West German brewers rise to defend purity of beer

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 9

West German brewers rise to defend purity of beer

By 1

DAVID LEWIS

of NZPA-Reuter

Trouble is brewing in the European beer industry.

West Germany believes the Common Market Commission is threatening the purity of its national drink.

Other members of the European Economic Community, on the other hand, feel West Germany's ancient “Purity Act" is merely an unfair trade barrier against non-teutonic brews.

With an annual consumption of 145 litres per head, nearly twice the E.E.C. average. West Germans are the thirstiest beer-drinkers in the Community. More than 1300 breweries supply them with nearly 7000 different beers.

The quality of beer sold in Germany has been protected since 1516 by the Purity Act, which says beer must contain nothing but barley, hops and water. Brewers in less fastidious countries seek to flavour, colour, or preserve their products by the addition of chemicals bearing such unappetising names ad demethylpolysiloxane. Germany says it merely wants to protect its drinkers from brews contaminated by

artificial additives, and denies the Purity Act is a front against unwanted competition.

"It's not our fault if others put all kinds of chemicals in their beers," says a spokesman for the Health Ministry. Paul Wendeler of the German Brewers’ Association says his members are worried any undermining of the act would endanger the German population. “Of course. I'm not saying that Belgians, for instance, are dying off like flies just because they drink Belgian beer," he adds quickly. “It’s just that it is possible to make beer without additives, and we want to keep it that way.”

But the narrowness of the Purity Act means that foreign beers are often barred not because of their additives but just because they do not conform to the strict sixteenth century West German recipe.

Some British ales, for example, have been made since Saxon times from other grains than barley, some contain unmaited corn, flaked rice, or maize, and a few are even produced using the swim-bladders or whales.

Kenneth Dunjohn of the British Brewers Society resents suggestions that beers not conforming to the "so-called Purity Act" are automatically considered “impure."

“All our beers are entirely wholesome," he says. Certain additives are often desirable or necessary to help drinks travel long distances, he says, and Mr Wendeler agrees that some beers exported from Germany contain preservative ascoraic acid which would not be allowed in beers sold at home.

But the consumers of “pills” or “Koelsch." "Dunkel" or “berliner Weisser." seem determined the pure strain of German brews shall not be tainted by beers of more barbarous origin.

A Parliamentary committee has urged the Government to reject any attempt to bypass the Purity Act on health grounds and to commission scientific studies to support its stand. A decision last year by the European Court of Justice established the principle that goods sold in the producer country must be accepted

through the E.E.C., except where there are important considerations of health or commerce.

Mr Dunjohn is convinced there is nothing harmful in British beer.

“We've been brewing it for 2000 years with no ill effects." he says. And as ' the Ministry spokesman ruefully admits: “One can't actually say that foreign beer is poisonous.”

West German insistence on upholding the Purity Act could lead to Bonn being found in breach of the E.E.C.’s founding treaty, but even that would be unlikely to alter their attitude. Mr Wendeler discounts suggestions that there could be a “beer war” similar to the dispute in which French wine-growers contaminated tankers of Italian wine crossing into France. But the Ministry spokesman is not so sure.

"Even non-beer drinkers would never allow the Government to drop the Purity Act, for it would mean going against the feelings of a whole nation," he says.

“And German brewers are not the most delicate of people — they know how ,to defend their own interests."