History of Beer

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3400 The oldest known depiction of beer drinkers
2700 The oldest record of beer brewing and types of beer
1800 The Hamurabi Codex, the world's oldest collection of laws, also contains two regulations on the production and sale of beer and on maximum prices and conversion specifications for grain and beer
1200 Beer was also brewed in China, Peru and Turkmenistan
800 Beer amphorae from the earlier Hallstadt age are the earliest proof of beer brewing in German territory
0 Beer brewing was common among almost all Germanic tribes. The Romans not only drank beer outside their country
260 The beer wholesaler stone provides proof of the first beer wholesaler in Germany
764 Oldest proof of hop cultivation in Germany
1100 Imperial edicts of 1104 and 1156 are the oldest proof of brewing by the middle class in Germany. They contain rules and the first quality regulations
1200 Proof of beer exports for northern Germany to Scandinavia and Flanders
1400 The purity requirement for beer (Reinheitsgebot) initially applied for all of Bavaria. It's the oldest legal requirement for food that is still applicable today
1516 First purity requirements initially govern the ingredients for brewing beer in individual towns
1592 First European beer exports to North America
1700 The bottom-fermented brewing method becomes obligatory for Bavaria
1750 In the Electorate of Bavaria there are 4,260 commercial breweries
1835 First freight of the first German railway: 2 kegs of beer on the way from Nuremberg to Fürth
1900 Beer production in the German Reich totals 67 million hl and 252 million hl worldwide
1998 Beer production in the FRG totals 111.7 million hl at 1,283 commercial breweries


Wilhelm IV of Bavaria
decrees the Bavarian purity requirement for beer


Beer brewers in the 20th
century


When hops still had to be
picked by hand


Brewery Museum