German drinkers find move hard to swallow

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 32

German drinkers find move hard to swallow

By

PAUL HOLMES

through NZPA Bonn The West Germans are not quite crying into their beer, but mention the European Community in a bar these days and you could get some very black looks. What Europe’s biggest beer drinkers find hard to swallow is the prospect that the Brussels-based European Community Commission is going to expose them to a variety of foreign brews laced with chemicals and food additives. The Germans have so far sealed their frontiers against alien brews by citing 470-year-old purity laws which limit the content of their favourite tipple to water, hops, malt and yeast. That could soon come to an end if, as expected, judges of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg follow the advice of their Advocate General, Sir Gordon Slynn, and uphold the commission’s case against West Germany.

Sir Gordon, a Briton, said recently that use of the purity laws, or Reinheitsgebot, to keep out all but the “purest” foreign brews contravened E.C. laws on free i competition.

A ruling against West Germany would not stop its own brewers from abiding by the Reinheitsgebot. But it has provoked bitter attacks on the E.C. “bureaucrats” and raised fears that many small brewers could shut down in the face of cheap imports. “Our imagination, even with the help of a .good draught of pure ale, could not stretch to the sullied world of Bavarian beer we would be wading in after a victory for the chemists in Brussels,” the Bavarian premier, Mr Franz Josef Strauss, has said.

His opinion has been echoed in the bars and breweries of West Germany , a country where beer officially ranks as liquid nourishment and is said to account for onefourth of the food intake of an average male. That fact is amply reflected in the statistics as well as the waistlines, with per capita consumption of about 150 litres a year the highest in Europe. The Reinheitsgebot was drawn up by Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria, which is the bastion of the beer drinkers, in 1516. It is still

the first commandment for the 1200 West German brewers, who between them market more than 4000 different labels. “There is no need anywhere in the world for anyone to brew beer in any other way than we do,” said Mr Ulrich Opherk, of the German Brewers’ Federation. “If you remember all the scandals there have been about chemicals in wine and so on, I would have thought we were setting a good example,” he added. West German brewers themselves put additives in beer for export to prolong shelf life and stabilize froth, but say that is nothing compared . with the 28 food additives permitted in British and Irish brews. The additives, none of which is said to be dangerous to health within set limits, include dried seaweed, extracts of fish bladder, chemical colourants and calcium sulphate. The brewers are now claiming support from the British pressure group, Campaign for Real Ale, which wants German purity laws extended to the rest of Europe. Many of the additives in foreign brews are banned under West German food laws but Sir Gordon, in his opinion, said it was unreasonable to argue that big drinkers needed shielding from the health risk some chemicals could pose.

“Accepting that such persons may need protection, there are other ways of achieving it, medical advice ... and self-re-straint to name but two,” he said.

The Luxemburg court’s final ruling is expected in several months time. Mr Opherk said that while his federation believed the E.C. would win, it was not too worried at the prospect.

“I am not a prophet,” he said. “But more than 90 per cent of people we have canvassed in surveys say they will drink only pure beer. They are not going to switch all of a sudden.”

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