The Secret of GERMAN BEER | Feli from Germany

Friday was international beer day and as you probably know Germany is famous for its beer culture but what makes German beer so special? Hallo servus and welcome back to my YouTube channel my name is Feli for the last seven years I've lived here in Cincinnati Ohio but I was born and raised in Munich Germany a city that's famous for many things one of them being beer. The oldest brewery in Munich Augustinerbräu was actually founded sometime around 1328 to 1411 so over 600 years ago which goes to show how much history and tradition beer has in Munich and not just there if we travel just 30 kilometers north of Munich to a town called Freising we'll actually get to the oldest brewery in the world the Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weinstephan that was founded around the year 1040. Like most breweries at that time it was founded by monks at a monastery in this case at the Benedictine Weinstephan Abbey located on top of the Weinstephan hill. Even though the monastery was dissolved in 1803 the brewery is still very active to this day. They even have a whole campus right next to the brewery that belongs to the Technical University Munich where you can get your bachelor's and master's degree in brewing and beverage technology in case any of you are interested in that. And I actually noticed that Weinstephan beer shows up on a lot of menus here in the US more so than other German beers so you may have seen or even tried it before. Apparently they export beer to over 50 different countries and they're not the only German brewery that is known internationally. German beer is considered some of the best beer in the world. It's a huge part of German culture and of pretty much every German stereotype. But what's so special about German beer? What's the secret? The most common answer to this question is the German Reinheitsgebot the purity law which says that beer can only be made from barley, hops, and water. The roots of the purity law go back hundreds of years and to really understand how it came about and how it has affected German beer throughout history we need to back up a little. Beer has been around for thousands of years and even though I wish I could tell you something different it was most likely not invented by Germans or by Germanic tribes. Instead it was probably discovered by accident in lots of different places, most likely during the process of baking bread. The oldest archaeological evidence of beer residues was found in Israel and dates back about 13,000 years. To make beer you need a grain, usually barley, that has already sprouted and once that happens it's referred to as malt, then you need yeast, which is a fungus, and water. If all of those things come together in relatively warm temperatures the yeast will turn the glucose in the grain into alcohol and carbonation. That process is called fermentation and it's what turns the ingredients into beer. So once humans started growing grains to bake bread and stored those grains, which was probably around 15,000 years ago, those exact circumstances were most likely created every now and then which led to an early version of beer that people then tried to recreate. By the year 3000 BC civilizations in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt had fully established brewing cultures. It's estimated that up to 40% of their grain was used for brewing and beer became an important commodity. In Egypt it was even used as a currency to pay workers. Fun fact, because the beer wasn't typically filtered at the time, the Egyptians actually drank their beer with straws to avoid drinking the grain pieces that were swimming around. At the time beer was also a lot sweeter than it is today, mainly because it didn't contain any hops yet and it's often said that beer was actually safer to drink than water because the alcohol in the beer killed all of the germs. However, according to beer historian Max Nelson, that's actually a myth. He says that even the ancient Greeks already knew that boiling water purified it so according to him, people chose to drink beer because they enjoyed it and not because they had to. Now throughout the time period of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, wine actually became more and more popular and since it lasted longer too, it slowly started to replace beer as a commodity. In fact, the Romans viewed beer as a low class and unmanly beverage that was for slaves and barbarians, such as the Germanic tribes outside of the borders of the Roman Empire. The cliche of the beer drinking barbarian up north was actually pretty well known at the time and hey, thousands of years later, Germans are still known for drinking beer. From the Middle Ages up until the modern era, brewing mainly took place at home and it was actually considered a woman's job as it was closely related to baking and cooking. The German reformer Martin Luther even stated publicly that his wife, Katharina von Bora, brewed excellent beer. Starting in the 7th century, monks in Germany and other European regions began to brew beer in a more professional way and on a larger scale. Beer was an essential source of nutrition for them during Lent to keep up their calorie intake. That was also the time that hops were added to the beer, for preservation but also for the flavor. Hops give beer its typical, slightly bitter taste. Around the year 1500, when the early modern ages started and the big time of monasteries was over, more and more actual breweries started popping up and brewing beer became commercialized and was increasingly targeted towards mass consumption, which led to a lot of competition among brewers so many of them started mixing additional ingredients into their beers. Sometimes they did this for economic reasons or for preservation, other times it was to stand out and to offer people a different flavor palette or stronger psychedelic effects. They would add toxic mushrooms for example or belladonnas or wormwood among other things. This was one of the