German beer is not only part of the German culture but thanks to the Reinheitsgebot (purity order) one of the best beers in the world.

According to the Reinheitsgebot German beers only contain of water, hops and malt and beers such as Weissbier, not using only barley-malt must be top-fermented.

Pils © leah.jones/flickr.com

Beer was first mentioned in Germany in the Bavarian town of Geisenfeld in 736 and a document from 766 says that beer was delivered to the abbey of St Gallen in Gaisingen on the banks of the Danube River.

In Germany you can get about 5000 different beers many of them produced in small regional breweries. So if you wanted to try a different beer every day, it would take more than 13 years to try them all.

The most popular certainly is Pils or Pilsener, a pale lager with a light body and a prominent hop character. Export is maltier and less hoppy than Pils. Weissbier (wheat-beer) is very popular in the south. In Cologne the most popular beer is the Kölsch a pale beer with a light body too, whereas in Düsseldorf people drink Altbier, dark amber, hoppy beer.

Typical for Berlin is the Berliner Weisse, a pale and sour wheat beer. In Bamberg you can get the so called Rauchbier with a dark colour and a smoky taste as it is made of smoked malt.  But as you can imagine these are only a few German beers. Wherever you are, you will for sure find the right beer to suite your taste.

Weissbier (white beer), also called Weizenbier (wheat beer) or even Hefeweizen, is a top fermented, unfiltered, bottle conditioned wheat beer with yeast sediment and a cloudy appearance.

Weissbier © Moe_/flickr.com

The typical Weissbier or Weizenbeer is a Bavarian specialty beer with a significant amount of malted barley being replaced with malted wheat. According to German law it must be made with at least 50% malted wheat, but most Bavarian Weissbiers contain 60 to 70% of it.

It is not quite clear whether it is called Weissbeer due to its paler colour or due to its content of wheat as both words are of the same origin. It is quite sweet and fruity with a full body.

You get special glasses for Weissbier and it should be poured smoothly not to produce too much head. When there is about a quarter of it left in the bottle, swirl it to lift the sediment and pour it into the glass. This will give the beer its cloudy appearance. Serve it chilled at about 6-8 °C.

Some people add a slice of lemon to a Weissbier but you will hardly see any Bavarians do this, as it ruins the taste of the beer and kills the head. It is more common to add lemon slices to Kristallweizen, the filtered version of Weissbier.