Purity Law for Bavarian beer

The purity law for beer enacted by Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV in April 1516 is worded as follows:


How beer should be served and brewed in summer and winter in the principality.

Herewith, we decree, order, express and wish, together with the Privy Council, that from this day forth everywhere in the Principality of Bavaria, in the countryside as in the towns and marketplaces, wherever no other specific ordinance applies, from St. Michael's Day until St. George's Day a measure (Bavarian measure = 1.069 liters) or head (bowl-shaped container for fluids = not quite a measure) of beer shall not be sold for more than one pfennig of Munich currency, and from St. George's Day until St. Michael's Day a measure shall not be sold for more than two pfennigs of the same currency, nor a head for more than three heller (heller = usually half a pfennig). Violators of this decree shall be punished as prescribed below.

Whoever should brew, or otherwise have, a beer other than Maerzen is forbidden, under any circumstances, to serve or sell a measure for more than one pfennig. We especially wish that, from this point on and everywhere in the countryside as well as in the towns and marketplaces, nothing is to be added to or used in beer other than barley, hops and water.

Whosoever knowingly disobeys this decree will be severely punished by the court having jurisdiction over him by having his barrel of beer confiscated whenever this offence occurs. However, whenever an innkeeper buys one, two or three pails (= contains 60 measures) of beer from any brewery in the countryside as well as in the towns and marketplaces and serves it again to the common peasantry, he alone is allowed to give and serve it for one heller more than the price of the measure or head of beer stipulated above.
Decreed by

Wilhelm IV, Duke in Bavaria,
in Ingoldstadt, on St. George’s Day in the year 1516