Beer in Politics and Society

Beer in Germany has never been only a drink. Its price has started riots, its halls have hosted political meetings, its tax has paid for states, and its rules have been argued over in courts. This chapter looks at the times when beer and public life met: the protests, the beer halls of the 1920s, the very different brewing industry of East Germany, the tax and deposit systems that shape the trade, and the way drinking habits have changed. Some of the subjects are serious, and the chapter treats them factually. It builds on German Beer, Oktoberfest & the Reinheitsgebot 3, which introduced the purity law and the court case of 1987. Dates and details are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked.

Beer, Protest and Satire

Because beer was a staple, a rise in its price was felt directly, and in the nineteenth century it sometimes led to disorder. A famous episode in Munich in 1844 is known as the beer riots, when a rise in the price of beer and a complaint about its quality led to brawling and damage to breweries (check the date and the details). The authorities in Bavaria came to regard the price of beer as a matter of public order, which links back to the price rules of the 1516 order.

• Strong-beer season. Each spring, around Lent, Bavaria celebrates the strong beer, or Starkbier, season. At the Nockherberg in Munich, a famous evening of political satire is held, in which politicians are teased by actors in front of the very people being mocked (check the tradition and the details).
• Political Ash Wednesday. On the day after carnival, Bavarian parties hold rallies in beer halls, where speeches are delivered, traditionally with a good deal of rhetoric (check).
• The Stammtisch. The regulars' table of Chapter 6 gives its name to casual political talk, the Stammtischparole, which describes opinions voiced loudly without much thought.

The Beer Halls and the Nazis

The big beer halls of Munich were large public rooms, which made them a natural place for meetings. In the political turmoil after the First World War, several parties and groups used them, and the Nazi party held many of its early meetings in them (check). The best-known episode is the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempted seizure of power led by Adolf Hitler and others, which began in a Munich beer hall, the Bürgerbräukeller, on 8 November 1923 and failed the following day (check the date, the venue and the details). Hitler was tried and imprisoned, and the episode was later celebrated by the Nazi regime as a founding event (check).

East Germany: Another Brewing World

From 1949 to 1990, East Germany had a state-run economy, and its breweries were nationalised and run as publicly owned enterprises (check). The brewing tradition continued, and the region included well-known names, but the industry had its own conditions (check each point).

The sudden opening of the market in 1990 had mixed results. Some East German brands survived and found a national audience, and others vanished. The memory of East German beer is part of a wider nostalgia for the products of the former state, sometimes called Ostalgie (check).

Tax, Deposits and Rules

• Beer tax. Germany taxes beer by volume and strength, and the rate is lower for small breweries, which helps independent brewers survive (check the rates and the thresholds).
• The bottle deposit. Germany has one of the world's best-known deposit systems. Customers pay a deposit on returnable bottles and crates, and get the money back when they return them, which keeps a very high share of bottles in circulation (check the amounts and the figures). Crates of returnable bottles are a familiar sight.
• Drinking age and driving. The legal age for beer is 16 under some conditions, and the limit for driving is lower than many visitors expect, with strict penalties (check the current rules).
• Advertising and health. Rules on advertising and public information have tightened, in line with other countries (check).

One Market, One Law?

As Chapter 3 explained, when the European Community moved to a single market, the German rule that banned the import of beer failing the purity law was challenged. In 1987, the European Court of Justice held that Germany could not keep out beer from other member states simply because it was made differently (check). The result was a compromise: German breweries could still follow the purity law and use it as a selling point, and foreign beer could be sold in Germany. In practice, German beer drinkers mostly went on drinking German beer, and the imported share is small (check).

Changing Habits

Beer remains central to German life, but habits have shifted (check each trend).

• Lower consumption. Beer consumption per head has fallen over several decades, with wine, soft drinks and other drinks gaining ground.
• Non-alcoholic beer. Alcohol-free beer has become a large and growing part of the market, partly because of drink-driving rules (check the share).
• Mixed drinks. Radler and similar mixes (see Chapter 5) have grown in popularity.
• Fewer, bigger breweries. The industry has concentrated into larger groups, while the number of small breweries has also grown.
• Women and beer. Brewing was once largely women's work (see Chapter 2) and then largely men's, and more women now brew and work in the industry (check).

Exercises

Next chapter: the capstone, Tradition, Law and Craft Today, which follows beer from monastery to microbrewery and asks what the Reinheitsgebot means now.