The German people are famous for many things; one of them is beer. With over thirteen-hundred different breweries spanning the land, beer is an essential piece of their culture and heritage. The Czechs and the Irish are the only ones who outdo the Germans as far as beer consumption per person. The monks began to experiment with brewing around one-thousand A.D. at the beginning of German history The nation's monarchy eventually began to regulate the production of beer as brewing started to be more and more profitable. The most important and significant factor to effect German brewing came about in fifteen-sixteen with the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, or the purity standard.



The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot was ordered by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria to ensure Bavarian beers were only of the highest quality. Water, hops, and barley are the only ingredients that should go in in beer according to the standard. Unaltered after nearly five-hundred years, the Reinheitsgebot is the oldest regulation placed on food on the earth. The only addition to the proclamation is the adding of yeast to the cache of crucial ingredients. Yeast found naturally in the air was what brewers before used. Because of the strict standard of quality followed by the purity standard, Bavarian breweries were soon considered the best manufacturers of beer. As the notoriety of the Bavarian breweries spread around the nation other beer makers began to follow the proclamation as well.

German beers have a long-standing position of producing quality brews made only from the best ingredients as a result of the Reinheitsgebot. A lot of towns became famed brewing spots as time went on and Germany started to ship out beer. By fifteen-hundred, Scandinavia, Holland, England, and as far as India mainly got their beer from one of the 600 breweries in the town of Bremen. Einbeck and Braunschweig were two more famed brewing towns. Because of it's full-bodied flavor and right amount of foam the majority of modern Germans still choose fabbier, or draft beer, over bottled beer. In an effort to curtail more breakouts of the bubonic plague German beer steins came into use about the time the purity standard came about and are still used today.

During the era of the bubonic plague, Germany started several regulations to keep its people from becoming sick. Disease would spread as large amounts of infected flies landed in citizen's food and beverages. This led to the stein, a beverage holder with a closed lid that is used with the thumb so a person could stop disease and still be able to drink with one hand. As people began to realize the plague spread in dirty conditions with stagnant water, beer drinking rose exponentially. German beer steins were originally crafted from stoneware with pewter tops. As the pewter guild grew, steins started to be made completely of pewter and stayed that way for over three-hundred years. Still produced today, silver and porcelain steins were eventually introduced.

Over five-thousand kinds of beer are produced nowadays from over 1350 breweries within Germany's borders. The Benedictine abbey Weihenstephan, which has been producing beer since one-thousand and forty, is reported as the oldest brewery in the world. The most concentrated area in Germany for beer makers is the Franconia region of Bavaria by the city Bamberg. German breweries manufacture a large range of flavors and brands of beer with the majority of them able to be placed under ales or lagers. Most beers have an alcoholic content from 4.7% to 5.4% but some types can be as high as 12%, making them stronger than a lot of wines.