REINHEITS-KAPUT

REINHEITS-KAPUT
real beer news
A German brewer has won his battle against Reinheitsgebot, the country's 1516
beer purity law that limits beer ingredients to malted grain, hops, yeast and
water. A court has ruled that the Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle brewery can
continue to add sugar syrup to its beer and call the product a beer. Helmut
Fritsche has been fighting 10 years for the right to dose his Schwarzer Abt
with sugar. Threatened with a fine for daring to label his product as beer,
he fought local authorities only to have the regional administrative court
uphold their argument. The Federal Administrative Court overturned that
decision, ruling that because the sugar syrup is added after the beer was
already fully brewed, Fritsche can market the product as a "special beer" -
as do breweries that add herbs to their products at the end of the brewing
process.

and it gets worse

PLASTIC OKTOBERFEST

One beer garden at Munich's famed Oktoberfest is ready to serve beer in
plastic cups next September, and the city's breweries are outraged. Wiggerl
Hagn, who runs the Lowenbrau tent, said that he is tired of clean up broken
glass and listening to waitresses complain about hauling mugs that hold 1.5
liters of beer and weight a kilogram (2.2 pounds) empty. "We cleaned up
almost 26 tons of broken glass on the floor of my tent," Hagn told a Munich
newspaper. "The waitresses won't have to carry such heavy loads anymore."
Calling it an "absurd idea", Toni Roiderer, a spokesman for the city's
breweries, said Hagn had been warned he would have to go it alone. "Here in
Bavaria, beer is a cultural treasure. When we sit together and chink glasses,
the sound is like our church bells, a symbol of harmony and good cheer," said