A waiter carries beers at the Theresienwiese fair grounds of the Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, southern Germany, last September. For centuries, a German law has stipulated that beer can only be made from four ingredients. But as Germany embraces craft beer, some believe the law impedes good brewing. Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images

Laws can come and go, as far as we are concerned (and we get the point here), but purity remains forever of value (thanks to National Public Radio, USA):

Germany’s Beer Purity Law Is 500 Years Old. Is It Past Its Sell-By Date?

With more than 1,300 breweries producing some five-and-a-half thousand different types of beer, Germany is serious about the amber nectar. There’s even a word for it –bierernst – which means “deadly serious” and translates literally as “beer serious.”

This sober attitude applies particularly to the German beer purity law known as the Reinheitsgebot. Introduced in 1516 by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria, the decree allows for only hops, barley, water and, later, yeast in every Stein. For 500 years, this recipe has served Bavaria very well, and for the last century, the rest of Germany. But as 48-year-old Karlo Schorn, a patron at a Berlin bar, admits, tastes are changing. “German beer isn’t as good as it was 20 years ago” he bemoans. “Brands of beer have the same taste, or nearly the same taste. And good beers with awards now are not from Germany, they are from America or somewhere else.”

Beer Sommelier Sylvia Kopp agrees. She says until the arrival of craft beers, the most recent innovation in German brewing was the advent of the very successful Pilsner in the 19th century.

“Our brewing culture was paralyzed,” Kopp explains. “All the innovations that we had in beer was packaging, new sponsoring ideas, a new bottle, so there was little innovation with the product itself.”…

Read the whole story here.