reasons why on April 23rd in the year 1516, the Bavarian dukes passed a Landesverordnung, a state ordinance, that included a beer price cap and regulated which ingredients were allowed to be used in beer. And that was only three, barley, hops, and water. Yeast wasn't actually mentioned in this regulation, maybe because people didn't actually figure out how yeast worked exactly until the 19th century, but since they did know that it's always been a crucial part of the brewing process, it's assumed that that was just implied. In addition to ensuring a high quality of beer and restricting psychedelic substances, which weren't exactly welcomed in Catholic Bavaria, the regulation was also supposed to ensure that wheat, Weizen, and rye, Roggen, were reserved for bread baking. And another reason for this may have been that beers from northern Germany and the Rhineland often contained additives that didn't grow in Bavaria, so banning those ingredients made sure that local Bavarian brewers had a competitive advantage. Now with all of this beer talk, let's not forget to also talk about food. I mean it's super important to have a solid base before you drink beer, but also if you don't drink beer at all and simply want to eat healthy without the hassle of cooking and without spending all of your money on takeout, I have the perfect solution for you. Factor delivers fully prepared, chef-crafted meals to your doorstep, and let me tell you, they're absolutely delicious and healthier than most of the stuff I cook myself. Factor is owned by HelloFresh by the way, which as you know is a brand that I've been using for quite a while, but Factor is honestly the perfect addition for when you don't have time to cook yourself. You can pick from over 27 weekly meals and 33 add-on options, there's so much variety, and even if you're vegetarian like me, or vegan, keto, or if you want to eat calorie smart or get extra protein, they have options for everyone. The meals are fresh, never frozen, and ready in just two minutes. As people who work from home, Ben and I both love these for lunch, cause it can be annoying sometimes to interrupt your whole workflow in the middle of the day to make yourself a healthy meal, but this way we can just grab a meal from the fridge, put it in the microwave or oven, and still have a super high quality lunch. This was a vegetarian green chile tostada bake for example, and I know it looks a little messy here, but believe me when I say this was absolutely to die for, and this is Ben making his jalapeno lime cheddar chicken. I also love grabbing one of their smoothies in the morning, or as an afternoon snack. The meal plans range from 4 to 18 meals per week, so you can pick however many you want, and you can always skip a week if you need to. And of course I have a discount for you guys. Just head over to Factor75.com or click the link below and use code FELI50 to get 50% off your first Factor box. That's code FELI50 for 50% off your first box on Factor75.com. Even though the Bavarian regulation from 1516 was actually preceded by various similar regulations on the local levels, this is the one that is still relevant and celebrated to this day. In fact, 2016 marked the 500th anniversary of the purity law, which was celebrated widely throughout Germany. It's also quite a pleasure to be here as Germans celebrate the 500th anniversary of your beer purity law. I may join you in that celebration. Even though technically the purity law has not been a continuous thing for the last 500 years. If we're being precise here, it really only lasted for 35 years until in 1551, Bavaria allowed the use of coriander and laurel in beer brewing. And 100 years later, in 1616, they also allowed salt, juniper, and caraway. In addition to all of this, a baron called Freiherr von Degenberg was granted an exception from the law in 1548 that allowed him to brew wheat beer, so Hefeweizen, or in Bavaria also called Weißbier, which obviously uses wheat instead of barley. And when his family line ended about 50 years later, that special permission was transferred to the Bavarian Duke Maximilian I, who immediately took advantage of it and opened several wheat beer breweries. It's actually kind of ironic that wheat beer was banned for a while considering that today it's one of the most popular beers in Bavaria. It wasn't until the 19th century that the original three-ingredient purity law became a thing again in Bavaria. And when Germany finally unified to become the German Empire in 1871, Bavaria insisted on keeping their purity law, but it wasn't until 1906 that it actually became a consistent law all over Germany. But this time, it clearly stated that the barley, hops, yeast, and water rule only applied to bottom-fermented beer such as Pilsner and Lager while top-fermented beer including Hefeweizen, Kölsch, and Altbier was allowed to include other types of malt like malt from wheat or rye as well as certain sugars, sweeteners, and dyes. And that's pretty much the same law that's still in place today. The most recent version of the law is from 1993 and has the beautiful and not at all clunky name Verordnung zur Durchführung des vorläufigen Biergesetzes and it does in fact still apply to all beers that are brewed in Germany to this day with a few exceptions. In the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, the regulation is actually even stricter. They don't allow any sugars even for top-fermented beers. And in Bavaria, the law also applies to beer that's brewed to be exported while in the rest of Germany, beer for export can actually depart from the restrictions of the law. Also, since 1987, beer from outside of Germany can officially be sold in Germany even if it doesn't follow the guidelines of the purity law. But even though it is true that a version of that original law from 1516 is in fact in place in modern day Germany, there are a few misconceptions that are worth mentioning. For one, it's not technically correct to speak of 500 years of German purity law or things like that because in