6000 years of beer culture
The history of beer started approximately 6000 years ago in Mesopotamia. The local Sumerians discovered the starting point of the beer production by coincidence when working with bread loafs which were fermented.
The experiments of inducing the fermentation resulted not in bread but in the drinks for gods and kings. The oldest evidence for beer brewing in Germany are beer amphoras from the 8th century B.C. which were found in the region of Kulmbach.
The German Purity Law
The history of beer as we know it today is inseparably linked to the monastic breweries of the medieval times. However, at that time beer contained ingredients which remind more of a witch’s kitchen: belladonna, opium poppies or henbane.
In order to avoid those excesses and secure a consistently high quality, the Bavarian Herzog Wilhelm IV passed a law at 23.04.1515, which nowadays is labelled as German Purity Law.