Weissbier and German Beer Purity Law?

Question

How did weissbier makers get around the German Beer Purity Law which allowed only water, barley, hops, and yeast (added later on) as ingredients in beer production?

Answer 1

The Beer Purity law (literally it would be translated as the purity order) was, for a long time, a "Gebot", meaning more or less a recommendation as to what should be in a good beer, not a law that made every beer the same. Remember, it originated in the 1487! It only became a law in 1987! There was nothing keeping back breweries from adding other stuff to their brew, the only thing they were not allowed to do than was tell their customers they were producing their beer after the purity order.

For more information, just read the article on the Reinheitsgebot at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsge...

It can explain all of these things much better.

Answer 2

They didn't have to. The Purity Law also known as The Reinheitsgebot was not as clean cut as many think.

Weissbier is made with top fermenting yeast...an ale. The Reinheitsgebot restriction of water, barley and hops was related to lagers.

"By German law, Weissbiers brewed in Germany must be top-fermented, making them ales.[1] "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weissbier

The real question you should be asking is how did Schwarzbiers get around it? Mostly brewed in monasteries, monks were forbidden from selling it after the German Reunification in 1990...