Bavaria Prohibits Summer Brewing

In 1553, Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria limited the brewing of brown beer to the cold season between Michaelmas, September 29, and St. George’s Day, April 23. The rule was part of Bavaria’s early modern beer regulation and continued the legal logic of controlling when, how, and under what conditions beer could be brewed. The summer brewing ban favored beers brewed in the cooler months and stored through summer in cellars. It helped shape the Bavarian lager tradition and the later Märzen idea: beers brewed toward the end of the permitted brewing season in March had to survive the warm months until brewing resumed in autumn. The restriction applied to brown beer, while white beer brewing was treated differently; Bavarian beer-history sources state that white beer could be brewed year-round and that the Degenberg family remained exempt from later wheat-beer restrictions.