by Russ McSpadden / Earth First! News
Dude, does this beer taste like it has several hundred undisclosed chemicals belonging to Halliburton in it?
There’s just something unsettling about a beer turned bitter from too many hops and, um, poisoned by poly-nuclear-aromatic-hydrocarbons. Wait, better forget that last ingredient, which is a proprietary fracking chemical owned by Halliburton. The Earth First! Journal just can’t afford to get sued.
A growing coalition of German brewers, invoking the power and sanctity of that country’s beer purity law of 1516, which only allows simple and pure ingredients in beer, are trumpeting the warning call over fracking. They say the extraction of shale gas in Deutschland will contaminate the water they use to craft their yeasty beverages.
Germany’s beer purity law, which celebrated its 497th anniversary in April, is one of the oldest laws on the books and is taken very seriously. Its sort of a drunken version of the Clean Water Act in the U.S., only slightly more respected and delicious.
Last week, the Deutscher Brauer-Bund (German Brewers Federation) sent an open letter opposing fracking to several government ministers currently working on new fracking regulations. The brew-masters want a full moratorium on fracking operations.
“The changes in the law proposed by the federal government are insufficient to guarantee the safety of the drinking water or to satisfy the requirements for the beer purity law,” said Peter Hahn, head of the brewers association, according to Bild.
In a nation that boasts the second highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the world and is renowned for high quality beer, the federation’s stance represents a powerful voice in the anti-fracking movement. Beer brings German’s together, across religious, ethnic and class divides.
Social Democrats, Green Party members, and anarchist squatters agree, beer tastes better without proprietary frack chemicals included.
As a member of the conservative Christian Social Union reported to Bild, “The beer purity law cannot be compromised. All measures must be taken to protect water used for brewing.”
