Stone celebrates purity ban

Guerrilla marketing, or what? To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the often misinterpreted Reinheitsgebot, the Californian craft brewer Stone opened the summer season in Berlin with a series of "rebellious" beers, which were brewed using more unconventional ingredients.

Stone is currently working tirelessly to complete the construction of its 100 hl brewery and bar, scheduled to open later this year.

However, in order not to miss out on the Reinheitsgebot celebrations on 23 April 2016, Stone Berlin tidied up the building site and cleared its Library Bar for visitors who wanted to celebrate Stone’s “purity ban” (in German ReinheitsVerbot, a pun on ReinheitsGebot) with 26 beers that do not comply with the Reinheitsgebot.

Stone’s attitude towards the German Reinheitsgebot is that all year round the brewery will offer beers that meet the criteria of the Reinheitsgebot and some special beers that will be brewed in defiance of it.

Greg Koch, the founder of Stone, said: “Many consumers believe that the Reinheitsgebot is synonymous with quality. In fact, it only refers to a brewing style. Adhering to this style, brewers can produce quite a good beer, if they do it with a lot of patience, integrity and high quality ingredients. If, however, shortcuts are taken and qualitative compromises are made, this will result in cheap beer, which is still in accordance with the German Purity Law.”

Cheekily, Mr Koch advised punters not to come to his “pre-opening” if they agree to the limitations imposed by a 500-year-old law.