Beer added to UNESCO cultural heritage list

Cheers to Belgium: the United Nation’s cultural arm, UNESCO, in November 2016 added Belgian beer to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This accolade is more symbolic than pecuniary.

Belgian beer is known throughout the world for its wide array of tastes, from extremely sour to bitter, and is brewed in numerous cities, towns and villages across the country of 11 million people.

Brussels’ regional leader, Rudi Vervoort, was quoted as saying that beer “has been a part of our society since time immemorial”.

Across the border in Germany, the German UNESCO commission is currently evaluating the merits of the German Reinheitsgebot (the beer purity law introduced in 1516) to join UNESCO’s German register of Cultural Heritage. The commission is expected to reach a decision in the spring of 2017. It has already turned the application down once.

The German situation does not compare with Belgium’s, officials at the German Brewers Association say. Germany only signed the UNESCO agreement on Immaterial Cultural Heritage in 2011, which meant that as recently as 2013 it only became possible to submit applications.

Moreover, unlike in Belgium, it is not the German government that submits applications. It’s a committee of scientists that decides on what’s worthy of registering and what’s not. Regrettably, this means long discussion processes and sometimes surprising results.

Despite the initial refusal, German brewers are hopeful that they can influence the commission’s decision in their favour this time.