The Germans are famous for a lot of things; one of them is beer. Beer is an important part of their tradition and ancestry, with over 1300 different breweries spanning the country. The Czechs and the Irish are the only ones who outdo the Germans with beer drinking per capita. The monks started to experiment with brewing around 1000 A.D. back in the origin of German history The country's leaders eventually started to legislate the manufacturing of beer as brewing started to be more and more profitable. The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot, or purity standard, came about in 1516 and is still the most well-known and influential factor to effect German brewing.

The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot was ordered by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria to guarantee that Bavarian beers were only of high quality. The regulation states that beers should only consist of water, hops, and barley. Unaltered after almost five-hundred years, the Reinheitsgebot is the oldest regulation put on food on the earth. Yeast is the only augmentation to the list of essential ingredients in the proclamation. Brewers before had simply used the yeast that was naturally in the air. Because of the stringent standard of quality following the purity standard, Bavarian producers were soon known as the superior manufacturers of beer. As the reputation of the Bavarian breweries spread around the country other beer makers began to follow the act as well.

As a result of the Reinheitsgebot, Germanic beers have a long-standing reputation of producing quality beers made out of the best ingredients. Some cities became famed brewing spots as time passed and Germany started to ship out beer. The town of Bremen had over 600 breweries by fifteen-hundred and was the top exporter of beer to Holland, Scandinavia, England, and even as far as India. A couple of other famed brewing cities were Einbeck and Braunschweig. Because of it's hardy flavor and perfect amount of head foam most modern Germans still choose fabbier, or draught beer, over bottle beer. In an effort to prevent further breakouts of the black plague German beer steins came into use around the time the purity standard came out and are still used today.

During the era of the bubonic plague, Germany started many laws to keep its people from getting sick. Massive amounts of diseased flies would fly in citizen's food and spread the infection. This led to the German beer stein, a beverage vessel with a closed lid that is used with the thumb so somebody could stop disease and still be able to drink with one hand. Beer drinking rose exponentially as citizens started to realize the disease spread in dirty conditions with stagnant water. Originally made of stoneware with pewter lids, German beer steins grew in popularity. As the pewter guild grew, German beer steins started to be made entirely of pewter and remained that way for over 300 years. Eventually, porcelain and silver steins were introduced and continue to be produced in the present.

Today there are over 1350 breweries within Germany's lands that produce more than 5000 brands of beer. The oldest brewery in the world that continues operation today is the Benedictine abbey Weihenstephan, that has been manufacturing beer since 1040. The Franconia region of Bavaria by the city Bamberg is the highest concentrated area for beer makers in Germany. The majority of beers can be placed under ales and lagers but German breweries produce a wide variety of tastes. Most beers have an alcoholic content ranging from 4.7% to 5.4% but some brands can be as high as 12%, making them more powerful than a lot of wines.