time ago actually just brewed the yeast that was in the air. The Purity law actually makes it so that when making beer only malt, hops, yeast, and water can be used. Germans are strict with their beer and they believe that this is how a healthy beer is brewed.Taking a look back before Beer was introduced in Germany dated about 6000 years ago. The first group of people to discover brewing were the Sumerians.
They actually offered this drink to the Gods that they worshipped. By about 800 BC beer was being introduced in Germany. Evidence supports this 800 BC beer amphorae and can be called Hallstattzeit near Kulmbach. Beer was being traded among the people in a profit like setting by the second century after Jesus. This can be confirmed by an old piece of evidence found near Trier that had belonged to a beer merchant.
The record of beer is thoroughly related to the account of bread. It derives from near the period in which people established and began to cultivate crops. Foremost confirmable beer making is recognized from the Sumerians. A brewing expertise progressed in the cloisters of Central Europe around 7th century A.D. The brewing procedure and its trials were planned, quizzed and enhanced.
In eras of deprived H2O excellence, beer was more healthful than water, because it was sterile to a great range. It was a decent nourishment complement as fit. The expended amounts were appropriately. Kids consumed beer as well at the time given the alcohol quantity was lower.
Beer and brewing began in the beginning of Christianization. Beer was made from barley, wheats, and oats. They used honey and water to make mead. Their gods would drink these at banquets before they knew anything really about the raising of cereals. These beers that they made actually replaced what they used to drink in the North, which was wine.
The Northern men replaced beer with wine. They took enthusiastically to this and has ever stuck with them as we know of the Germans and their beer. They have remained loyal to the ways that the ancient Germanian beer was made. The Germans thought of their beer as a nectar kind of like how the Romans thought of wine.
Missionaries were sent to Germania to preach the gospel. They noticed the pagan people would sacrifice beer which had been specially brewed for their gods. St Columbanus, a man born in Ireland, came across the inhabits of the Suabian people who were in the act of performing a heathen sacrifice.
They had a large container that contained around twenty pailfuls filled with beer. They called this large container a cupa. He actually blew on the cask and spilled all the beer out. They were going to sacrifice this beer to Wodan, who is basically Odin as the Norse refer. They were surprised that Columbanus had such a strong breath to do this.
It can be said that the devil was in this container who wished to trap all their souls. He reprimanded them of the words of the Gospel and sent them home. Columban having been from Ireland knew about beer as the Irish knew about brewing just as the much as the Germanians did. Columban was outraged being there a man of Christianity that beer was going to be sacrificed to Wodan. Beer was closely and intimately connected with the everydat life of the Germania people
Saint Bridget, who was born 439, and who died 518 or 521, amid the numerous additional wonders shaped by her, altered water into beer, long afore the period of St. Columbanus, as we discover from the life of this sainted women. For when the lepers she nurtured begged her for beer, and there was nothing to be had, she transformed the water which was prepared for a bath into an outstanding beer, by the utter gift of her consecration, and allocated it out on the yearning in plenty. This was through by her faith and dependence of him who was at cana transformed water into wine.
Another fact that enters here is that outside the few towns and castles then exisiting, the people lived on separate farms, lying far apart from each other. Again, the people were strictly divided in classes: in serfs, who were entirely without rights; villeins, who possessed only liberty of the person, but without political or other rights. Beer-brewing was a purely a domestic mater, or else of the manor or conent to which the velleins and serfs belonged.
The manufacturer of beer in this time period and for many centuries following this was a big part of the daily household activities, and actually was the job as the wife to brew the beer. There isn’t a lot about the history of beer around this time period because many did not think to write about it due to the fact it was seen as a daily chore like cooking. Not only was writing rare in the time period due to the fact that it was taught in the school for the upper class like the nobels.