reality, it was really just a Bavarian law for the longest time and only became a German law a little over a hundred years ago. Secondly, it's often talked about as the oldest food regulation law in Germany which is kind of contradicting to the fact that some of these older local brewing regulations were passed as early as 1156. And last but not least, the term Reinheitsgebot, so purity law, wasn't actually used until the 20th century. The first time it was mentioned on record was during a session of the Bavarian state parliament in 1918. So the term itself is relatively new. Fact is though that the purity law is considered a cultural artifact and an important part of Bavarian and to a bigger extent German history. It's known all over the world and it's often viewed as a quality guarantee for beer which is why many German breweries use the purity law for marketing purposes on their bottles and in advertisements. By the way if you really want to understand how intertwined beer is with Bavarian history and culture, in 1844 when the Bavarian king Ludwig the first raised the beer price due to a shortage in resources, thousands of Munich residents started rioting and destroyed breweries and beer gardens all over the city. Even the military sided with the rioters instead of intervening so after only four days the king ended up lowering the price back down. And something similar happened again only four years later during the March Revolution of 1848. Beer has also been an important source of income in Bavaria for centuries. On the one hand because in the 16th century Bavarian monarchs started raising a beer tax, on the other hand because even throughout wars, natural catastrophes and other crises, beer consumption has always stayed steady and has played a fundamental role in maintaining a healthy economy in Bavaria. Today beer is still one of Germany's most consumed beverages. Germans drink over 90 liters of beer per person per year which is over three and a half bottles per week. But and this might come as a surprise, Germany isn't actually the country with the highest beer consumption in the world. That title goes to the Czech Republic. Germany only ranks fourth or fifth place depending on which ranking you look at. The most popular type of beer is by far the pilsner which was actually invented in the Czech city of Pilsen. The most popular beer in Germany isn't actually German. This is followed by Lager and Hefeweizen even though the actual order here again depends on which statistic you look at. In Bavaria specifically Lager, Hefeweizen and Dunkles, so Dunkelbeer are the most popular ones which actually lines up with my taste as a native Bavarian. My go-to is definitely Lager, so Helles in German. The favorite beer brands in Germany include Beck's, Kronbacher, Warsteiner, Erdinger and Bitburger so only one brand from Bavaria is represented in the top five. My favorite beer as a Munich native is the Lager by Augustinerbräu which I mentioned at the beginning of the video. Augustiner is also one of six Munich breweries that are allowed to host tents at Munich Oktoberfest where they all sell a specific Festbier which I always describe as a stronger version of their regular Lager. It usually has around six percent of alcohol but Festbier is actually a Märzenbier which is technically its own type of bottom fermented beer. But regardless of what it's called, people from all over the world clearly like it because six to seven million liters of beer are consumed at Oktoberfest every year. One thing that surprises many people from outside of Germany is that we don't actually have a big craft beer scene compared to other countries. Here in the U.S. on the other hand it almost seems like real beer lovers pretty much only drink craft beers which is often beer that experiments with new flavors, is often very bitter like IPAs and made by small independent breweries. Now some people in Germany actually blame the purity law for the fact that Germany isn't quite keeping up with the craft beer movement because of course you can't really experiment with chocolate or banana flavored beer if you're completely banned in Germany. There is in fact an exception from the law for so-called special beers, besondere Biere, you just need to apply for a permit. But even just by combining different amounts and types of malt, hops, yeast, and water you can actually create thousands of different types of beer. That's why despite the purity law Germany still has over five thousand different types of beer. Still when tourists go to Oktoberfest for the first time they're often disappointed to find out that there isn't a huge beer menu to pick from. I explained this a little bit more in this Oktoberfest guide video but inside the beer tents you're usually just asked how many liters you want and then you'll get the fest beer of the brewery that the tent is run by. But maybe that is exactly what the secret of German beer is. It's simple, reliable, but of high quality and in our eyes, and I'm including myself in this because I do in fact prefer a simple solid lager, it doesn't need to be changed or experimented with. By the way if you want to know how all of these German beer brands are pronounced correctly make sure to check out this video and if you want to know what Munich Oktoberfest is like in real life check out this video about Ben's very first time at Oktoberfest last year. And if you've always wanted to get yourself an authentic Bavarian beer mug like these or an Oktoberfest themed t-shirt today is actually the last day of my big sale on FeliFromGermany.com where you'll get 10% off all beer related items. The discount will automatically be applied at checkout and yes this does also apply to the personalized beer mugs that I customize for you by hand so be quick. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I'm curious did you know about the Bavarian purity law before and what's your favorite type and brand of beer? Let me know in the comments below and with that Prost and I hope see you next time. Tschüss!