Beer. The Art of Brewing and 500 years of the German Purity Law

Humulus lupulus, the common hop, is a plant in the hemp family. Ever since it was first cultivated in Germany in the Middle Ages, it has been used as a flavoring and its tannins and bitter substances help to preserve the beer. Only the female flower cones are used.
In this illustrated herb book, the plants are personified, with the hop being represented by two jolly beer drinkers.

In the days when beer still served as an important source of nourishment, it was frequently brewed in monasteries. Especially during periods of fasting, the motto was liquids do not break the fast, so this enabled the monks to consume essential nutrients. It was distributed to pilgrims and the poor as a nutritious drink.

Initially beer was regarded as especially nutritious because of the sugars that formed in it and it was known as liquid bread. Because it was heated, the drink was also free of bacteria, while drinking water taken from rivers was not. The alcohol content of early beers was low, at 0.7 to 1.5 percent.

This metal sign advertising dark beer from the Elsterthal brewery bears the slogan Recommended by doctors! and the powerful figure of Germania.

Beer is good for you! This reproduction of a historic sign shows a doctor recommending beer to help people suffering from stress or overwork to relax.

This exhausted working family is sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a nutritious beer, which is recommended as an excellent, low-alcohol drink for all the family.

Beer from different vessels is mixed in this blending apparatus to ensure a consistent flavor. The glass devices, called lanterns, are for inspecting the contents. Thanks to modern whirlpool vessels, further mixing is no longer necessary.

Just a sip or two: a child takes a sly mouthful of the foam while taking a jug or container of beer home from the pub—an advert like this would be unthinkable today.

People began enjoying beer at home and this woman is asking the shopkeeper which beer would be best for her husband.

This bottle washing machine was in use until the 1960s. First the bottles were soaked in wooden troughs and brushed out by hand. One worker would stand the bottle on the brushes, a colleague standing next to him would examine the bottle by eye and then take it for rinsing and finally to the conveyor belt for refilling. It was possible to process 500 bottles an hour in this way.
On the back of the machine is a welded joint showing where it was repaired after suffering bomb damage.

Lots of people collect drinks cans! One of them was a former museum employee who, with his wife, consumed many cans in the interests of the TECHNOSEUM collection. She drank the soft drinks and he drank the beer. The printed cans can be used to make all kinds of things. In African countries they make jewelry out of them, while in the American South they clad houses in them.

The writing in red pen on the door shows that this machine was once installed in a cafeteria. There were still Deutsche Mark coins inside.

The adult here is aware of his duty to set a good example and has laid a protective hand over the young boy's head.

For a long time, until about the 1910s, when beer was still being drunk on a daily basis by everyone, including children, it was not yet banned in the workplace. Alcohol consumption reached its peak in the early 1870s, the period known as the Gründerzeit (a period of rapid industrial expansion in Germany). Employers tolerated or even encouraged its consumption for many years.

The poster shows the possible consequences of drinking beer while up on scaffolding.

Warm beer is supposed to be more digestible and better for the stomach, so regulars would sometimes keep an electric beer warmer behind the bar. Certainly, the flavors in the beer develop better when it is warm. Craft beer makers traditionally poke their beer with a red-hot iron rod, a reminder of the custom of drinking beer warm which has otherwise died out.

A group of students from Weihenstephan Technical University wanted to launch a new product on the beer market and developed a turquoise-colored mixed drink containing 40 percent blueberry lemonade. The name Babo Blue is derived from the Youth Word of the Year in 2013 and means something like boss or leader. It comes from Turkish and is also used in Bosnian to mean father. In the GDR, all blue drinks were banned because toxic substances were colored blue.