A Nation Fermented

Abstract How did beer become one of the central commodities associated with the German nation? How did a little-known provincial production standard—the Reinheitsgebot, or Beer Purity Law—become a pillar of national consumer sentiments? How did the jovial, beer-drinking German become a fixture in the global imagination? While the connection between beer and Germany seems self-evident, A Nation Fermented reveals how it was produced through a strange brew of regional commercial and political pressures. Spanning from the late nineteenth century to the last decades of the twentieth, this book argues that the economic, regulatory, and cultural weight of Bavaria shaped the German nation in profound ways. Drawing on sources from more than a dozen archives and repositories, this book weaves together subjects ranging from tax law to advertising, public health to European integration, and agriculture to global stereotypes. Offering a history of the Germany that Bavaria made over the twentieth century, A Nation Fermented both eschews sharp temporal divisions and forgoes conventional narratives centered on Prussia, Berlin, or the Rhineland. In so doing, the book offers a fresh take on the importance of provincial influences and the role of commodities and commerce in shaping the nation.