Inside one anti-fracking brewery. Image: Flickr
In Germany, you don't mess with the beer. Europe's biggest beer maker is also home to 1,300 breweries and the world-renowned Oktoberfest. Beer isn't just business in Germany; it's a cultural institution. So when the nation's association of brewers talks, people listen. And right now, those brewers have a clear message: don't frack.
The Brauer-Bund beer association, which represents the company that makes Budweiser (and hundreds of better ones), has called on the government to carry out more research on the natural gas extraction process before approving the practice. But Germany's brewers are just the latest beer hounds to speak out against fracking. They join the major breweries in New York, including the Brooklyn Brewery, in voicing concerns on the topic—some of which have even threatened to leave the state or close their doors if fracking commences.
So why are brewers so outspoken about fracking? There are plenty of other industries that operate in the areas slated to be impacted by fracking—why are so many brewers sounding the alarm?
Well, because beer is usually about 92-94% water. And if that water is polluted, it ruins the beer. Hydraulic fracturing, you'll recall, is the process gas companies use to blast a chemical cocktail (which is often undisclosed to the public) deep into the earth's crust to get at the natural gas trapped there. That cocktail has been shown to sometimes leak into nearby water stores, and that's what has brewers worried.
Larry Bennett runs the Ommegang brewery in Cooperstown, which happens to sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a huge natural gas reserve that industry is attempting to exploit. In an interview with NBC, Bennett explained why he might be forced to close up shop if fracking were to begin.
"For beer, the biggest ingredient is water. When you drink an 8 percent alcohol beer, 92 percent of what you drink is water. For Ommegang, that means water from the ground beneath our brewery in Cooperstown," he said.
It's the same story in Germany, where brewers have all but sworn a sacred oath to use only the purest water to make beer. Reuters reports that the "Brauer-Bund beer association is worried that fracking for shale gas ... could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity."
That rule, Reinheitsgebot", apparently means "German purity law" and proclaims that beer must be made solely with malt, hops, yeast and water. Which means benzene or strontium or other toxic or radioactive elements commonly found in fracking fluids are strictly prohibited.
A Brauer-Bund spokesman told Reuters that the "water has to be pure and more than half Germany's brewers have their own wells which are situated outside areas that could be protected under the government's current planned legislation on fracking. You cannot be sure that the water won't be polluted by chemicals."
The message is simple, really: Don't frack with beer.